Leading With Realness in 2026

The leadership playbook everyone's following? It's broken. The leaders who are winning right now aren't the loudest voices in the room or the ones with the most polished LinkedIn profiles. They're the ones brave enough to drop the performance and show up as actual humans.

Here's what nobody's saying out loud: 71% of leaders are under increased stress, causing 40% to consider leaving their jobs. Meanwhile, employees prioritise purpose-driven leadership that aligns business goals with social impact. The disconnect is staggering. We're in the middle of a leadership crisis, but the solution isn't another framework or productivity hack. It's authenticity. Here are five shifts that separate real leaders from performers:

1. Replace Certainty with Honest Assessment

Let's clear something up. Leading with realness doesn't mean oversharing personal struggles in every team meeting or using vulnerability as an excuse for incompetence. The art lies in being thoughtful about when, where, and how to be vulnerable. It means being honest about what you know and what you don't, admitting when you've made a mistake, and asking for help when you need it.

Transparency creates trust. When leaders build communities and organisations around the principle that none of us have all the answers, something powerful emerges: spaces where people feel safe enough to bring their real challenges, not their curated highlights. Businesses grow because the foundation is trust, and trust only happens when leaders are willing to be seen. In your next team meeting, start with what you're unsure about before diving into what you know. Ask for input before presenting solutions. You'll be surprised how much faster problems get solved when people feel safe to think critically.

2. Make Your Values Visible in Decisions

Organisations with strong cultures outperform peers by 3 times in long-term total shareholder return. But culture isn't built through slogans on a wall, it's built through consistent decisions that reflect stated values, especially when it costs you something.

I've walked away from partnerships that didn't align with how we operate at Sisterhood Collective, even when the money was good. It cost us in the short term, but it showed our community what we actually stand for. Values mean nothing if they only apply when it's convenient.

Practical takeaway? Audit your last five major decisions against your stated values. Where did you compromise? Where did you hold the line? Share both with your team and explain what you learned. This transparency builds credibility faster than any mission statement.

3. Build Trust Through Consistency, Not Perfection

Here's the paradox: people don't need leaders to be perfect, but they need them to be predictable. When leaders are open about their own challenges, insecurities, and mistakes, it humanises them and makes them relatable. But realness without follow-through is just chaos with better PR.

Teams don't expect flawlessness. They expect honesty when things go wrong, clear communication about fixes, and consistent behaviour over time. That consistency, not perfection, is what earns loyalty.

To address this, create a "failure debrief" rhythm. When something goes wrong (and it will), gather your team and walk through what happened, what you're learning, and what changes as a result. Make it normal to extract lessons from mistakes instead of hiding them.

4. Prioritise Connection Over Productivity Theatre

Leaders in 2026 must be empathetic, approachable, and authentic. AI can never replace a leader's role in inspiring employees. The most valuable thing leaders can give their teams isn't another productivity tool. It's genuine attention.

This isn't about performative check-ins or surface-level "how are yous." It means actually knowing what matters to the people you lead, understanding their goals beyond their job description, and creating moments where real conversation can happen.

You can do this by blocking 30 minutes each week for informal conversations with team members: no agenda, no performance reviews, just genuine connection. Ask about what energises them, what frustrates them, and what they're working toward outside of work. Then actually listen.

5. Empower by Getting Out of the Way

The biggest shift effective leaders make is learning when to step back. The job isn't to have all the answers or make all the decisions. It's to create conditions where teams can do their best work, then trust them to do it.

This requires real vulnerability because leaders must let go of control and accept that people might do things differently than expected. But when leaders are open about their own challenges and encourage a learning-oriented mindset, team members feel safe to take risks, experiment, and learn from failures.

Identify one decision you typically make yourself and hand it to a team member this week. Give them the context and constraints, then step away. Don't rescue them unless they ask. You're building capability, not dependency.

The Hard Part Nobody Talks About

Leading with realness is exhausting in a different way than performing is. It requires constant self-awareness, the discipline to manage reactions, and the courage to stay open when every instinct says to protect yourself. There will be moments when showing up authentically backfires. Someone will misinterpret honesty as weakness or use vulnerability against you. That risk is real. But the alternative is worse. Leaders can build empires on performance and control, but they'll always be one mistake away from watching them collapse. Or they can build something durable through trust, realness, and consistent action aligned with values.

What This Means for You

If you're leading right now, you're facing a choice. You can keep performing the role of leader, polished, controlled, always "on", or you can risk being seen as you actually are. The first option is safer in the short term but increasingly unsustainable. The second is uncomfortable but creates the foundation for something far more powerful: a team that trusts you enough to bring their whole selves to work, solve problems creatively, and stay loyal through challenges.

So drop the performance. Lead from who you are. Make decisions that reflect your actual values. Admit when you're wrong. Ask for help. Build trust through consistency. The business world doesn't need more polished executives. It needs real leaders brave enough to show up as themselves.

//  Laurie Drummond, Founder of Sisterhood Collective