When Contempt Enters the Room

When Contempt Enters the Room

Apr 7, 2026 | Leadership, Leadership Coaching, Management

As I interviewed George, I heard all the right things. But his voice and body language told a different story. Every time he said the right thing, there was a slight edge in his tone when certain names came up. A pause before responding that was half a beat too long. A way of quoting other people’s ideas that landed as a dismissal of those ideas. A slight raising of the eyebrow when he described a peer’s impact.

Underneath all of it was contempt. Unadulterated contempt.

I had to name it. And naming it out loud, with George sitting across from me, opened something that months of careful conversation had not. What followed was not unusual. What was unusual is that we finally went there.

Return-to-Office Mandates Expose a More Uncomfortable Problem

Return-to-Office Mandates Expose a More Uncomfortable Problem

Mar 31, 2026 | Leadership, Leadership Coaching, Management, Team Coaching

When a professional services firm I work with rolled out its return-to-office mandate last year, the executive team invested significantly in getting the communications right. Town halls, manager talking points, a well-crafted rationale. What they spent almost no time on was a harder question: did their teams have the design and leadership conditions to be effective together in person? Three months after the mandate, attendance was up. Engagement scores were not.