“The real resignation isn’t loud; it’s silent. It’s the soul quietly exiting the Zoom room.”
Forget the Great Resignation. The real crisis in leadership today?
The Great Disconnection.
People aren’t just leaving jobs, they’re leaving purpose.
They’re disengaging, logging in but tuning out.
And the scariest part?
They’re doing it quietly.
In Chief Executive Coach, I write about a truth most leaders are too busy to see:
High performance isn’t driven by KPIs or comp plans. It’s driven by meaning.
And right now?
Meaning is in short supply.
We’ve built cultures obsessed with productivity, but starved of purpose.
We’ve mastered metrics, but lost the story.
And in a post-pandemic world, with AI looming over every industry and cost-of-living pressures reshaping priorities, people are asking deeper questions:
- Why am I doing this work?
- What does this contribute to?
- Who do I become if I keep showing up here?
If you can’t help them answer those questions, you won’t just lose their performance.
You’ll lose their presence.
Coaching doesn’t just make better leaders, it helps those leaders become narrators of meaning.
It helps them connect strategy to soul.
It helps them create environments where people don’t just do the work, but believe in it.
And belief is the most scalable energy source in business today.
Here’s what you need to know:
- Your employees are already in existential mode, even if they’re smiling in the meetings.
- They’re reading about mass layoffs on Monday, and wondering about their relevance by Tuesday.
- They’re watching climate reports, economic shifts, and AI breakthroughs, and asking: “What’s the point?”
And here’s the most dangerous leadership myth in circulation:
“They just need to work harder.”
No.
They need to feel something.
And if you’re not building that connection, someone else will.
So here’s your job now:
- Give them a mission, not just a job.
- Build a culture where purpose is practiced, not printed on a wall.
- Lead with conviction, not just direction.
Because the greatest leaders of this decade won’t be the smartest or fastest.
They’ll be the ones who make people feel seen, significant, and part of something that matters.
So ask yourself:
Is your team surviving your strategy… or thriving in your story?
Are they checking boxes, or chasing meaning?
The new metric isn’t retention.
It’s resonance.
And it starts with you.
View more on this in this YouTube Video.
