Integrity beat every other leadership trait by a landslide — while stress hit a near-unanimous high and confidence in the future split sharply by seniority. Here’s what two surveys told us about what’s building trust at work, and what’s quietly breaking it.
Before you say a word in a room, you’ve already told everyone in it whether you have the gravitas to lead. It’s read in how you enter, where you sit, and whether you fill silence or let it hold. Here’s how to build that signal on purpose.
Most senior leaders have a theory about what makes a great executive team: complementary skills, shared values, healthy debate. The usual answers. What’s actually missing is co-leadership — the deliberate integration of the different cognitive styles men and women bring to leadership. Not a mandate. Not a talking point. A performance strategy. The organizations that build it consistently outperform the ones that don’t.
Most leadership conversations about men and women get the question wrong. They start with stereotypes and end with policies. The neuroscience starts somewhere different — with data on how men and women actually perform, where the real gaps are, and what’s driving them. Eleven years of research with more than 1,500 executives tells a clear story. The organizations that act on it consistently outperform those that don’t.
At the highest levels of leadership, communication isn’t just about being heard — it’s about who shapes strategy, who gets credit, and who gets the next seat at the table. Here’s what I’ve learned working with senior executive women who are done leaving that to chance.
Peter J. Dean: 610-246-6422
Molly D. Shepard: 610-955-5452
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