Understanding how to balance trust and control
Corporate psychologist Rudy Crous has a blunt message for HR and C suite leaders: leadership capability is stagnating, not because people don’t care, but because organisations are still treating leadership as an assumption rather than a skill.
Speaking with HRD, Crous noted that the way organisations select, develop and support leaders is no longer fit for purpose.
This is because leadership is still seen as task management, not people leadership. Crous argued that many organisations still default to a narrow, technical view of leadership.
Leaders are “managing tasks, managing managerial things as opposed to managing people,” he explained, with the “control” mindset showing up most strongly in how work gets done – deadlines, deliverables, and outputs – rather than how people are led.
Employees are noticing. Feedback from Crous’ research found that people “just want their leaders to be more human” – to show empathy, integrity and authentic care, not just enforce process or performance requirements.
For HR, that signals a gap between what organisations reward and what employees increasingly expect from leadership.
The promotion trap: good performers, underprepared leaders
One of the core structural problems is the way organisations promote people into leadership roles.
“People usually get promoted to leadership positions by being good at their job and then suddenly they're in a people leader position without any experience,” Crous said.
When things go wrong, organisations are often too quick to label someone a “bad leader” – but in Crous’ view, that’s usually the wrong diagnosis.
Bad leaders “are not necessarily bad people or doing it with intent,” he explained. More often, “they don’t understand or know their blind spots.” They haven’t been given the tools, insight or development to lead effectively – they’ve simply been assumed into leadership.
Different workers require different leadership styles and that personality shapes leadership behaviour – “and yet, very rarely do organisations train, coach, mentor, level up or glow up the skills of leaders. Rather, it is assumed,” Crous added.
Trust vs control: why “one style fits all” doesn’t work
Adding to these leadership troubles is the tension between trust and control.
Some team members genuinely need directive,more controlled leadership– especially when they lack skills, confidence or clarity.
Others need a more autonomous, trust-based approach, where leaders step back and create space for ownership.
Leadership breaks down when one style – usually the more controlling, directive one – is “applied blanketly across all of your team members.”
The goal is not to choose between “trust” and “control” as an ideology, but to help leaders understand their default leadership style, driven largely by personality, what each team member needs at a given point in time, and how to adapt their style accordingly.
“It’s not a one-size-fits-all approach,” Crous said. Nor is it about “every follower [having] free reign.” Effective leadership requires discernment: knowing when autonomy enables performance – and when guidance is genuinely necessary.
Put a spotlight on blind spots
If HR leaders want to materially improve leadership quality, Crous believes the starting point is self-awareness.
He frames it as helping leaders understand: What they “naturally focus on” and “naturally prioritise” and what they “overdo and underdo” as leaders.
On top of that is how their personality makeup drives how they communicate, make decisions, manage conflict and show up at work.
“Personality drives leadership style and behaviours,” Crous said. Once leaders can see their blind spots clearly, “you can be coached on that, you can grow in that.”
This type of awareness work is not new – personality assessments and leadership models such as situational leadership have existed for decades. The problem, Crous stressed, is not a lack of frameworks, but a lack of systematic application.
Standardise the starting point, tailor the development
For HR teams designing leadership programs, Crous recommends a “standardised but bespoke” approach.
Standardise the foundation: Put all leaders through a common, evidence-based diagnostic – for example, a personality assessment that highlights strengths, risks, and blind spots.
Tailor the development: Use those insights to adapt coaching,mentoring and learning interventionsto what each leader actually needs, rather than forcing everyone through the same generic curriculum.
“There is a standardisation in what we start with and what we focus on,” he explained, “but what the learner needs, that’s where the tailored solution comes in.”
By contrast, many current programs still follow a formulaic pattern: “You’re a leader, here’s what you need to know about leadership.” That misses the reality that different employees might need different things.
What HR and CEOs should do next
Looking ahead, Crous outlines several priorities for HR, CPOs and CEOs whogenuinely want to lift leadership capability
First is to stop assuming leadership is innate. Treat leadership as a skill to be learned, practised and refined – not a natural consequence of tenure or technical excellence.
Next is to redesign promotion and appointment processes. Don’t promote purely on technical performance. Actively assess leadership potential, self-awareness, learning agility and people capability before assigning people leadership responsibility.
It’s important to make self-awareness non-negotiable. This is achieved by building personality and behaviour insight tools into the leadership lifecycle – from selection, through onboarding, to ongoing coaching and development.
Leaders must be trained in situational judgement, not just frameworks. This will help them to diagnose what each team member needs – more direction or more autonomy – and practise flexing their style.
Once this framework is implemented, leadership impact can be measured over time. Track whether leaders are actually “getting better” – through engagement data, upward feedback, and behavioural metrics – rather than assuming development activity equals improvement.
The fundamentals of good leadership are not new. What needs to change is how seriously organisations take the work of building those fundamentals.
For HR leaders, 2026 presents an opportunity: move beyond off the shelf leadership training and assumption-based promotions, and instead design a system where every leader understands themselves, understands their people, and has the support to adapt their style to meet the moment.
