The leadership conversation we keep avoiding

By Sandra Oliver, Impact Founder

There’s a conversation we know we need to have as senior leaders, but we’re increasingly unsure how to. It’s the conversation about effort.

Not performative effort or burnout, or a return to the old model where long hours were confused with value. But real effort, focus, pace, accountability, and productivity. The willingness, at certain moments, for people to step in, stretch, and do what the business requires.

Many leaders feel uneasy saying this out loud. We worry we’ll sound old-fashioned, that employees will hear “exploitation” instead, or the moment we say “we need people to work harder,” we’ll be judged as tone-deaf, uncaring, or stuck in the past. That hesitation is understandable, but it’s also becoming a leadership problem.

Because companies still need productivity: we need to serve clients’ needs, execute strategy, and grow our businesses. Innovation, succession, transformation, and resilience don’t happen because an executive team has good intentions, but because people apply energy, judgment, and discipline to the work that matters most.

The answer is changing the contract around effort

For a long time, hard work sat inside an old psychological bargain: people gave loyalty, long hours, and personal sacrifice, and expected security, advancement, and recognition in return. That contract was never perfect, and it didn’t work equally for everyone, but it was understood.

Today, that bargain has changed. Employees have lived through disruption, restructures, hybrid work, burnout, mental health strain, generational shifts, and now AI uncertainty. Many people aren’t unwilling to work hard, they’re unwilling to be endlessly stretched inside a system that doesn’t feel clear, fair, or reciprocal.

That’s the distinction we need to understand as leaders.

Most people want to contribute, grow, be part of something that matters, and feel proud of what they help build. What they’re rejecting is unclear priority, chronic overload, invisible sacrifice, and the feeling that “pitching in” has become the permanent business model.

We have an opportunity to lead differently

Rather than demand that everyone does more, we need to help our people understand what matters most – and why it matters. We need to explain the level of effort required right now, what we’re going to stop doing or deprioritise, how we’ll support people and how long this push will last, how we’ll recognise contribution, and what we, as leaders, are accountable for.

This approach is direct and ambitious, and it treats people like adults and the business reality with the seriousness it deserves. This is the leadership shift we all need to make. From pressure to clarity. Vague urgency to disciplined focus. “More with less” to honest trade-offs. Wellbeing as a reason to avoid performance conversations to designing wellbeing and performance together.

The most effective leaders will be the ones who can communicate authentically that we care about people, and that standards matters. We need to protect energy, and we need to deliver. We understand people are stretched, and we still need commitment. We’re building a better way to work and we’re still going to be productive.

Productivity is built on honest leadership conversations

In a healthy company, productivity is what allows people to create value together, so it always has to be part of the business formula. It funds growth, spurs opportunity, builds confidence, and allows organisations to invest, innovate, and endure.

But today, productivity has to be built on more honest leadership conversations, considering questions, like: What are we asking of our people? Is it clear? Reasonable? Properly resourced? Have we made the trade-offs? Are we modelling the same discipline we expect from others? Recognising contribution? Creating a culture where people can be both challenged and respected?

The organizations that get this right will move leadership forward. They’ll ask for high performance without returning to old habits. Expect effort without glorifying exhaustion. And build cultures where people understand that flexibility, empathy, and inclusion don’t remove the need for accountability.