By AMY NARISHKIN, Ph.D.
Appeared in the Illinois Business Journal before they went offline.
Leaders often say they want honest feedback. They want innovation, accountability, healthy debate, and people who speak up when something feels off. But then something interesting happens in meetings. People hesitate. They soften their opinions. They circle around difficult topics. Or they wait until after the meeting to say what they were really thinking.
And leaders often interpret that behavior as resistance.
I was talking with Rebecca, a CEO I’ve worked with for several years, about this very dynamic. She reflected on how differently her leadership meetings feel today compared to when she first stepped into the role.
“Back then,” she told me, “people would dance around things.”
She described how difficult topics could linger for weeks without being directly addressed. Not because people were incompetent or unwilling to engage, but because emotionally charged conversations did not yet feel safe enough to have openly.
Then she shared a recent example.
Her bank had been preparing to partner publicly with a company they had done business with for years. But news surfaced connecting that company to a controversial immigration issue that directly impacted many of the people the bank serves.
“It was a really tender topic,” Rebecca said.
Instead, because of the work her leadership team had done together, someone brought the issue directly into the leadership meeting. Not dramatically. Just honestly.
Rebecca told me her team discussed the issue openly. People asked questions. Different perspectives surfaced. Concerns were named respectfully. And within about fifteen minutes, the group made a thoughtful business decision aligned with both the organization’s values and operational realities.
Then she said something that stayed with me: “Before your training, that conversation probably would have been danced around for weeks.”
The system beneath the behavior
That is the leadership moment many organizations miss.
Because the issue was not the issue. The system was the issue.
When people do not feel psychologically safe, they adapt to the cultural environment accordingly. They hold back. They test reactions. They carefully watch the room before speaking honestly. Not because they lack courage, but because human beings are constantly assessing whether honesty is safe.
And leaders shape that assessment whether they realize it or not.
As Rebecca and I continued talking, she reflected on what had changed inside her organization. It was not simply better communication training. It was the creation of structures and language that made difficult conversations easier to approach.
“One of the biggest shifts for me as the CEO,” she told me, “was learning to ask more questions instead of feeling like I had to have all the answers.”
That shift changed the room.
Instead of asking:
- “Who caused this?”
- “Why wasn’t this handled?”
- “What’s wrong here?”
Her leadership team asks:
- “How might we approach this?”
- “How might we think about this differently?”
- “How might we solve this together?”
One approach creates protection. The other creates possibility.
Over time, Rebecca noticed something else shift. “People are more comfortable walking toward difficult conversations now.”
That is not softness. That is operational courage.
In fact, Google’s multi-year Project Aristotle study found that psychological safety was the single most important factor in high-performing teams. Not talent. Not seniority. Not individual brilliance. Psychological safety.
A practical leadership shift
What leaders often label as:
- resistance
- disengagement
- silence
- lack of ownership
may actually be people responding rationally to the environment around them.
This is where culturally intelligent leadership matters. It helps leaders recognize how cultural systems influence emotional safety, relationships, and unspoken expectations that shape behavior inside organizations.
And when leaders recognize those dynamics, they stop reacting personally and start responding more strategically.
Instead of asking: “What is wrong with them?”
leaders begin asking: “What might the system be teaching people right now?”
That question changes everything. When people feel safe enough to contribute honestly and raise concerns early, problems surface sooner, collaboration improves, and leaders gain access to information they otherwise would have missed.
The next time a meeting feels quiet, tense, overly agreeable, or emotionally cautious, resist the urge to immediately interpret the behavior as disengagement or resistance.
Instead, ask yourself: “What might people be protecting themselves from right now?”
Then replace one defensive question with a curious one. That is what culturally intelligent leadership looks like: creating conditions where people can engage honestly enough to meet expectations together.
Before labeling behavior as resistance, ask: “Is this a people problem… or is the system signaling that people do not yet feel safe enough to fully engage?”
Because what looks like resistance may actually be a signal about the cultural environment people are operating in. And when leaders recognize those signals, organizations become stronger.
Most CEOs try to fix people. Dr. Amy Narishkin helps results-oriented CEOs fix systems impacting behavior so they can reduce friction and keep their best people. She can be reached at info@EmpoweringPartners.com.