The Battle Within
Why leaders struggle to walk the talk
Great leadership and effective teamwork depend on a set of courageous behaviors: making difficult decisions, pushing back on authority, giving honest feedback, and showing vulnerability. Most executives agree these are vital; they’ve heard the lectures in MBA programs and leadership seminars. Yet, 360-degree feedback often reveals a persistent “knowledge-doing gap.”
Why do leaders know the right thing to do, but fail to do it?
The Comfort Trap
In our personal lives, we often skip exercise or sleep because the rewards are delayed, while the “penalties” of work priorities feel immediate. At work, however, the dynamic is different. There is rarely an immediate penalty for avoiding a difficult conversation. We might fail to be promoted or miss a goal “down the road,” but in the present moment, we choose comfort over goodness.
When we avoid these critical behaviors, we are in a battle with the “enemy within.” We are, quite literally, not in control of ourselves.
The Science of Avoidance: The BIS
British psychologist Jeffrey Alan Gray’s biopsychological theory of personality offers a roadmap for this struggle. Central to his work is the Behavioral Inhibition System (BIS). In the 1970s, his work on the biopsychological theory of personality laid the foundation for thousands of studies linking brain activities and behavior as influenced by one’s personality.
The BIS activates when we face “approach-avoidance” conflict. If a situation is clearly positive, we lean in; if it’s clearly negative, we retreat. But leadership behaviors—like giving feedback—are often mixed. We are aware that they the offer potential for growth (approach) but also carry the threat of social friction (avoidance).
How we navigate this tension is hard-wired. Our neurochemistry—the rush of adrenaline and cortisol during fear versus dopamine during pleasure—shapes our personality. While we are more alike than different, our unique brain functioning determines whether we lean into a scary challenge or back away.
The Fear of “What If”
The primary inhibitor of growth is anticipatory fear. This fear doesn’t have to be rational to be paralyzing. The brain reacts with equal intensity to a real threat as it does to the imagined embarrassment of a conversation gone wrong.
Regardless of our individual neurochemistry, the shared fear of what might happen if we are honest leads to what are called “denied processes” - avoiding the hard stuff we need to do to make our teams truly effective. We know better but we don’t do better.
The Classroom Experiment: Feedback as Courage
In the social-organizational psychology course I teach, students work in teams to consult to real organizations. I tell them upfront: learning to work as a team is harder than learning to consult. It requires the courage to be a high-performing team.
As part of the course, I describe the importance of giving and receiving individual feedback to team performance. Without it, we are in the dark. We don’t know if we are dominating, under-contributing, or destroying a teammate’s motivation. Yet, despite drafting charters that commit to this behavior, students find it the most difficult promise to keep. Even with a dedicated process consultant to support them, the BIS often wins. The “battle within” lasts the entire semester. At the end of the term, I read final papers that speak to how individual members of the team engaged in behaviors that limited the team’s ability to achieve the goals they had set. It’s obvious that students know there were problems. Yet they projected blame onto their teammate rather than accepting responsibility for how things unfolded. Sound familiar?
From the Classroom to the Boardroom
I do not grade students on their ability to give feedback because courage requires psychological safety, not force. Creating psychological safety requires that someone demonstrate that safety exists by taking the risk of giving or receiving authentic feedback. BIS prevents them from doing so.
Students are encouraged in various ways to overcome their fears. I ask them to share their mid-term papers that describe what they see happening in their team. Other exercises are designed to help them provide individual feedback. Some teams ignore the assignments, prioritizing the work they are doing over the exercises. Others engage but do so superficially, providing mostly positive feedback to one another. The real issues are avoided, proving to all that psychological safety doesn’t really exist.
Building up the courage to engage in denied processes takes time. It’s a part of a leader’s development. Coaching can help, as can being part of a high-performing team where engaging in denied processes is the norm. I receive notes from students years later telling me they finally “got it” and what a difference it makes.
If students struggle in a low-stakes environment where failure isn’t part of the grade, consider the executive conference room. There, the stakes aren’t grades—they are careers.
In the classroom, denied processes are a missed learning opportunity.
In the conference room, denied processes can end individual and collective careers.
The Final Question
Is it worth it to address the denied processes in your team? The answer depends entirely on one factor: How important is it for you and your team to succeed?