Leadership ratings just hit a nine-year low. Let’s not be part of the stat.
Let’s start with a little reality check over your morning coffee.
This year, employee ratings of senior leadership on Glassdoor dropped below 3.5 out of 5 — the worst month since 2017. Not during a pandemic. Not during a GFC. Right now, in 2026, with more leadership books, podcasts, LinkedIn carousels, and AI tools than at any time in human history.
And it’s not just employees grumbling into their keyboards. SHRM’s 2026 State of the Workplace research found that ineffective leadership and management have overtaken pay, workload, and burnout as the number one concern for employers. Read that again. Bad leadership is now a bigger worry than burnout. (Spoiler: bad leadership causes burnout. It’s a package deal.)
So here’s my question for you, with love: if your team rated you this morning, what would they give you?
Don’t answer that out loud. Just sit with it. Then keep reading, because I’m not here to make you feel bad. I’m here to make you better. And after 35 years in this game — HR director, CEO, coach, sole parent who built a business from scratch — I can tell you the good news: most of what’s broken is fixable. Quickly. Cheaply. Starting today.
Why are we here? (Hint: it’s not because leaders are villains)
I meet hundreds of leaders every year. Almost none of them get out of bed thinking, “How can I disengage my team today?” Most of them are good people who are drowning. Here’s what I see:
- They were promoted for doing, not leading. You were brilliant at your job, so we gave you a team and zero training. Congratulations, you now have two full-time jobs.
- They’re overloaded. Back-to-back meetings, 200 emails, a restructure, a budget cut and a team member crying in the car park. Research on 2026 workplace trends keeps naming the same culprits: manager overload, fragmented focus and messy collaboration.
- AI arrived like a toddler with a texta. Everyone’s been told to “adopt AI,” nobody’s been told what that means for their job, and leaders are expected to have answers they simply don’t have.
- Organisations flattened. Fewer layers, wider spans, more people per manager — and the same 24 hours in a day.
None of that is an excuse. But it is an explanation. And you can’t fix what you won’t name.
What do you think of this video by Simon Sinek
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5UkVi7sdxp8
So let’s get practical.
1. Stop leading from your inbox
Your team doesn’t experience your strategy. They experience your calendar.
If every hour of your week is booked, you are not available to lead. You’re available to attend. Big difference.
Do this this week: Open your calendar. Block two 30-minute “walk the floor” slots (in person or on Teams — I don’t care, just be present). No agenda. No laptop. Just “How’s it going, what’s in your way, what do you need from me?” Then actually remove something in their way. That’s the bit most leaders skip.
2. Say the true thing (without the drama)
Most leaders I work with aren’t avoiding hard conversations because they’re cowards. They’re avoiding them because they don’t know how to start without it turning into a soap opera.
Here’s the trick I teach in my Courageous Conversation DOD™ approach: stick to Direct Observational Data. What would a camera have recorded? Not “you’re always late, and you clearly don’t care” (that’s a story, darling, and a defensive one). Try “You arrived at 9:20 on Monday and Wednesday, and the client call started at 9.”
No adjectives. No mind-reading. No “pattern” language. Just the facts, then curiosity: “What’s going on?”
You’ll be amazed how quickly the temperature drops when people don’t feel accused.
3. Pause before you pounce
The most expensive thing in your organisation isn’t your software licence. It’s the reply-all you sent at 10:47pm when you were tired and cranky.
Use the Leadership Pause: Pause – Reflect – Respond. Feel the heat rise? Pause. Ask yourself: what’s actually happening here, and what do I want to happen next? Then respond — not react.
Your nervous system is contagious. If you’re frantic, your team is frantic. If you’re calm, they borrow your calm. Emotional regulation isn’t soft. It’s the hardest leadership skill there is.
4. Make AI the assistant, not the excuse
I love AI. (Clearly — I built a platform on it.) But here’s what I’m seeing: leaders using AI to write the restructure email instead of having the conversation. Leaders saying “the tools will sort it” instead of sorting it.
AI can draft. It can summarise. It can prep you for a tough chat. It cannot look your team member in the eye and say “I’ve got you.” That’s still your job.
Do this this week: Have one honest team conversation about AI. Three questions: What are we already using? What are you worried about? What would you love to stop doing? Your people are anxious about this stuff. Silence makes it worse.
5. Psychological safety is not a beanbag
Psychological safety isn’t a wellness week, a fruit bowl or a poster in the kitchen. It’s how you react when someone brings you bad news.
If the last person who told you a project was off track got a sigh, an eye-roll or a “why am I only hearing about this now?” — guess what? Nobody’s telling you anything anymore. You’re leading on fake news.
And here in Australia, this isn’t optional. Employers have legal obligations to manage psychosocial hazards — things like unclear roles, poor support, high job demands and poor workplace relationships. Leadership behaviour sits right in the middle of that list.
Do this this week: Next time someone brings you a problem, your first words are “Thank you for telling me.” Every single time. Even through gritted teeth.
6. Coach in the corridor
You don’t need a 90-minute coaching session to develop someone. You need ten minutes and three good questions:
- What’s the real challenge here for you?
- What have you already tried?
- What’s one thing you’ll do before Friday?
Then shut up and listen. (The “shut up” bit is the hard part. I know. I’m a talker too.)
The best leaders I’ve ever worked for — and I’ve had a couple of absolute gems — didn’t have all the answers. They asked the questions that made me find mine.
7. Put your own oxygen mask on first
This one’s personal. I’ve been strong for too long, more times than I can count. Running a business, raising a daughter on my own, holding everyone else’s stuff. And I can tell you: an exhausted leader is not a generous leader. You get short. You get reactive. You stop noticing people.
Leadership is a performance sport, and you need recovery like any athlete. Sleep. Movement. One conversation a week with someone who isn’t asking you for something. Saying “this one isn’t mine to carry” — and putting it down.
Your team needs you rested more than they need you heroic.
Your Monday morning cheat sheet
Print it. Stick it on your monitor. Tick it off by Friday.
- ☐ Two 30-minute “walk the floor” slots in my calendar
- ☐ One hard conversation, camera facts only
- ☐ One pause before one reply I would have regretted
- ☐ One honest team chat about AI
- ☐ “Thank you for telling me” — every time
- ☐ Three corridor coaching conversations
- ☐ One thing I stopped carrying
That’s it. No 12-month transformation program required (although you know where to find me). Leadership isn’t built in the offsite. It’s built on a wet Tuesday, in the small moments when nobody’s watching but everyone’s noticing.
Need a coach in your pocket? Meet Worksparks
Here’s the thing I’ve learned after decades of coaching: the moment you most need a coach is never the moment you’ve got one booked.
It’s 4:55pm before the difficult conversation. It’s the car park after the meeting that went sideways. It’s 10:47pm, cursor hovering over “send.”
That’s exactly why I built Worksparks — an AI-powered leadership coach for everyone at work, not just the people with “manager” in their title. It’s built on the same frameworks I use with executive teams (yes, including everything in this article), so you get real, practical guidance in real time:
- Prep for that tough conversation in five minutes
- Pause and reset before you react
- Build habits that actually stick, not just good intentions
- Grow your confidence as a leader, one day at a time
Try it free for 14 days, then it’s just A$29 a month — less than a couple of flat whites a week. Leading a team? The Team plan covers five people for A$195 a month, with a team dashboard so you can see how your people are tracking (aggregate data only — nobody’s diary gets read).
👉 Start your free 14-day trial of Worksparks
Because your people deserve a five-star leader. And honestly? So do you.
Rock on, Sonia x
Sonia McDonald is the founder and CEO of LeadershipHQ and Worksparks, an executive coach, keynote speaker, and author of Leadership Attitude, Just Rock It! and First Comes Courage.
Sources : Glassdoor Worklife Trends 2026 Midyear Check-in; SHRM 2026 State of the Workplace (via Allwork.Space); LifeLabs Learning 2026 Mid-Year Workplace Trends.
Want to go deeper?
📕 Read the book. Leadership Attitude is my book on why great leadership is a mindset before it’s a skill set — and how to build it deliberately, especially when you’re under pressure and out of your depth. If this article landed, that’s the long version. Find out more →
🎯 Book a Strategy Session. If you’re stepping into a new executive role — or you’ve just moved someone into one — the first ninety days decide the next three years. We work with executives and organisations to make that transition land. No pitch, no deck. Just a conversation about what’s actually going on. Book a Strategy Session →
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Sonia McDonald is the CEO and Founder of LeadershipHQ and Worksparks, a three-time published author, and one of Australia’s most sought-after voices on human leadership. She has spent two decades coaching executives through exactly this transition — and has the scar tissue to prove it.
