Happy Tuesday,

How are you faring as we head into the second month of 2026?

At Mission Equality, we are continuing to refine our focus as a team around our two core activities (a better mechanism to develop the leadership skills we all need and operationalising our model for a multi-generational, in-person learning hub) and building the partnerships we need to do this. Internally, we are also working on how we gel as a new team and what operational foundations we want in place to support this (watch out for our forthcoming podcast on this soon!).

It requires a hefty dose of leadership - of ourselves and of others - which in my experience brings up some familiar challenges…

Because most leadership failures don’t arrive as failures, they slide quietly in the door as patterns.

…Patterns that, at first, feel tolerable.
…Patterns that, at first, appear rational in isolation.
…Patterns that, at first, are invisible from inside the role.

And because nothing is “on fire,” they’re missed until the cost shows up downstream.

Here are some of the patterns I see senior leaders consistently underestimate which - when left unaddressed - erode and damage even the strongest of teams and cultures…

1. Decisions stay at the top

As organisations and teams grow, decisions migrate upwards along with a sense of increasing responsibility and risk.

This creates cognitive overload for those making the decisions, which leads to bottlenecks and delays in execution…and a team that waits to be ‘told’ instead of leading themselves.

From inside a leadership role, this feels like “being responsible” but from the organisation’s and team’s perspective, it’s a bottleneck forming in real time and an undermining of the intention to practice equitable, less hierarchical decision-making.

2. Making ongoing exceptions creates a drift away from core values

The gap between an organisation’s stated core values and what actually happens in practice usually gets larger through the exceptions that are made on a day to day basis…

…The high ‘performing’ salesperson who gets a pass for their offensive comments.
…The urgent deadline that justifies cutting corners “just this once.”
…The commercial pressure that overrides morals, integrity and principles…temporarily.

At the time, making each exception feels reasonable, justifiable even, but collectively - and over time - they show your people (internally and externally) what actually matters.

Leaders rarely see this happening because it looks like pragmatism - strategy, even - not values drift.

3. Informal power overrides formal structures and hierarchy

Titles, roles and org charts say one thing but what happens in practice shows where the influence truly resides.

…Who gets listened to in meetings?
…Who gets bypassed in performance reviews and promotions?
…Who do people check with after meetings?
…Who can block decisions without accountability or justification for doing so?

When the true source of (informal) power isn’t mapped and addressed, the organisation starts operating on two systems at once - and it’s the implicit, unacknowledged one that counts.

These are three of the most damaging patterns that typically remain unnamed and unaddressed in an organisation because no-one has the courage to surface and challenge them…

So whose job is it? It’s the CEO or Founder’s job to notice and name them.

This is the work I do day to day to help senior leaders identify and then surface the patterns that are damaging their mission and vision. We work together to:

This is what I call system-level leadership work. If you’re leading something meaningful and want it to keep functioning as it grows - without relying on constant personal effort or intervention - this is the work that makes that possible.

What patterns are you not seeing yet?

Lea Jovy
Founder & CEO, Mission Equality CIC