performance problems - Lisa D. Foster, Leadership Coaching & Training

A female leader experiencing a lack of leadership alignment

Leadership Alignment: Why Your Team Is Busy but Not Driving Results

April 27, 2026

Your Team Can Be Busy—and Still Not Be Aligned Most leaders don’t think they have an alignment problem. The work is getting done.Tasks are assigned.Deadlines are being met. But something feels off. Progress is slower than expected.Priorities shift constantly.People seem busy—but sometimes it’s activity, not progress. This is what misalignment looks like. Leadership alignment is an operational leadership skill—one that directly impacts focus, productivity, and results. Key Takeaways Where Alignment Breaks (and Most Leaders Don’t See It) Misalignment doesn’t show…

an unhappy employee when leadership accountability destoys ownership

Leadership Accountability: When Correction Without Development Destroys Ownership

March 23, 2026

Trust and Building Teams

Leadership Accountability Without Development Can Reduce Performance Leadership accountability is essential for performance. Clear expectations and follow-through matter. But leadership accountability is often misunderstood and overused. When it becomes constant correction without development, it erodes ownership rather than building it. At senior levels, accountability in leadership must do more than detect mistakes. It must develop capability. When it does not, performance flattens quietly — even when effort appears high. Key Takeaways Leadership Accountability and Ownership When Accountability Turns Into Surveillance…

leaders walking down the hallway in pre-meetings

Pre-Meetings: Where Senior Leaders Build Alignment Before the Room

March 2, 2026

Alignment and Effective 1:1s

Pre-Meetings Are Where Alignment and Ownership Really Begin Pre-meetings are the unspoken discipline of senior leaders. At senior levels, meetings are not where ideas are formed.They’re where ideas surface. The real work happens beforehand — in a series of intentional conversations that allow leaders to test assumptions, listen for concerns, and refine thinking before anything is discussed in a group setting. I call these discussions pre-meetings. They are an essential part of getting meaningful work done. Key Takeaways Pre-Meetings at…

two people working together as an image of senior leadership effectiveness

Why Senior Leadership Is a Team Sport

February 11, 2026

Trust and Building Teams

Senior leadership effectiveness depends less on individual capability and more on how work is shared and sustained. For much of a leadership career, success is built on personal capability. You learn fast.You take responsibility.You solve problems. That identity—the person who gets things done—is often what earns leaders their first big opportunities. At senior levels, however, that same strength can quietly hold you back — because senior leadership effectiveness depends less on individual capability and more on how work is shared…

A team building good leadership relationships

The Relationship Layer Most Capable Leaders Undervalue

February 6, 2026

Alignment and Effective 1:1s

Many leadership challenges that appear strategic or operational actually have their roots in leadership relationships. At senior levels, leadership stops being primarily about execution and starts being about relationships. Not relationships in the social sense.Not networking.Not politics. But the quality of working relationships that determine whether influence flows, trust holds under pressure, and decisions actually move groups forward. Many capable leaders underestimate this layer—not because they don’t value people, but because earlier success rarely depended on it. Key Takeaways: Why…

A smoking tire as a symbol of leadership friction

The Hidden Cost of Leadership Friction (And Why It Rarely Shows Up in Metrics)

January 28, 2026

Motivation and a Culture of Performance

Leadership friction is the hidden drag created when leadership systems, signals, and habits make it harder for people to do their best work — even when they’re capable, committed, and trying. If leadership friction were obvious, most organizations would have fixed it by now. But it’s not. Low performance becomes normalized when leaders emphasize values that crowd out quality. Priorities like speed, meeting deadlines, office politics, or surface-level agreement can quietly shift attention from excellence to compliance. The impacts become…