Are Your Leadership Blind Spots Turning Good Intentions Into Unintended Impact?

"I'm just a soul whose intentions are good. Oh Lord, please don't let me be misunderstood."

Don't Let Me Be Misunderstood by Nina Simone ( Click here for the song)

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“I know I was correct in hiring Sally, and I know her international role is challenging, especially as she is not in Australia; however, I'm getting complaints from her staff, and she’s not performing to her full potential.” 

Manager of coaching client

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Many of my coaching referrals focus on building clients’ self‑awareness, and I’m often fortunate to have budget for psychological assessments. In this case, I administered the Hogan 360, a reliable, valid, evidence‑based measure of leadership capability across four key domains: Self‑Management, Relationship Management, Working in the Business, and Working on the Business.

The varied perspectives on my client’s behaviour opened a valuable discussion. A clear gap emerged between how she saw herself and how others saw her. Sally was hired for her potential as a transformational leader. She was motivated, capable, and aware of the inherent challenges of her role. The 360 revealed the breadth and depth of the negative perceptions among colleagues and direct reports in the Australian head office.

 Regular readers know that such poor congruity between self‑ratings and other ratings of leadership can be a serious problem. Without feedback, leaders typically continue to make the same mistakes and remain unaware of the harm they may be causing. Sadly, researchers have found that the very weak relationship between leadership intention and leadership impact is rather common.

Leadership, Emotion, and Influence

Transformational leadership is one of the most studied leadership styles, and researchers have found that it improves employee performance, motivation, and discretionary effort. Regular readers know that transformational leaders exhibit the following four primary behaviours: inspirational motivation, idealised influence, intellectual stimulation, and individualised consideration.

Transformational leaders communicate enthusiasm and vision, have a positive outlook, use intuitive insight, and exhibit emotional competency. Researchers have also found that authentic transformational leadership has a strong ethical and moral foundation.

Because leadership is an interactive experience, understanding and managing emotions is central to leadership effectiveness. According to Affective Events Theory, the behaviour and mood of the leader trigger emotional responses that influence outcomes for employees and teams. Researchers have found that employees who experience positive moods are more likely to offer positive evaluations of their leaders. Sadly, the converse applies and is typically more prevalent. Regular readers know that many workplaces are characterised by constant change, job uncertainty, and workplace burnout. Researchers have found that this exacerbation of the emotional state of the employees often increases the likelihood of negative perceptions of the leaders’ behaviour.

“In particular, our findings show how understanding and managing emotions is a central part of leadership effectiveness.”

Mindeguia R, Aritzeta A, Garmendia A, Olarza A.

Researchers have found that Emotional Intelligence can reduce the impact of negative emotions. When transformational leaders strengthen their emotional intelligence, they increase the likelihood that their goals and intentions are expressed and interpreted accurately.

The Effort and Impact mismatch

Leaders often confuse effort with impact. They judge improvement by how hard something feels or how long it takes. For example, when initiating a difficult conversation, the leader remembers pushing through discomfort and speaking up when silence would be easier. What people remember is the impact of the interaction: whether the leader stayed calm, listened, believed them and moved things forward. Similarly, attending numerous meetings to better understand context may feel productive to the leader, but staff can experience it as unavailability or exclusion, reinforcing a perception that the boss is self‑serving.

Leaders often judge themselves by their intentions, while teams judge leaders by their impact. This gap occurs because leaders hold the full context and rationale behind their actions, while employees interpret behaviour through their own experiences, assumptions and emotional state. When positive intent leads to negative impact, leaders often explain or defend their intention, which can unintentionally minimise the employee’s experience. Research has demonstrated that when interactions consistently feel undermining, psychological safety deteriorates even if the leader’s goal was to be helpful or efficient.

Employees also make sense of a leader’s behaviour through the history of the relationship, situational norms and the leader’s personality. Research has shown that employees form attributions about a leader’s motives, and these interpretations shape whether behaviour is seen as sincere, supportive or self‑serving. High‑quality leader–member relationships are associated with stronger performance, satisfaction, commitment, role clarity and lower turnover intentions. Research has demonstrated that exemplary leaders maintain strong relationships across all stakeholders, including employees.

Behavioural Integrity and Sensemaking

Behavioural integrity is an observer’s perception of the extent to which a person’s words and actions align. It is an ascribed trait: does the boss enact the same values they espouse, and do they keep their promises? Researchers have found that even though all employees logically know that there can be multiple factors impacting a situation, they often judge their boss’s behaviour by observing if they are doing what they said they would do. Employees always try to make sense of situations. Researchers have found that emotion, cognition, words, and behaviour all play roles in the sensemaking process, and thus it is challenging for the leader to ensure a shared view of their behaviour.

Regular readers know that employees talk to colleagues to interpret ambiguous or troublesome behaviour.  Researchers have found that when sensemaking takes place in conversations between people, it is generated iteratively as individuals shape each other’s meanings. These conversations can reinforce constructive interpretations or escalate misunderstandings. Peer sensemaking often determines whether an incident becomes “a moment” or “a pattern.”  Unfortunately, this interactive process is often dominated by influential individuals who persuade others to think as they do.

“Specifically, when a leader attempts to influence his or her members, can the members discern if she or he is acting sincerely for the benefit of the organization and its employees? Or is the leader acting manipulatively to achieve egocentric personal goals?”

Dasborough, M.T. and Ashkanasy

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The Role of the Employee

Employees do not interpret a leader’s behaviour objectively. Perceptions are shaped by emotions, past experiences, and cognitive biases.

Excitation‑transfer theory suggests that emotions do not always stop when the event that triggered them ends. Residual feelings can spill over into the next interaction, leading employees to react more strongly than the situation alone would warrant. A leader’s neutral comment, for example, may be interpreted negatively simply because the employee was already stressed, frustrated or emotionally activated.

Stress, fatigue, insecurity, previous negative experiences and the pressures of the day can all heighten sensitivity to a leader’s tone, timing or choice of words. Consequently, the impact of a leader’s behaviour is influenced not only by what the leader says or does, but also by the employee’s internal psychological state.

Employees make sense of a leader’s behaviour by inferring motives. If they believe the leader acted with care, they interpret the behaviour generously. If they infer self‑interest or disregard, the same behaviour feels undermining. Researchers have found that these attributions drive emotional reactions more than the leader’s stated intent.

Employees carry expectations about how leaders “should” behave. When a leader’s behaviour violates those expectations, even unintentionally, employees experience a stronger negative impact. Research has demonstrated that expectation violations are a major driver of perceived disrespect.

Employees can contribute to closing the gap by signalling how behaviour landed. When employees provide timely, specific feedback, leaders can adjust. When they remain silent, leaders often assume their intent was clear. Employees who have a strong, trusting relationship with a leader interpret behaviour more generously. Those with weaker relationships interpret behaviour more defensively. Trust acts as a buffer or amplifier.

Practical Implications for Leaders

Dyadic work relationships are highly sensitive to mistakes, and researchers have found that authoritarian leaders need to be particularly careful about the interpretation of routine behaviours. Whilst severe behaviours such as humiliation or threats are especially likely to be interpreted as harmful, all leaders should avoid creating the impression that their actions are intended to cause deliberate injury. When authoritarian behaviours unintentionally violate interpersonal norms, timely acknowledgment can support forgiveness.

Researchers have shown that offering explanations, recognising potential harm and showing genuine concern after a transgression encourage more constructive attributions and increase forgiveness, strengthening leader–follower relationships. Leaders often operate under significant performance pressure from senior management, and explaining these pressures can reduce injury‑initiation attributions and increase performance‑promotion attributions, both associated with higher levels of forgiveness.

 So what about my client?

Uncovering her blind spots and discussing them with her supportive leader enabled her to commit to practical changes in her behaviour. She recognised the need to invest more time and energy in strengthening relationships with her staff and colleagues in Australia. It will be interesting in our next session to hear about the impact of these changes.

Readers challenge:

Please click here and email me an example of a recent leadership moment where your intention and the impact didn’t quite match, either as the leader or as the recipient.

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References:

Dasborough, M.T. and Ashkanasy, N.M. (2002) ‘Emotion and attribution of intentionality in leader–member relationships’, The Leadership Quarterly, 13(5), pp. 615–634.

Inzlicht, M., Campbell, A.V. and Saunders, B. (2025) ‘Effort paradox redux: Rethinking how effort shapes social behavior’, in Advances in Experimental Social Psychology, vol. 72, pp. 1–55. Academic Press.

Karakitapoglu-Aygun, Z., Ozturk, E.B. and Emirza, S. (2026) ‘When and how do employees forgive the transgressions by authoritarian leaders? The mediating role of attributions and the moderating role of severity’, Journal of Managerial Psychology, ahead-of-print.

Maitlis, S. and Christianson, M. (2014) ‘Sensemaking in organizations: Taking stock and moving forward’, The Academy of Management Annals, 8(1), pp. 57–125.

Mindeguia, R., Aritzeta, A., Garmendia, A. and Olarza, A. (2025) ‘From intention to perception: Emotional processes as a link between intended and perceived leadership styles’, Frontiers in Psychology, 16, 1526797.

Simons, T., Leroy, H. and Nishii, L. (2022) ‘Revisiting Behavioral Integrity: Progress and New Directions After 20 Years’, Annual Review of Organizational Psychology and Organizational Behavior, 9, pp. 365–389.