Leadership Takeaways for 2026
“Culture is shaped by what leaders tolerate, not what they announce.”
Dr. Mark DeVolder
In the world of business, we are trained to watch for the “black swan” events—the sudden market crashes, the aggressive competitors, or the disruptive technologies that threaten to upend our industry overnight.
According to Dr. Mark DeVolder the greatest threat to your organization is rarely a sudden explosion. Instead, it is a “slow drift.”
The Danger of the Incremental
Organizational drift is a quiet, subtle process. It occurs when small deviations from established standards or values become normalized over time, manifesting itself as a series of tiny shortcuts that eventually become part of the company culture.
Take, for example, the Wells Fargo fake accounts scandal. The crisis did not begin with a directive to commit fraud. It began with ambitious sales targets that created immense pressure. When employees found that bending the rules helped them meet those targets without immediate repercussions, the behavior was rewarded and, eventually, repeated.
One degree of drift, left uncorrected, eventually took the entire institution miles off course.
The “We’ve Always Done It This Way” Trap
The most dangerous phase of organizational drift is when a shortcut transforms into a habit, and a habit transforms into “the way we do things here.” By the time leadership identifies a systemic issue, the culture has already rewritten itself.
Drift is the natural enemy of intentional change. It thrives in the gaps where leadership is not actively paying attention. In many cases, it fills the silence that follows the initial excitement of a new initiative.
Change Management as Guarding, Not Just Launching Organizations are excellent at the “launch” phase of change—the town halls, the applause, and the colorful slide decks. But as Mark suggests, true change management is about “guarding” rather than “launching.”
Change fails quietly when behaviors slip back into old patterns or when incentives inadvertently reward the wrong actions. Like steering a ship, constant minor adjustments are required to stay on target. If a leader only checks the compass during the launch, they will almost certainly find themselves off course by the time they reach the mid-point of the journey.
Leadership Takeaways for 2026
To prevent slow drift from undermining your goals, Mark suggests a shift in leadership focus:
- Design Guardrails, Not Just Strategies: Strategic plans are necessary, but they require feedback loops and monitoring systems to ensure the “work as imagined” matches the “work as done.”
- Listen to the Silence: Drift thrives when communication is one-way. Stay curious and actively seek out where the friction exists in your daily operations.
- Address the Small Cracks: Culture is ultimately shaped by what a leader tolerates. Addressing small deviations early prevents them from accumulating into a systemic crisis.
Success in a transformative era requires more than a bold vision; it requires the discipline to monitor the unintentional. By staying vigilant against the slow drift and maintaining a focus on daily behaviors, you ensure that your organization doesn’t just start strong, but actually reaches its intended destination.