Are companies trying to solve leadership from the wrong direction?

Leadership development is growing into a multibillion-dollar business, yet employee engagement has fallen to its lowest level in five years. According to Gallup’s State of the Global Workplace 2026 report, only 20 percent of employees worldwide are engaged at work, costing the global economy an estimated $10 trillion in lost productivity. As organizations continue investing heavily in developing leaders, those numbers raise a pressing question: are companies focusing on the wrong part of leadership?

For Dr Leigh Byers, founder of 7th Level Leadership (7LL), those challenges often begin well before communication techniques, strategic planning or management frameworks enter the conversation. Drawing on her experience coaching executives, nonprofit leaders, doctoral students and organizations, she believes leadership outcomes are closely connected to the way leaders process situations internally. Through 7LL, a human performance and leadership science practice, she helps individuals and organizations strengthen leadership by developing healthier thinking patterns alongside practical leadership capabilities.

“Leadership is not reserved for a title,” Byers says. “Every person has a ship to lead. Whether that ship is a team, a family, a classroom or simply your own life, leadership begins with learning to lead yourself first. Lead-YOUR-ship!”

Byers believes that many organizations understandably focus leadership development on visible behaviors such as communication, delegation and strategic execution. From her perspective, however, those behaviors are often shaped long before they appear in the workplace. The thinking patterns, emotional habits and mental responses leaders bring into difficult conversations, major decisions and everyday interactions frequently determine whether leadership skills translate into meaningful results. Byers suggests organizations often spend years teaching leaders how to communicate under pressure, while spending far less time helping them understand the thinking that creates the pressure in the first place.

That perspective aligns with broader workplace research. A global survey by PwC found that almost 50 percent of CEOs believe their businesses will not remain economically viable over the next decade without significant reinvention. This underscores the growing importance of leadership capable of guiding organizations through continual change. Reinvention, however, requires more than new strategies. It also depends on leaders who can navigate uncertainty while helping others remain engaged and adaptable.

As a certified Positive Intelligence Coach™, Byers incorporates mental fitness into her broader leadership framework. She explains that strengthening leadership requires more than intellectual knowledge, because leaders constantly manage emotions, relationships and competing priorities. Practices that increase awareness of thought patterns, physical responses and emotional reactions can improve how leaders approach decisions before those decisions affect entire teams.

Byers believes AI is accelerating a shift that many organizations risk underestimating. As technology takes on more routine and analytical tasks, the capabilities that shape effective leadership, including judgment, emotional intelligence, resilience, trust-building and navigating complex human situations, are becoming increasingly valuable. These skills are developed through experience and remain difficult to replicate through automation.

Rather than treating leadership as an individual achievement, Byers encourages leaders to “hook arms” with those around them. She explains leadership as a shared responsibility, where stronger outcomes emerge when people understand each another before attempting to persuade one another, and says teams make better decisions when they first establish common ground, instead of immediately debating differences.

Those principles are also explored in Byers’ recent book, S.E.V.E.N.T.H. Level Leadership: A Lighthouse Framework for Leaders to Gain a Positive, Complete, and Holistic View, where she expands on the framework she uses with organizations. The model encourages leaders to evaluate themselves across seven interconnected qualities that support healthier decision-making and stronger organizational relationships over time.

“The word SEVENTH is not just branding,” she says. “It is an acronym that captures the seven dimensions of transformational leadership. When practiced together, they produce something deeper than effectiveness, and they foster wholeness: Sustainable, Ethical, Vision-oriented, Empowering, Nondiscriminatory, Targeted and Holistic leadership.”

As organizations continue searching for better leadership in an increasingly complex workplace, Byers believes the next breakthrough may come from looking inward before looking outward. For leaders, the greatest competitive advantage may no longer be learning another management technique. It may be learning how to lead their own thinking first.

“The goal is not simply to create better managers,” Byers says. “It is to develop healthier thinkers who can make wiser decisions, strengthen relationships and help others flourish. When people learn to lead their own ship well, they are far better equipped to guide others through whatever challenges come next.”