Where leadership drifts off
In corporate environments, people often assume leadership rises above the day-to-day. The distance creates a false sense of progress. Leaders lose context, decisions drift, and teams stop sharing the truth early. I’ve seen this many times in large ICT programs. The hierarchy sometimes becomes the barrier.
Once the leader steps too far away from the work, alignment weakens. Problems become reports instead of realities. The team sees the gap before anyone else does.
At WPTG, my work spans many countries and cultures. The scale may look different, but the principle remains steady: stay connected to the people doing the work. Success in AI, automation, system rollouts, or municipal operations never comes from strategy alone. It comes from the teams who carry the execution.
When I visit operations or sit with engineers, analysts, and field teams, the path forward becomes clear. The room shifts. The conversations sharpen. People speak honestly when they know the leader isn’t watching from a distance.
“In the trenches” doesn’t mean doing their jobs
It meant showing up where the work lives. Stand beside the teams during service disruptions. Walk through a new AI deployment before the official rollout. Sit with support staff during high-load days. These moments reveal the real state of operations.
Leadership decisions grounded in firsthand understanding carry weight and credibility. People move with more confidence when they know you understand the environment they operate in.
The success of a team reflects the habits of its leadership. When leaders show presence, teams stay aligned. When leaders make themselves reachable, teams raise issues early. When leaders model accountability, teams follow with their own discipline. You see this clearly in long, complex programs. Delays often trace back to leadership distance, not team capability. When leadership steps closer, execution stabilises.
I’ve learned that teams deliver their best when the leader treats their success as shared success. Not symbolic recognition, but genuine investment in their conditions, clarity, and workload.
People work with more intent when they feel the leader is part of the journey, not just the one reviewing the outcome. Culture grows from that. Momentum grows from that.
Every major milestone we’ve reached at WPTG came from teams who felt supported and understood.
