KEVSTEMPLATES.COM
Executive Failure Modes
Tick the signals you have actually observed and it names the failure mode, explains why it produces the outcome you are getting, and gives you the words to raise it.
The eight ways senior leaders sink their own change. Each is well-intentioned. Learn to spot them early and name them constructively.
1 · The Say–Do Gap
Looks like: the right words in every forum, and behaviour that contradicts them. Asks for the old report format. Doesn’t use the new system. Grants themselves an exception.
Why it’s fatal: people read behaviour, not statements — and they read it accurately. One visible bypass by a senior figure is worth roughly six weeks of comms, in the wrong direction. It doesn’t make people cynical; it makes them correctly informed that the change isn’t really required.
Say: “Can I flag something that’s costing us? The Tuesday report still goes to you in the old format. Your teams have noticed, and it’s the most common thing they raise. If that switched, it’d do more than anything else this month.”
Tool: Leader Behaviour Contract
2 · Delegating the Change but Not the Authority
Looks like: “You own this, come to me if you need anything” — followed by no decisions, no removed blockers, no visible presence.
Why it’s fatal: you’re accountable for an outcome you can’t influence. The organisation reads the sponsor’s absence as the true priority.
Say: “I’ve got three blockers that need someone at your level. Can we book twenty minutes a fortnight where I bring you decisions rather than updates? I’ll keep it to three.”
Tool: Sponsor Briefing Pack
3 · Declaring Victory Early
Looks like: celebrating at go-live. Standing the team down at week four. Moving to the next initiative while the dip is still deepening.
Why it’s fatal: the behaviour hasn’t embedded, the sustain phase has no owner, and the team disbands at exactly the moment reinforcement matters most.
Say: “I’d hold the celebration for day 90. Right now we’ve launched it — we haven’t landed it. What I’d rather celebrate is the first month it survives a busy week.”
Tool: Drift Check — 30 60 90
4 · The Comms Reflex
Looks like: every problem is met with “we need to communicate better.” Third all-staff email. A video.
Why it’s fatal: communication addresses awareness. It does nothing for time, tools, defaults, incentives or habits — which is where the failure actually is.
Say: “We could, and I don’t think comprehension is the issue — 84% can explain why we’re doing it. What’s stopping them is that it takes six minutes and nothing’s come off their plate. That’s a decision rather than a message.”
Tool: COM-B and the Behaviour Change Wheel
5 · Change Saturation Blindness
Looks like: approving another initiative into a team already absorbing three. Genuinely unaware of the cumulative load — because nobody has ever assembled the list.
Why it’s fatal: capacity is finite. Beyond a threshold, additional change reduces the success of everything already running, including the initiatives leadership cares most about.
Say: “Before we add this — here are the seven things already live for these teams this quarter. I’m not saying don’t. I’m saying which of these seven matters least, because they can’t all land.”
⭐ The assembled list is the intervention. Most leadership teams have never seen it in one place and the effect of seeing it is often immediate. This is one of the highest-value artefacts you can produce, and it takes an afternoon.
Tool: Change Readiness Assessment section C
6 · Consensus Theatre
Looks like: the leadership team agrees in the room, then six different versions reach the organisation. Nobody disagreed publicly; nobody committed either.
Why it’s fatal: middle managers receive contradictory signals and resolve them by doing nothing — the safest option.
Say: “I asked each of your leadership team to write the reason in one sentence. Here are the six answers. Can we spend thirty minutes agreeing which one it is?”
Tool: Workshop — Leadership Alignment (half day)
7 · Solving the Wrong Problem Confidently
Looks like: the intervention was decided before anyone talked to the people doing the work. Usually a system purchase or a training programme.
Why it’s fatal: you can execute perfectly against the wrong diagnosis and be surprised when nothing moves.
Say: “Can I do six conversations before we commit the training budget? If the barrier turns out to be capability, we’ve lost a week. If it isn’t, we’ve saved the budget.”
Frame as de-risking a decision they’ve already made, not as challenging it. Leaders will fund insurance far more readily than they’ll fund being told they’re wrong.
Tool: Barrier Analysis — COM-B Interview Guide
8 · Punishing the Messenger
Looks like: bad news is met with pressure. “I don’t want problems, I want solutions.” The team stops reporting accurately and the dashboard goes green.
Why it’s fatal: you lose the early warning system. The problem doesn’t go away; it just becomes invisible until it’s expensive.
Say (privately, and carefully): “I want to flag something. When the adoption number came in low last month, the response in the room was quite sharp. I’ve noticed people are now presenting things more optimistically than I think is accurate. I’d rather you had the real number, and that needs it to be safe to bring.”
⚠️ This is the hardest one to raise and often the most important. See Challenging Upward — Scripts.
Quick reference
| Failure mode | Earliest signal | First move |
|---|---|---|
| Say–Do Gap | Someone jokes about it | Behaviour contract |
| Delegated without authority | Decisions taking >2 weeks | Fortnightly decision slot |
| Declaring victory early | Celebration planned for go-live | Book the day-90 review now |
| Comms reflex | Third email on the same topic | Bring barrier data |
| Saturation blindness | “One more won’t hurt” | Assemble and show the list |
| Consensus theatre | Different versions in the corridor | The one-sentence exercise |
| Wrong problem | Solution chosen before diagnosis | Ask for six conversations |
| Punishing the messenger | Dashboards suddenly green | Private, specific, early |
The meta-point
All eight are well-intentioned. Nobody sets out to undermine their own change. They’re the natural output of being time-poor, optimistic, and several layers away from where the work happens.
Which is why naming them constructively is valuable and naming them accusingly is worse than useless. Your framing is always: “here’s something that’s costing us, and here’s the specific thing that would fix it.”
→ Challenging Upward — Scripts · Leader Behaviour Contract · Myths and Traps in Change Management
← Back to the Behavioural Change Toolkit