Alliance for Leadership Acceleration

Last month, we talked about gardens. More specifically, how the best leaders trade authority for influence—choosing to nurture growth rather than command it.

This month? We’re staying in the dirt but going deeper.

Because once your team garden starts growing, what keeps it thriving is not just vision or velocity. It’s trust and accountability—the twin roots that anchor a healthy culture and allow your people to bloom.

Let’s start with a truth many leaders tiptoe around:

You cannot hold people accountable if they don’t trust you.

Read that again.

In the workplace garden, accountability is not the pesticide you spray when things go sideways. It’s the natural result of mutual trust, shared clarity, and consistent care.

When done well, accountability isn’t done to someone. It’s owned by everyone.

What’s Trust Got to Do with It?
Everything.
Trust is what makes people lean in, take risks, speak up, and show up—even when it’s hard. It’s what transforms a team from a group of task-doers into a connected community of problem-solvers.

And contrary to popular belief, trust isn’t built by being "nice" or avoiding conflict. It’s built by being clear, competent, consistent—and human. (More on that next month when we unpack The Science of Trust.)

Think of trust as the rich soil your team needs to root into. Without it, accountability becomes brittle, like trying to stake a tomato plant in gravel.

Accountability That Grows, Not Grits
We’ve all seen it: the manager who announces “We need to hold people accountable around here!” only to disappear behind a spreadsheet or a policy.

But real accountability isn’t a hammer. It’s a trellis--something people can lean on to grow stronger.
Here’s what it looks like in action:

• Clear Expectations: “We agreed on this timeline. What’s getting in the way?”
  
• Shared Ownership: “How can we work together to get this back on track?”
  
• Constructive Challenge: “What support do you need to meet your commitment?”
  

It’s about conversations, not consequences.

When leaders lead with trust, accountability becomes something people invite—because they care about the work, the team, and the shared purpose.

The Gardener’s Mindset
Here’s the thing: You can’t force accountability any more than you can force a seed to sprout.
What you can do is create the conditions for it to grow. In the garden of leadership, that means:

• Watering with empathy
  
• Weeding with clarity
• Checking in before checking out
• Being present in the dirt, not just watching from the deck

We coach leaders to ditch the control-freak playbook and lean into the quiet power of showing up consistently, setting the tone, and modeling what accountability with care really looks like.

Because leadership isn’t about being in charge--it’s about being worth following.

Ready to Grow Something Meaningful?
If your organization struggles with accountability—or if trust feels more like a buzzword than a behavior—it might be time to stop barking at the plants and start tending the roots.

We love giving leaders the tools to:

1. Build trust that sticks (not just when things are going well)
   
2. Create psychological safety without lowering standards
3. Hold high expectations with people, not against them

It’s leadership that lasts longer than this year’s annual review cycle.
It’s culture cultivation at its finest.

Coming Next Month: The Science of Trust
We’ll be digging deeper (yes, we’re sticking with the soil metaphors) into what trust really means, how it works in the brain, and why it’s less about being liked—and more about being competent, consistent, and caring.

Because when trust grows, everything else gets easier.

Until then, happy planting.

If you’ve been wondering whether leadership development is still worth the investment in 2025, the answer is: only if you care about survival.

Let’s start with the blunt truth: 75% of organizations say developing leaders is critical to their future, yet only 11% feel they have a strong bench of ready leaders (DDI Global Leadership Forecast 2023). It’s a leadership drought, and it’s hitting just when we need rain the most.

Companies are facing a triple-whammy: economic pressure, relentless change, and the largest workforce transition since the boomers left disco. In the eye of this storm stands Gen X—yes, the “forgotten generation”—quietly holding up the tent.

And here’s where it gets interesting.

The Gen X Factor: Overlooked, Overdue, and Overqualified
Gen X (born 1965–1980) is the leadership backbone of today’s organizations. They hold over 50% of leadership roles, yet they receive significantly less leadership development than their Millennial and Boomer counterparts (Harvard Business Review). They're often viewed as the 'safe pair of hands'—so they get left alone while we obsess over onboarding Gen Z or ushering Boomers out the door.

But Gen X isn’t just competent—they’re uniquely positioned to lead in today’s chaotic climate. Here's why:

• Resilient: Raised on latchkey independence, recessions, and analog-to-digital transitions, they’re adaptable by nature.
• Skeptically optimistic: They won’t drink the Kool-Aid, but they’ll build the distribution system if the vision is sound.
• Tech-aware, not tech-obsessed: They can bridge the AI-native Gen Z and the digital-immigrant Boomers.
• Team-first mindset: They lived through toxic hierarchies and know the value of psychological safety.

But here's the rub: if organizations don’t invest in developing this generation now, they’ll lose a key stabilizing force just as Millennials and Gen Z clamor for leadership roles they may not yet be ready for.

The Cost of Ignoring Leadership Development
Leadership development isn't just a nice-to-have. It’s a performance lever. According to McKinsey, companies that invest in leadership development are 2.4 times more likely to hit their performance targets. Conversely, poor leadership is the top reason employees quit—and turnover is getting costly.

A recent Gallup report pegs the cost of replacing an employee at 1.5 to 2 times their annual salary. Multiply that by a disengaged team? You’re bleeding money.

And here’s the kicker: 70% of the variance in team engagement is tied to the manager. (Gallup again. They’re kind of the Beyoncé of workplace stats.)

So, when we say leadership development will make or break your business—we mean it literally.

The New Mandate: Human-Centered, Performance-Driven Leadership
In an AI-enhanced, hyperconnected workplace, technical competence is table stakes. What separates effective leaders now? Empathy (make that professional compassion.) Communication. Psychological safety. Decision-making in ambiguity. Leading across generations and difference.

This isn’t soft stuff—it’s power skills. And Gen X leaders, given the right support, are primed to model them.

But support is the key word. That’s where most organizations fumble. Too many leadership programs focus on content over context, one-off workshops instead of long-term behavioral change, or confuse coaching with therapy.

To build leaders who can actually lead, organizations need to:

1. Invest early and often – not just for the next generation, but for your current ones.
2. Provide actionable tools, not vague inspiration.
3. Create communities of practice, where leaders can reflect, experiment, and grow together.
4. Hold leaders accountable—because if you don’t measure leadership, it won’t matter.

What High-Performing Companies Are Doing Differently
Organizations winning the leadership game share a few key practices:

• They embed leadership development into everyday work. It’s not an event—it’s a habit.
• They connect it to culture and strategy, not just competency models.
• They use leadership cohorts to break silos and build cross-functional trust (hello, LEAP!)
• They develop middle managers as multipliers, not bottlenecks.

As for Gen X, smart companies are doubling down on their development—not because they’re the squeaky wheels, but because they’re the engine. They’re the mentors Millennials need and the role models Gen Z deserves. And with the right investment, they can be the glue that holds your culture together in times of turbulence.

Your Leadership Future Starts Now
If leadership is your competitive advantage (spoiler: it is), then waiting to invest is like watching your roof leak and saying, “We’ll fix it when the weather clears.”

Leadership development isn’t a luxury line item—it’s your organization's life jacket. And Gen X may just be the crew that gets you through the storm, if you equip them well.

So here’s the call to action:  Develop your leaders like your business depends on it—because it does.

Want to learn how to activate the Gen X (Gen Y or Gen Z) effect and build a leadership culture that scales? Join our next LEAP cohort or attend our Executive Briefing: Operationalize Professional Compassion. Because thriving organizations don’t just have competent managers—they have courageous, compassionate leaders.