The Problem Isn't Your People—It's You

Let’s talk about your “underperforming” team.

They’re missing deadlines. Dragging their feet. Lacking initiative. You’re starting to wonder if you accidentally hired a department full of people who have quietly checked out of life.

Before you fire off that “needs improvement” email, pause. Have you actually looked in the mirror lately? Not to check for spinach in your teeth, though honestly you should. I mean really looked at what you’re bringing into the room as a leader.

Because here’s the uncomfortable truth most leadership books won’t say out loud: nearly half of Canadian workers are burned out. 69% are showing symptoms that lead to burnout. When your team shows up, many of them are already running on fumes.

They’re not lazy. They’re exhausted. And they’re trying to perform inside a system led by someone pretending to have it all figured out while quietly unraveling.

Your team can smell that tension from three cubicles away.

The Emperor Has No Clothes

Most leaders are performing confidence while internally spiraling. You say “we’ve got this” in meetings, then Google “how to manage a disengaged team” at 2 a.m.

Your team knows. They’ve always known.

What they experience instead is unclear direction, inconsistent decisions, and communication that sounds confident but says very little. The culture rewards looking good over being real, and the cost gets paid downstream.

Burnout in Canada climbed from 33% in 2023 to 42% in 2024. It’s now sitting at 47%. Heavy workloads. Long hours. Mental fatigue from high-stress tasks.

But the real question isn’t what is happening. It’s why.

Why are workloads so heavy? Why is everything urgent? Why are people so tired?

Because many leaders haven’t done the internal work required to lead with clarity. Values aren’t defined, so every decision becomes a negotiation. Discernment isn’t developed, so reactivity runs the show. Emotional regulation is thin, so stress leaks into every room.

Your team isn’t underperforming. They’re trying to function inside a system led by someone still figuring themselves out while pretending they’re not.

Efficiency Without Clarity is Just Chaos at a Higher Speed

Now let’s add fuel to the fire.

AI is everywhere. Over 90% of Fortune 500 companies are using it. In Canada, 93% of CHROs report adoption has begun.

Except 60% of leaders admit they don’t have a clear plan for implementing it, and only a third of employees even know what their organization’s AI strategy is.

We’re automating systems while the humans running them are burned out, unclear, and lacking the discernment to know what should be automated and what requires human judgment.

It’s like putting a turbocharger on a car with a cracked engine block. It’ll go faster for a moment. Then it will fail spectacularly. And someone will stand there holding a clipboard saying, “But the metrics looked great.”

Discernment the Skill Nobody Taught You

AI creates efficiency. Discernment creates wisdom.

Discernment is the ability to judge clearly when the right answer depends on context, values, and human impact. When the data says one thing and the situation demands another. When speed conflicts with sustainability.

It’s not something you download. It’s not learned in a two-hour course. It requires self-awareness, emotional regulation, clarity of values, and the ability to stay grounded when pressure hits.

Most leaders weren’t trained in this. They were trained to optimize, to perform certainty, to look decisive even when drowning in doubt.

Now decisions are happening faster. Complexity is increasing. And shallow leadership is getting harder to hide.

Burnout Isn’t Random. It’s Predictable (and Avoidable)

42% of Canadian professionals report burnout. Millennials and Gen Z are leading the charge. Fatigue, lowered motivation, reduced efficiency, irritability.

These aren’t personal failings. They’re symptoms of leadership operating from performance instead of presence, reaction instead of discernment.

When leaders fake clarity, teams pay the price. When values are unclear, everything feels urgent. When communication is polished but hollow, trust erodes.

And yes, we’ve been there. We’ve led while depleted. We’ve made decisions from exhaustion instead of alignment. We know this work matters because we’ve lived the cost of not doing it.

Why the Human Intelligence Industry (Hii) Exists

The Human Intelligence Industry exists because organizations optimized for speed, scale, and efficiency while quietly neglecting the humans holding it all together.

Hii is the necessary counterpart to artificial intelligence. It lives at the intersection of leadership, consciousness, and operational clarity. It builds leaders with the internal capacity to hold complexity, make grounded decisions, and communicate honestly when the stakes are high.

When leaders get clear on who they are and what they stand for, everything downstream gets easier. Decisions speed up. Communication sharpens. Trust rebuilds. Performance improves because people can finally focus on the work instead of managing leadership chaos.

Human Intelligence

Human Intelligence isn’t about being perfect. It’s about being real.

It starts with asking better questions. Who am I under pressure? What do I stand for? Am I leading from alignment or fear? It’s developing discernment. Learning to tell the difference between what’s loud and what’s true. Between what looks good on paper and what actually serves people. It’s emotional regulation. Staying grounded so stress doesn’t become the culture.

And it’s recognizing that investing in your own development isn’t indulgent. It’s the prerequisite for everything else you’re trying to build.

The Honest Part

If this made you uncomfortable, good. That means something landed.

You’re not struggling because you’re a bad leader. You’re struggling because the old leadership playbook is dead. It just hasn’t stopped moving yet.

The leaders who thrive next won’t be the best performers of confidence. They’ll be the ones brave enough to stop performing and start being.

The Human Intelligence Industry is here (you're welcome). And the question isn’t whether you need it. It’s whether you’re willing to admit that maybe, just maybe, the problem isn’t your people.