Month: March 2026

For more than twenty years I have practiced Nihon Jiu Jitsu.
About ten years ago I earned my black belt, and today I hold a third degree black belt, which in most Nihon martial arts carries the title of Sensei.

Martial arts are often associated with strength, discipline and control.
Which is why Brené Brown’s work on vulnerability might seem unrelated at first glance.

Yet the more I reflected on both, the more I realised they point to the same leadership lesson.

---

Learning on the mat

After more than two decades of training, something slowly changes.

I am not as agile as I used to be.

When I was younger, speed and physical fitness compensated for many things. Today I rely more on timing, insight and a deeper understanding of the techniques. In some ways I am still improving. In other ways I am more aware of my limits.

The mat has a way of confronting you with reality.

When we teach students, we are very strict about the techniques we show. Everything we teach must work. In martial arts there is little room for theory that cannot be applied.

Experimentation happens mainly among the black belts. That is where techniques are explored, challenged and refined. It is also where assumptions can be tested and corrected.

Those moments can be uncomfortable.

But they are also where learning happens.

---

Bushido

Traditional Japanese martial arts are influenced by the philosophy of Bushido, the ethical code of the samurai.

Several virtues define it, but three resonate strongly with me.

Integrity means acting according to a clear ethical compass.
Respect means recognising the value of the person standing in front of you.
Loyalty means commitment to a shared purpose rather than individual gain.

These values shape behaviour in the dojo.

They also translate remarkably well to leadership.

---

Vulnerability

When I read Brené Brown’s book The Power of Vulnerability, one idea stayed with me.

Vulnerability is not weakness.

She describes vulnerability as uncertainty, risk and emotional exposure. Courage and vulnerability are closely connected.

The more I thought about it, the more familiar it felt.

Every time someone steps onto the mat they accept uncertainty.
Every time someone practices a technique they risk failure.
Every time someone allows themselves to be corrected they expose their weaknesses.

Improvement requires vulnerability.

---

A leadership moment

I was reminded of that lesson during a difficult leadership decision.

We were working on an important initiative and significant resources had already been invested. The expectation was clear. The organisation wanted progress and results.

But the deeper we went, the clearer it became that the foundation was not strong enough. Continuing along the same path would only create larger problems later.

The responsible decision was obvious. The easy decision was something else entirely.

In the end I pushed for what could best be described as a complete reset, a tabula rasa. It meant accepting that the timeline would move much further out than anyone wanted to hear.

You can imagine that this was not a popular message. But leadership sometimes requires choosing the uncomfortable truth over the convenient illusion.

---

Strength and vulnerability

Martial arts are often associated with toughness.
Leadership is often associated with confidence.

But both disciplines share the same underlying truth.

Strength without vulnerability easily becomes arrogance.
Vulnerability without strength becomes hesitation.

True leadership requires both.

After more than twenty years on the mat, one lesson keeps returning.

The moment you believe you have nothing left to learn is the moment you stop improving.

Bushido and modern leadership thinking meet in that exact place.

Both remind us that courage is not about appearing invulnerable.
It is about having the strength to face reality and adjust when necessary. Even when that reality is uncomfortable.

In the dojo we bow before stepping onto the mat.
Not just out of tradition, but as a reminder that learning requires humility.

Leadership might benefit from the same mindset.

The Cassandra Project

During my last holiday I once again found myself reading about cognitive biases and decision-making.

At this point I’m starting to suspect that my holiday reading is slowly turning into blog material.

One concept that caught my attention this time was the messenger effect. The idea is simple: People often judge information not only on its content, but also on who delivers it.

And while reading about it, I realised I had seen a particular version of this dynamic more than once in organisations. Almost like a reversed version of the Not-Invented-Here syndrome.

When ideas sound different depending on who says them

Most organisations know the classic Not-Invented-Here syndrome. Ideas coming from outside are rejected because they were not invented internally.

But sometimes the opposite happens. An idea proposed by someone inside the organisation is questioned, analysed, and debated. Until eventually an external consultant arrives. The consultant explains the situation, proposes a direction… and the room suddenly agrees.

The interesting part is that the advice often sounds very familiar. Because someone inside the organisation had already said something very similar. A moment I’ve seen more than once.

I remember a meeting where exactly that happened. An internal colleague had been raising a certain idea for some time. The arguments were solid, but the discussion kept circling around doubts and alternative interpretations.

Then later an external consultant was asked to review the situation.

After analysing the problem, the consultant explained the recommended direction. People in the room nodded.

“That makes sense.”

The internal colleague looked surprised. And perhaps a little frustrated. The idea had not really changed. Only the messenger had.

The messenger effect

Looking back, this dynamic is a clear example of the messenger effect. The credibility of an idea is sometimes influenced less by the argument itself, and more by who presents it. External consultants are often perceived as neutral experts. Internal colleagues are sometimes seen as part of the system that created the problem.

Even if the internal person understands the context far better.

A leadership reflection

This observation left me with an uncomfortable reflection. Sometimes organisations do not need new ideas. They need the same idea delivered by a different messenger. And sometimes the real issue is not the idea itself, but how it is communicated.

That raises a leadership question. Are we listening carefully enough to the expertise that already exists inside the organisation? And are we giving our people the tools, support and trust they need to make their ideas heard?

A question for leaders

Maybe the real leadership challenge is not finding the best ideas. Maybe it is recognising them when they already exist within the organisation. Because sometimes the difference between a rejected idea and an accepted one is surprisingly small.

It is simply who says it.

And the real question becomes:

Are we listening to the best ideas… or simply to the most credible messenger?

Another reflection inspired by reading about cognitive biases and how they influence leadership decisions.

The Cassandra Project

During my last holiday I had the time to catch up on some reading that had been sitting on my list for a while.

Topics around decision making, cognitive biases and how we form opinions.

One concept that was interesting: The Dunning–Kruger effect.

At the time it felt like an interesting theory about how people sometimes misjudge their own competence.

Two weeks ago, I recognised it in my personal surroundings. A discussion started about a specialised topic. Someone present had real professional expertise in the matter. The kind of expertise that comes from years of working in this particular field.

The conversation shifted and ‘certainty’ entered the room. Something struck me. The person with the deepest expertise spoke with nuance and caution, while the other one spoke with increasing certainty. Experience was careful and confidence was loud. And suddenly that concept I had been reading about months earlier came back to mind. Not as theory,… but in reality.

When expertise stops speaking.

The Dunning–Kruger effect is often used to explain why people with little knowledge can feel very certain about their opinions. But what interests me more is the other side of that dynamic.

Experts tend to be more cautious because they are more aware of the complexity of the topic.

And this tends to lose the room. In many discussions whether in society, organisations or families, the most confident voice often wins, not the most informed one.

And over time something else starts to happen… The people who actually understand the topic sometimes stop engaging altogether. And not because they lack arguments.

The leadership mirror.

That moment also triggered a more uncomfortable reflection for me.

Throughout my career I’ve been (most of the time) fortunate to work with leaders and colleagues who never relied on hierarchy to win arguments.

People who took the time to listen. People who encouraged debate. I realise how valuable such environment is.

Because the real danger in organisations is not that someone overestimates their knowledge.

The real danger is when the people who know more stop speaking up. That’s when mistakes go unchallenged. That’s when confidence starts replacing competence.

Which leads to a question I sometimes ask myself in my role as a leader.

Do the people around me feel comfortable challenging ideas, including mine?

Does hierarchy silently shape the conversation?

It’s easy to say we value open discussion. It’s much harder to build an environment where people genuinely feel safe enough to disagree. Maybe this is one of the hardest leadership challenges.

The Dunning–Kruger effect isn’t just a psychological curiosity. It’s a reminder of something leaders should never forget: Confidence and competence are not the same thing. And good leadership isn’t about always having the right answers.

It’s about creating an environment where the best understanding can surface, even when it contradicts the person with the most authority.

Because when expertise stops speaking up, the problem isn’t psychology anymore.

It’s leadership.

Recently I caught myself wondering something uncomfortable.

Am I actually performing at the level I expect from myself?
From the outside, things look fine. Projects move forward, decisions get made, responsibilities grow.
Yet occasionally there’s a quiet doubt: How high of a performer am I… or have I simply been fortunate with timing, opportunities, and the people around me?

A while ago I would probably have called that feeling imposter syndrome.
Today I’m not so sure anymore.

The illusion of certainty

Once you spend enough time in leadership environments, a few things become obvious.

First: Nobody has the full picture.
Second: Most important decisions are made with incomplete information.
And third: Confidence is often performative.

Many leaders project certainty long before they actually feel it internally.

At some point you realize something slightly uncomfortable: Most people are not executing a perfectly defined plan.
They are navigating complexity in real time.

That realization can be strangely liberating, but also humbling.

Vulnerability and leadership

In The Power of Vulnerability, Brené Brown describes vulnerability not as weakness, but as the courage to show up without guarantees.

That definition resonates strongly with leadership.

Because leadership rarely comes with guarantees.

You make decisions without having all the answers.
You move forward without knowing the full outcome.
And occasionally you wonder whether you’re really doing as well as people around you might assume.

Admitting that uncertainty can feel uncomfortable, especially in environments where leaders are expected to project confidence.
But pretending certainty where it doesn’t exist isn’t leadership either.
The trap high performers fall into….

Something else I’ve noticed over time.
Many high-performing professionals have a tendency to internalize outcomes too quickly.
When something goes wrong, the instinctive reaction is often:

“Where did I misjudge this?”

That instinct comes from ownership. And ownership is a good thing.
But it can also create a misleading equation:

Outcome = my judgment

Reality is more complicated.

Outcomes are shaped by systems: strategy, execution, people, timing, market conditions, and sometimes plain randomness.
Your judgment is only one variable in that equation.
Recognizing that doesn’t remove responsibility.
But it does create a more honest perspective on causality.

Decision quality vs. outcome quality

One mental shift that has helped me is separating decision quality from outcome quality.
A good decision can still produce a bad outcome if circumstances change.
A poor decision can occasionally work because of luck.

If we evaluate ourselves purely on results, we risk learning the wrong lessons.

A better question is:

Was the reasoning sound given the information available?
Did we execute well?
What changed externally?

Only after that does it make sense to question your own judgment.

Why leadership discussions often drift.

Another observation: Many meetings quickly drift toward operational details.

Which tool should we use?
Who owns the task?
What timeline should we set?

But those questions sometimes appear before the real problem has been clearly defined.
Organizations naturally gravitate toward action. Action feels productive.

Yet leadership often requires something different: stepping back and clarifying the problem first.

Sometimes the most valuable contribution in a meeting is simply asking:

What problem are we actually solving?
What outcome are we trying to achieve?
Is this even the right initiative?

These questions may sound simple, but they often change the entire direction of the discussion.

The uncomfortable transition

Looking back, I think many professionals move through three phases in their career.

Performer
“I must prove I’m capable.”

Expert
“I must know more than others.”

Leader
“I must make decisions when nobody knows.”

The transition from expert to leader is not always comfortable.
Expertise gives certainty. Leadership often removes it.
And perhaps that’s where the feeling people call “imposter syndrome” sometimes appears.

Not because someone is incapable, but because the job itself has changed.

A more honest question

The more I reflect on it, the more I think the real challenge of leadership is not eliminating uncertainty.
It’s learning to operate with uncertainty.

For me, the question has gradually shifted, even though I often struggle…

Instead of asking:

“Am I good enough for this?”

A more useful question might be:

“Given what we know today, what is the best decision we can make now?”

And maybe the real question for many of us is this:

Is what we call imposter syndrome actually just the feeling of stepping into responsibility that is bigger than certainty?

A reflection, part of The Cassandra Project