Drift is Not a Leadership Strategy

Over the past few months, I’ve been thinking about the concept of inspiration in the workplace. The reflection started simply enough. Someone I currently supervise told me, unprompted, that they found me inspiring as a leader. I appreciated the comment. And I believed it.

It made me think about the different environments I’ve been in, and how inconsistently that sense of inspiration tends to surface. There’s a kind of dissonance that creeps in when you’re expected to motivate, energize, and push toward excellence...while those above you seem content to drift. You begin to notice the absence. And the absence becomes weight.

At a certain point in your career, technical skill and personal drive aren’t what sustain you. You know how to do the work. You’re no longer chasing competence. What you need instead—what you start to look for—is something less tangible, but more essential. You need vision. You need conviction. You need momentum.

You don’t need your leaders to manage your schedule or approve your travel. You need them to make you want to stretch. You need to feel like they see something bigger—and are willing to name it, and work toward it. And when that’s missing, you feel it. Even if no one says it out loud.

What I’ve observed, in some environments I’ve been a part of, is a kind of institutional drift. Leaders who are well-intentioned but detached. Present, but not driving. They say the right things—about collaboration, about improvement, about mission—but don’t seem especially connected to how those things show up in real work. Or what they demand in practice. Or how they change over time. The result isn’t failure. It’s something more subtle, and more corrosive: A quiet lowering of the bar. A tolerance for mediocrity. A normalization of aimlessness.

No one confronts it directly...maybe because many systems (certainly in some factions of academia and its adjacent sectors) don’t demand inspiration, just basic competence. But I find that this kind of drift, when left unchecked, changes the culture of an organization. Not all at once, but slowly. It signals that energy is optional. That ideas don’t really need a home. That showing up is enough.

And the data reflect that reality. It was reported in a recent Gallup global workplace report that just over 20% of employees surveyed felt inspired by their leaders (a figure that’s barely moved in the past five years). In the U.S., fewer than 1 in 4 workers strongly agreed that the leadership of their organization makes them enthusiastic about the future.

And when people don’t see a compelling future, they start to look for one elsewhere. It was also noted in McKinsey's 'Great Attrition' report that among employees who left jobs voluntarily, the top reasons weren't compensation or workload—they were relational factors like not feeling valued by their organizations or managers and lacking a sense of belonging. Which is precisely why I don’t believe inspiration is optional.

I find that it’s one of the core responsibilities of leadership. Not in a flashy, performative way—but in the sense of being deeply rooted in purpose. Of having clarity about where we’re going, and helping others see themselves in that path. Inspiring leadership, to me, is about showing up with energy. About articulating a direction and naming the work it will take to get there. It’s not about giving speeches. It’s about setting tempo. Creating space. Coaching your team in a way that makes them believe the outcome matters. It’s not about being liked. It’s about being clear. It’s about being present. It’s about being in it with your people. And that presence matters more, not less, the further up the chain you go.

What’s strange, and what I’ve been sitting with, is the recognition that while I’m seen as a source of inspiration, I’ve often had to cultivate that energy from within...especially in moments when it hasn’t been modeled from above.

That’s not unusual. I came across a recent study by GE and Ipsos which reported a substantial disconnect between leadership perceptions and employee reality: while C-suite leaders overwhelmingly believed their executive teams embodied their organization's leadership mindset and effectively communicated vision and values, significantly fewer entry-level employees agreed—with the study finding that entry-level employees specifically value a clear vision and authentic communications from the C-suite.

It is my take that leaders don’t need to be agreed with at every turn. But they do need to be believed. The people around them need to feel that those at the helm are building toward something—that there’s a direction, a purpose, a sense of what the work is meant to yield. Leadership should signal presence. Not just availability, but commitment. Not just titles, but conviction. It should reflect an understanding of the stakes—and a willingness to act like the stakes matter. It should feel like someone has taken the field...not just taken the job.

With all that said, perhaps the answer, at least in part, lies in reclaiming agency—in recognizing that inspiration doesn’t always have to come from above to move the work forward. It’s okay to expect it. To want to be led by someone with vision and energy. But even when those above you seem content to drift—that doesn’t have to dictate how you show up. You can still choose to be clear. To be energized. To stay connected to the purpose of the work.

You can still choose to lead. Because who you work for might be unremarkable. But you don’t have to be. That is certainly the course I choose to take.

My related readings:

Gallup. State of the Global Workplace 2024 Report. Gallup; 2024.
McKinsey & Company. Great Attrition or Great Attraction? The choice is yours. McKinsey & Company; 2022.
GE & Ipsos. From the Ground Floor to the Corner Office: Exploring the Leadership Mindset. GE & Ipsos; 2023.