When People Check Out, Look at the Leader

It’s Not a Performance Issue — It’s a Leadership Environment Issue

When a team member pushes back, drops the ball, or seems to disappear into the background, most leaders instinctively look at the person.

But the question we should be asking is different: What part of the leadership climate might be influencing this behaviour?

Back in 1936, psychiatrist Kurt Lewin nailed a truth that still holds today: behaviour is shaped by two things, the individual and their environment.

Yet too often, leaders focus solely on the individual. They try to “fix” people with coaching, feedback, or worse, pressure. All while ignoring the organisational conditions that quietly cause people to disengage.

The reality is people don’t check out without a reason.

They’re reacting to what they’ve been shown, told, excluded from, or consistently asked to tolerate. If you’ve got a pattern of resistance, low ownership, or emotional withdrawal, that’s not a people problem. It’s a leadership signal.

The majority of people aren’t lazy or broken — they’re navigating systems that reward compliance over contribution and urgency over clarity.

Here are four ways to shift unproductive behaviour without jumping straight to blame:

1. See underperformance as feedback, not failure. Ask yourself: What have we allowed, overlooked, or failed to explain that’s shaping this behaviour?

2. Look beyond the person. Often the issue isn’t them, it’s the system.

Check the workload, clarity of roles, recognition, and whether people feel safe to speak up. Most performance issues trace back to the environment.

3. Redefine what great leadership looks like. It’s not about fixing every problem yourself. It’s about creating the conditions for people to think clearly, speak honestly, and take ownership.

4. Stop fuelling urgency for the sake of it. When everything’s treated as urgent, there’s no space to reflect or take real ownership.

Constant pressure creates short-term reactions, not long-term responsibility.

If your people aren’t showing up at their best, don’t start with what’s wrong with them. Start with the conditions you’ve created.

Strong leadership doesn’t fix people, it builds a climate where people don’t need fixing, and this is what RDL can help you with

RDL:- Results Driven Leadership