Written by Derek Mulhern, PCC
A few weeks ago I was facilitating a session with a leadership team.
At one point, I asked them to do something simple. I invited each person to share a piece of feedback with me about something I had offered earlier in the session.
Nothing controversial. Just honest feedback.
The room went quiet.
Everyone looked around a little. No one spoke.
Finally, one of the leaders said, half-joking but completely serious:
“Derek… maybe if you just call on each of us it would be easier. I think we’re all worried about how we answer and whether we’ll step on each other’s toes.”
I smiled and said, “I could do that. Or you could practice saying what’s on your mind without worrying quite so much about the impact on everyone else in the room.”
She laughed.
But something clicked.
The Pattern Beneath the Surface
In that moment, the group saw something clearly.
They weren’t struggling because they lacked ideas or capability.
They were working very hard to keep the peace.
And ironically, that effort to stay comfortable was the very thing keeping them stuck.
Once it was named, the tone shifted.
People started speaking more openly. The tension softened. The conversation became more honest.
Not because the team suddenly became different people.
But because someone finally said what had been sitting in the room the whole time.
What This Looks Like in Real Leadership
That moment is a small example of something I see often in my work with nonprofit leaders, leadership teams, and boards.
A surprising amount of leadership happens in the things people are thinking, but not quite saying.
It shows up in different ways:
A leadership team that works hard but doesn’t feel aligned
A board and executive team pulling in slightly different directions
A capable leader quietly overwhelmed by the weight of holding everything together.
A team that wants everyone to feel good about the conversation and ends up circling the real issue.
None of these are unusual.
They’re some of the most normal leadership challenges that exist.
Why These Conversations Don’t Happen
The challenge isn’t awareness.
It’s that leaders don’t always have a place to talk about these things openly.
So the work continues—but underneath it:
Misalignment lingers
Friction builds
Clarity gets lost
And teams stay busy… but stuck.
What Actually Moves Things Forward
In my work, I see organizations slowed down not by strategy or talent, but by:
Interpersonal friction
Unclear communication
Misalignment between people who want the same outcome
Most of the time the solution isn’t a massive organizational overhaul.
It’s smaller than that.
It’s a shift in how leaders name what is actually happening in the room.
It’s a team learning how to have the conversations they’ve been quietly avoiding.
It’s a leader realizing they’re not the only one navigating these tensions.
Small adjustments. Real impact.
The Bottom Line
The goal of this article isn’t to teach leadership techniques or add another framework to your reading list.
It’s to give language to things many leaders are already experiencing.
Some weeks that might mean:
Exploring board and executive team dynamics
Reflecting on leadership identity
Naming the quiet pressure leaders carry
Noticing patterns teams fall into
And sometimes, it’s simply this:
Naming the thing everyone feels, but no one has said.
Because one of the most powerful things that can happen in leadership is surprisingly simple:
When someone names what is actually happening, the room can finally start to move.
If you ever find yourself reading one of these and thinking, "That put language to something I’ve been experiencing,” then this newsletter will be doing exactly what I hoped it would do.
For now, I’ll leave you with a thought that comes up often in my work with leadership teams:
Many organizational problems are not strategy problems. They’re conversations that haven’t happened yet.
Something to consider the next time your team feels stuck.