Leadership cannot be confined to titles or tucked into corner offices. If we want leadership to scale – truly scale – it must become a cultural norm, not an exception. In our complexity-filled business environment, we don’t need more permission-seekers. We need more decision-makers. More question-askers. More step-uppers. We need leadership from every chair.
This belief isn’t aspirational – it’s operational. And if we want to grow leadership from seed to scale, we must embed it into the very DNA of how our organizations work.
Leadership Is Not a Rank – It’s a Responsibility
One of the greatest leadership fallacies is that influence flows from hierarchy. For sure, formal authority matters – but it’s not the only form of power. As I shared in Shaping Tomorrow: Empowering Women to Lead and Inspire Future Generations, I’ve seen some of the strongest leaders operate without any formal mandate. They lead by behavior, not by role. They shape outcomes through vision, empathy, and initiative – long before they ever receive a promotion.
How does this happen at an organizational level? At The Ritz-Carlton, employees are empowered to spend up to $2,000 to resolve a guest issue on the spot. No manager approval needed. That’s not a perk – it’s a powerful signal that leadership is expected at every level.
Organizations that scale leadership do so by giving people permission to own the outcome – not just perform a role.
The Cost of Leadership Bottlenecks
When leadership is hoarded at the top, two things happen: innovation slows and talent disengages.
I once worked with a senior leader who insisted on reviewing every client pitch before it went out. The unintended effect? His team stopped taking the initiative. They waited. They checked in. They deferred. And over time, the pipeline – and the energy – stalled.
Contrast this with a moment I witnessed early in my career. A junior analyst spotted a technical error in a presentation that was headed to the boardroom. She didn’t wait. She fixed it, flagged the issue, and shared a solution. The team closed the deal – and remembered her leadership. That’s what happens when people feel they can act without waiting to be asked.
We can’t build fast, adaptive teams with slow, permission-bound cultures.
Everyday Leadership Behaviors Drive Scalable Impact
Leadership doesn’t need to wait for a crisis – or a promotion. It can and should be practiced daily. In Transformation that Work, I wrote:
“Integrating transformation efforts into the daily operations ensures that change becomes a part of the organizational culture.”
Everyday leadership shows up in small, powerful ways and can be turned into everyday rituals:
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A team member raising a tough issue in a planning session
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A frontline employee offering a customer insight that reshapes strategy
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A peer holding another accountable to team values.
These aren’t headline moments – but they are leadership in action. And when modeled consistently, they become the culture.
Take Pixar. They’ve built a feedback-rich environment where everyone is expected to challenge ideas and speak candidly. Leadership isn’t centralized – it’s practiced collectively, in service of the story. This is leadership not as hierarchy, but as shared commitment.
Scale Through Expectations, Not Exceptions
The secret to growing leadership at scale isn’t heroic individuals – it’s cultural expectation. The most future-ready organizations aren’t looking for “the next big leader.” They’re building teams where everyone knows how to lead from their seat.
They do this by:
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Embedding leadership competencies into hiring, onboarding, and performance reviews
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Using language that signals shared accountability (“our responsibility” vs. “their job”)
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Recognizing leadership behaviors across all levels, not just in senior ranks
This isn’t about softening standards. It’s about elevating the baseline – so leadership becomes the norm, not the anomaly.
Nina Nets It Out
To truly scale leadership, we must stop treating it like a rare trait and start treating it like a daily practice. Leadership isn’t a title. It’s how we show up. It’s how we make decisions, hold each other accountable, and move the mission forward – even when no one is watching. If we build organizations where leadership is everyone’s business, we unlock a future that’s not just led well – but led by many.