Why Don’t Our Managers Show Leadership?

Leadership coaching Amsterdam | David Buirs

Why Don’t Our Managers Show Leadership?

David Buirs is a leadership coach and trainer based in Amsterdam, specializing in managers with 0 to 4 years of experience. This article is written for HR managers and senior leaders who notice their managers are not leading effectively. It explains why this happens and what structural change actually looks like.

You see it every day. Managers who are present, but not really leading. Teams that bring every decision to you. Conflicts that never get resolved on the floor, but land on HR’s desk instead. Meetings without direction. People quietly disengaging, while nobody says a word.

It is tempting to think it is a motivation problem. That they simply do not want to lead. But that is almost never true.

Most managers genuinely want to lead. They just do not know how.

You promoted your best people

Most managers ended up in their role because they were exceptional at their job. The best developer became team lead. The top sales rep became sales manager. The sharpest analyst became department head.

That is a logical choice. And a costly one.

Being good at your craft has very little to do with being good at leading people. They are two fundamentally different skill sets. The first is about technical knowledge and personal output. The second is about people. About having conversations that feel uncomfortable. About setting direction without having all the answers. About building trust instead of doing everything yourself.

Most new managers never get properly taught that second skill set. They are thrown in at the deep end and expected to figure it out.

The forgetting curve beats the training

At some point, the organization sends them to a training. Two days at a conference hotel. A deck of slides. A handful of models with acronyms. And a satisfaction score that comfortably lands above an eight.

A week later, they work exactly the same as before.

This is not a lack of good intentions. It is neuroscience. The psychologist Hermann Ebbinghaus showed in the nineteenth century that the brain forgets newly learned information rapidly without repetition. Within a week, most of it is gone. Within a month, almost nothing remains.

One-off trainings are not an investment in behavior change. They are an investment in the feeling that something is being done.

Knowledge is not the problem

Ask your managers what they should do when someone is underperforming. They can probably tell you. They know the steps. They know what a good conversation looks like.

But they do not have the conversation.

Because giving feedback is uncomfortable. Addressing a former colleague feels personal. The risk of damaging a working relationship outweighs the abstract knowledge that things would be better if they just said something.

Behavior change does not require more information. It requires practice. Repetition in a safe environment. Reflection on what worked and what did not. And guidance that lasts long enough for new habits to actually stick.

That is what most trainings are missing. Not the content. The architecture.

What actually works

Leadership develops over time, not in two days. That sounds obvious. But the implication is rarely taken seriously when designing a training program.

What works is a program that runs over several months. That connects to the manager’s day-to-day reality. That links theory to concrete situations on the floor. And that builds in space for reflection between sessions.

Not a program you roll out. A program you build around the specific challenges in your organization.

That is the core of my approach to in-company management training. Every program starts with one question: what needs to concretely change here? The design follows that question, not a standard catalogue.

The real question

Your managers are not showing leadership. Not because they do not want to. But because the organization promoted them without supporting the transition. And because the trainings that followed were too short to change anything that lasted.

That is fixable. But it requires looking further than a one-off intervention.

The question is not: how do we make sure our managers know what leadership is? The question is: how do we make sure they actually do it?

Curious whether a program like this fits what is happening in your organization? Let’s have an honest conversation about it. No sales pitch, just a good look at what is needed. Plan your free introduction here.

How to Have Hard Conversations as a Manager

David Buirs | Leadership Expert

How to Have Hard Conversations as a Manager

David Buirs is an ICF-certified leadership coach based in Amsterdam, specialising in managers with 0 to 4 years of experience. This article explains why new managers avoid difficult conversations and what actually helps them stop. It draws on CoActive coaching principles and over 10 years of practical leadership experience.

She described herself as “the caring type.” And she meant it.

Her team liked her. She was warm, approachable, the kind of manager people felt comfortable talking to.

But she had not had a real difficult conversation in almost two years.

Every time something needed to be said, she found a softer version. Or she waited. Or she told herself it was not that serious. Her team picked up on it. Some started pushing boundaries. Others quietly stopped coming to her for feedback, because they knew she would just be nice.

She was not avoiding those conversations because she was lazy. She was protecting a story about herself. “I am the empathetic one. That is who I am.”

The story you protect

Most managers have a version of this. It shows up in one of two ways.

You protect the “I am direct and clear” story. Which sometimes means avoiding warmth.

Or you protect the “I am the caring one” story. Which sometimes means avoiding honesty.

Both feel like a strength. And they are, up to a point. The problem is when the story starts making decisions for you.

You know that conversation needs to happen. But you also know it might make you look less empathetic. So you wait. Or you soften it until it says almost nothing.

Leaving something unsaid is also a choice. And it has consequences.

Why the frameworks do not do the work

There is no shortage of good models for how to have hard conversations as a manager.

Radical Candor. Non-Violent Communication. Psychological Safety. They are all built on the same idea: clarity and care are not opposites. You can be honest because you care about someone, not despite it.

Most managers who struggle with difficult conversations already know this. They have read the books. They have taken the training.

Knowing the model does not change much on its own. The real shift happens when you start seeing yourself as someone who can actually do both.

That is where most training stops short. It teaches the technique. It skips the identity part.

How to have hard conversations as a manager: start with who you are

The conversation does not start in the meeting room. It starts in how you see yourself.

If you are more on the empathetic side, that feedback you have been postponing is not a threat to who you are. It is an expression of it. You say something because you want this person to grow, to succeed, to not be blindsided six months from now.

If you are more on the direct side, naming a problem is something you already do well. The upgrade is in how you do it. You speak like you are talking to someone you genuinely want the best for.

In the leadership coaching work I do with new managers, this is one of the most consistent patterns we work through together. Not “how do I say this.” But “who do I want to be when I say this.”

Once that shifts, the actual conversation tends to get much easier.

A practical place to start

Think of one conversation you have been putting off. There is probably one.

Before you plan what to say, ask yourself one question: what story about myself am I protecting by not having it?

That question alone tends to open something up.

If you want to go deeper, my leadership coaching is built for managers in the first four years of their role. We work on exactly this kind of thing. Not just the skills, but the underlying patterns that get in the way.

Curious whether this is the right fit? Plan your free introduction here. Zero obligation.

How to Climb the Corporate Ladder Without Losing Your Soul

Leiderschapscoach Amsterdam | David Buirs

How to Climb the Corporate Ladder. Without Losing Your Soul.

This article is written by David Buirs, leadership coach and trainer in Amsterdam, for managers in the first zero to four years of their career. It examines how to climb the corporate ladder without compromising your integrity or relationships. The reader learns what two forms of ambition lead to, which small trade-offs erode character over time, and what behavior genuinely distinguishes effective leaders.

At some point in your career, you’ll meet someone who got far by making other people’s lives harder. The question worth asking is: how did they get there?

And more uncomfortably: could that happen to you?

I’ve seen a pattern over and over. Both in my leadership career and in my work as a leadership coach.

It doesn’t start with bad intentions. It usually starts with pressure. A tough quarter. A reorg. A colleague throwing their hat in the ring for the same promotion.

And then, slowly, something starts to change.

They cancel 1-on-1s with their team because there’s a presentation to polish for the executive meeting. Just this once. Then it happens again. They start answering people above them within minutes, and leaving the people below them waiting for days. They get short with colleagues who need something but can’t offer anything in return. They walk past the receptionist without a word, but light up the moment a senior leader walks in.

They start performing importance. In how they talk. In how available they are, and to whom.

I’ve seen manipulation. I’ve seen bullying. And what strikes me most, every time, is that the person doing it isn’t evil. They’re scared. Scared of losing power, reputation, money. The things they’ve come to value above everything else.

Nobody decides to become that person. It just starts to feel like survival.

Two Ways to Climb the Corporate Ladder

Most of us run on a kind of autopilot when it comes to ambition. The brain picks a goal, “make Senior X,” “get the promotion,” “hit the number,” and chases it. When you get there, there’s a brief rush. Then the feeling fades, and the mind finds the next target. And on it goes.

There are basically two ways to move up the ladder.

One is driven by fear and ego: protecting status, chasing titles, accumulating money as proof of worth. The other is less obvious, but much more valuable: building a great career while doing good things for the people around you. Growing. Learning. Leaving people better than you found them.

Both can get you far. But they lead to very different places.

It’s worth pausing to ask: why do I want that promotion? Not the obvious answer. The real one.

What People Regret at the End

Bronnie Ware spent years working in palliative care, sitting with people in the last weeks of their lives. She wrote down what they told her. The regrets that kept coming up.

Nobody said: “I wish I’d made it to VP.”

What they said was: “I wish I’d had the courage to live a life true to myself.” “I wish I hadn’t worked so hard.” “I wish I’d let myself be happier.”

That last one stays with me. Let myself be happier. As if happiness was available all along, but something kept getting in the way.

In most cases, what got in the way was fear. Of not being enough. Of losing what they’d built. Of what people would think.

How You Lose Your Soul. One Small Trade-Off at a Time.

It doesn’t happen in one dramatic moment.

You stay quiet in a meeting when you witness unkind behavior and should have said something. You take the credit because the opportunity was there. You cancel the 1-on-1s to prepare a presentation that makes you look good upstairs. You ignore requests for help that have nothing in it for you. You tell yourself you’ll be different when you get to the next level.

And then you get there. And you’re not different. You’re just busier.

What Actually Works

A few things that consistently don’t work:

Taking credit for other people’s work. It can get you ahead short term. You’ll make enemies who have long memories.

Being warm to the people above you and cold to everyone else. People notice. They always notice.

Withholding information to protect your position. It might feel smart. It erodes trust in ways that are very hard to rebuild.

What does work:

Ask for feedback. Often. From different people. Research suggests around 95% of us believe we’re self-aware. The actual number is closer to 10 to 15%. Your blind spots are probably not a secret to the people around you.

Get specific with your manager about what success looks like in their eyes. A real conversation: what would make you say WOW at the end of this year?

Be proactive. Spot problems. Suggest solutions. Just be careful not to go around your manager to do it. As Robert Greene once wrote: never outshine the master.

The Trap of the First Few Years

Most managers I work with are newly promoted. Zero to four years in the role.

In that period, the temptation is strong to prove you deserve it. By working harder than everyone else. By knowing more. By being visible.

But the shift from expert to leader asks for something different. Doing less. Enabling more. Giving fewer answers. Asking better questions.

Those who learn that early grow faster than those who spend years trying to remain the best individual contributor. That’s exactly where good leadership training makes a difference. Not as a one-off event, but as a structured process that builds lasting behavioral change.

One Question Before You Go

Think of someone you genuinely admire. Someone who got really far. And who somehow stayed warm, stayed real. Someone you’d just call, simply: a good person.

You probably have someone in mind right now.

Ask yourself what it is about them that makes you think of them that way.

I’d be willing to bet it has nothing to do with their title.

This is one of the things I work on with managers in 1-on-1 leadership coaching. Not just how to perform better. But who you want to be while you’re doing it.

Curious whether this resonates with where you are right now? Let’s find out. Plan your free introduction here. Zero obligation.