A coaching case on leadership legitimacy, perception, and the limits of strength*
Case 26 05
Key Takeaways
- Leadership legitimacy rests on results and relational trust — both matter.
- Overplayed strengths can quietly turn into liabilities.
- Perception cannot be fixed directly — only shaped over time through behavior.
- Small behavioral shifts can significantly reduce resistance.
- A visible, authentic learning journey builds trust faster than explanations.
Why trust is the real currency of leadership
It is widely accepted that the ability to create trust is critical for effective leadership. Years ago, I encountered a helpful distinction from management coach and leadership trainer Michael Löhner: people follow leaders for two fundamentally different reasons. They either trust the leader’s ability to deliver results — or they trust the leader as a person.
These two sources of trust — trust in success and relational trust — are extremely useful concepts in coaching. Leaders are often very differently positioned across these dimensions, and gaps between them are common.
People follow leaders because they believe either “this person will succeed” or “I like and respect this person”. Depending on which belief dominates, leadership legitimacy is granted through confidence in future success or through perceived personal credibility and role‑modelled behavior.
Interestingly, top leaders are rarely exceptional in both dimensions at the same time. In practice, most are carried primarily by one. What matters is not perfection, but balance: at senior levels, there is a minimum threshold in both dimensions that cannot be ignored. I do not know a single case in which either trust in success or relational trust was very low and the leader remained effective over time. And this is exactly where many leadership challenges begin.
When a strength becomes a source of friction
The success of the executive in question — let’s call her Ms. Focus — was undisputed. As head of a business unit, she delivered results consistently. Her leadership style was driven by a strong sense of responsibility, ambitious goals, exceptional commitment, and — at least in part — a desire for recognition.
Her ability to focus was one of her defining strengths. Yet it was precisely this strength that began to work against her.
Within the organization, she was widely perceived as highly task‑ and goal‑oriented, and by many as overly rigorous in how she pursued outcomes. Those who worked closely with her experienced her good intentions and genuine human warmth. In her inner circle, relational trust was given.
But the greater the distance from her immediate environment, the more her intense focus dominated perceptions — often interpreted as distance or even emotional coldness. Beyond her inner circle, relational trust fell below the level required for sustainable leadership legitimacy.
Mapping distance — and understanding the real risk
Talking to someone who is deeply convinced they are doing the right thing yet struggles with being “not liked enough” requires care. Why was it that her direct reports and close stakeholders felt connected and supported while this effect faded further out in the organization? And what would prevent her from extending that positive impact beyond her immediate environment?
In several conversations, we literally drew organizational charts and mapped how approval declined with increasing distance from her role. Such a decline in itself is normal. What matters is how steep it is — and whether a lack of support turns into hidden or even open resistance.
For long‑term success and for consideration for broader roles, approval levels in the wider organization must not fall below a certain point. In practical terms, this means avoiding clearly articulated rejection — even from people whose formal support is not required.
You cannot fix perception — only shape it
Reducing critical sentiment in the broader organization cannot be done directly. It can only be influenced in advance through deliberate investments in constructive behavior. Organizational perception is something leaders can only shape indirectly.
Using a deliberately simple — and slightly provocative — phrase, we described her task as engaging not only in the hard business but also in the feel‑good business of leadership.
At first, the phrase made her smile. Then it made her pause and conclude: “As an executive, I am also in the feel‑good business.” The logic was clear: part of her role was to ensure that justified criticism did not turn into broader rejection across the organization.
The encouraging insight was that small behavioral adjustments, costing neither time nor energy, could significantly reduce negative perceptions. So why not adapt behavior?
From critics to advocates — without politics
The solution emerged largely from her own reflection. Instead of trying to stop critics from spreading their views, why not enable discreet advocates?
This approach carries risks. If overdone, it can quickly feel political — and combined with already limited relational trust, that would have been counterproductive. A more subtle path was required.
The more effective approach turned out to be a visible learning journey — primarily within her inner circle.
This was not about instructing others to speak positively on her behalf. It was about alignment. Her close colleagues were already aware of the relational trust gap — often more clearly than she herself had been. Addressing it openly activated genuine support, expressed less through explicit advocacy than through behavior and attitude.
Choosing the right level of vulnerability
One option was ruled out early: integrating her personal development agenda into performance reviews with her team. These conversations belong fully to employees. Diluting them with a leader’s own agenda would have felt political and undermined trust.
Instead, she chose one‑on‑one conversations with selected stakeholders. Addressing her learning journey in a large forum was consciously avoided — it would have required a level of public vulnerability that did not feel authentic for her at that stage.
She spoke personally with key individuals, shared her development focus, and asked for feedback.
It felt slow at first. But over time, the boundaries of critical perception clearly shifted outward. Within months, the effect was noticeable.
When change becomes self‑reinforcing
Perhaps the most important effect was that key individuals recognized and supported her learning journey — which, in turn, inspired her. Their feedback reinforced her commitment to change.
She introduced simple routines to remind herself of her goals, leveraging her natural strength in structure and discipline. She asked for more feedback, created more space for others’ ideas, and began to reflect with decision‑makers after key decisions instead of moving straight into execution once everything had been discussed.
These reflections included not only commercial logic, but also the implications for people and the wider environment.
At first, this felt slightly artificial. But it worked and became more natural over time. Involving others more deliberately created tangible win‑win situations. With success came enjoyment — and a self‑reinforcing cycle of positive change was set in motion.
This case illustrates how leadership challenges at senior levels are often not about correcting weaknesses, but about recalibrating strengths. What had driven Ms. Focus’s success — clarity, determination, and execution power — remained essential. Yet only by complementing these strengths with greater relational awareness did her leadership regain legitimacy across the wider system.
Progress did not come from explaining herself better or managing perceptions more actively, but from changing how she showed up, consistently and visibly. By treating trust as something to be cultivated rather than assumed, she crossed a threshold: resistance softened, support emerged, and her leadership began to travel further than her immediate sphere of control.
In that sense, the situation resolved itself because she expanded the range of leadership behaviors she was willing and able to practice.
* This case is a composite, inspired by multiple leadership journeys. Details have been changed to protect anonymity.