Leslie Rohonczy, IMC, PCC, Executive Coach & Author
I recently fell down one of those internet rabbit holes that begins with good intentions and ends with me wondering how humanity has survived itself thus far. One of the rabbit holes I fell into (consider yourself warned) was a website called theretrocodex.com, which is essentially a curated archive of things people once believed with remarkable confidence, only to be proven outrageously wrong later. Medical advice, scientific assumptions, cultural 'facts,' all neatly organized by decade, like a museum of human certainty gone terribly sideways. Honestly, it is fantastic!
There is something I find comforting about discovering that entire generations confidently believed things that now sound absurd. Weirdly, it makes me hopeful about the future, and hey, I'll take hope wherever I can find it these days.
Did you know, for example, that margarine was once marketed as a healthy alternative to butter? Or that doctors once endorsed cigarettes? Entire industries were built on 'facts' that now seem unfathomable to most of us.
And naturally, I wondered: where is the RetroCodex for leadership? Well, friends, I'm sorry to be the bearer of bad news, but there isn't one. But if one did exist, some of the outdated leadership beliefs I've helped clients with in my executive coaching work would deserve a prominent place of honour, right beside smoking cigarettes in the office and mandatory skirts and stockings dress code (yep, it used to be a thing.)
The uncomfortable truth is that outdated leadership beliefs rarely look outdated when you're on the inside of them. They usually appear dressed up as other things, like professionalism, accountability, belonging, executive presence, or 'the way things are done around here.'
So in the spirit of public service, let’s scrape the mold off a few winners and see how today's truth challenges those outdated assumptions.
1. GOOD LEADERS ALWAYS HAVE THE ANSWERS
This one has had an impressively long shelf life. For decades, leadership was often associated with certainty. The person at the top was expected to know, decide, direct, and project confidence, preferably without visible hesitation. That may have worked when business environments were slower and hierarchies were tighter. Today, that model starts to crack under complexity.
Amy Edmondson’s research on psychological safety at Harvard has shown that high-performing teams thrive when leaders create the conditions where people can raise concerns, share ideas, and challenge assumptions without fear. Learning organisations depend on candour, not theatrical certainty.
We have all seen the alternative: a leader makes a spectacularly wrong decision with unwavering confidence, and no one flags their concerns.
TODAY'S TRUTH: Don't pretend to know everything. People can often tell when you're bullshitting anyway, and that erodes trust faster than honest uncertainty ever will. Focus instead on creating enough trust that the best thinking in the system actually surfaces.
2. IF YOU WANT SOMETHING DONE RIGHT, DO IT YOURSELF
Ahhh... the unofficial anthem of overwhelmed leaders everywhere. This belief often disguises itself as high standards. Sometimes it's called accountability. Sometimes it is a genuine focus on quality. And sometimes, if we are being really honest, it is ego dressed up in sensible shoes.
Liz Wiseman’s work in Multipliers draws a sharp distinction between leaders who expand the capability around them and those who unintentionally diminish it by becoming the bottleneck.
If every important decision, approval, rescue mission, or client issue must pass through you, that is not leadership excellence. It is a leadership model built on dependency.
TODAY'S TRUTH: Your job is not to be the hero of every operational subplot. Modern leadership means building capability, trusting good people with meaningful ownership, and resisting the seductive little voice that says, “Honestly, it’ll just be faster if I do it myself.”
3. PROFESSIONALISM MEANS EMOTIONAL RESTRAINT
There was a time when professionalism seemed to require becoming emotionally indistinguishable from office furniture. Steady; controlled; stoic even (and before the modern Stoicism enthusiasts come for me, I'm referring to emotional suppression, not Stoic philosophy.)
The assumption was that emotion made leaders look weak, messy, or unstable. Daniel Goleman’s work on emotional intelligence helped challenge that premise by showing that leadership is deeply relational work. People don't stop being human when they log in to work in the morning.
This does not mean unfiltered emotional leakage, dramatic oversharing, or turning every meeting into personal theatre, but real emotion that others can feel, recognize, and understand because it's authentic and universally human.
TODAY'S TRUTH: Professionalism is not the same as emotional suppression. Knowing and naming what you're feeling, understanding how it affects your behaviour, and paying attention to what others may be experiencing in response to you are all aspects of emotional maturity.
4. PEOPLE NEED TO BE WATCHED TO STAY PRODUCTIVE
Well, this belief got a fresh makeover during the Covid pandemic, didn't it? While remote work was a lifesaver (and business saver), it was also uncharted territory for businesses. Suddenly, some leaders became strangely obsessed with green dots, login times, and whether Margaret was really still working at 4:17 p.m.
Microsoft’s 2022 Work Trend Index report identified what they called productivity paranoia: 87% of employees said they were productive at work, but only 12% of leaders said they had full confidence their team was productive. Yikes, talk about a delta! This should not have surprised anyone: adults generally perform better when treated like adults.
TODAY'S TRUTH: Trust, clear expectations, autonomy, and meaningful accountability outperform surveillance. If your management strategy involves monitoring mouse movement, the issue may be less about productivity and more about trust and empowerment. Either way, it's worth exploring with a curious mindset.
5. PSYCHOLOGICAL SAFETY MEANS BEING NICE
This one needs to be escorted out of the building along with its little cardboard box full of platitudes, toxic positivity, and matching 'Teamwork Makes the Dream Work' mugs.
Somewhere along the way, psychological safety got mistaken for permanent politeness, with no space or tolerance for disagreement, no discomfort, and no challenge. But that interpretation misses the point entirely.
Amy Edmondson has been clear that psychological safety supports high standards and honest conversations. It creates the conditions for people to speak honestly, take interpersonal risks, admit mistakes, and challenge thinking.
TODAY'S TRUTH: On a high-performing, healthy team, people can respectfully disagree, raise concerns, share their authentic views, and challenge ideas without fearing social punishment. If everyone is smiling while important truths remain unsaid, what you may be looking at is conflict avoidance dressed up as harmony.
6. YOU NEED MORE EXECUTIVE PRESENCE
Translation: Somehow be more impressive (but we will provide zero operational definition for what that means, or how to do it.)
Executive presence has suffered some unfortunate branding. For years, executive presence has been confused with airtime, extroversion, charisma, confidence theatre, and that oddly polished panel-discussion voice people seem to acquire at conferences.
Susan Cain’s bestselling book Quiet challenged the long-standing assumption that extroversion naturally equals leadership effectiveness. Adam Grant’s research has also highlighted that leadership effectiveness depends far more on context and behaviour than personality stereotypes.
TODAY'S TRUTH: Influence is not volume, charisma, theatre, or performative posturing. Some of the most compelling leaders I've seen in action are quiet. They don't suck all the air out of the room trying to show how smart they are. They may say less, but when they do speak, people pay attention because their contribution actually moves the conversation forward.
7. IF I'M BUSY, I'M IMPORTANT
Does your calendar resemble an aggressive game of Tetris? For years, chronic busyness has functioned as a strange status symbol. Packed calendars, midnight email replies, and performative exhaustion sends the message that if I am overwhelmed, I must be important.
Microsoft’s research on the 'infinite workday' has shown how digital work has steadily eroded boundaries, recovery time, and focus.
Packed calendars and performative exhaustion do not signal importance. Sometimes they convey weak boundaries, poor capacity management, or reactive operational focus with little strategic value.
TODAY'S TRUTH: Busy is not a leadership competency. Modern leadership requires protected thinking time, sound judgment, and enough strategic altitude to notice what others miss. If your calendar leaves no room to think, you may be demonstrating operational stamina while actively undermining your strategic credibility.
8. LEADERS ARE NOT TO BE CHALLENGED
There was a time when leaders were expected to project authority and maintain distance. They did not invite dissent, challenge, input, or inconvenient truths from the people below them. Leadership was something to be respected, and in some workplaces, even feared. Suggesting to your boss that they might handle something differently would have been career-limiting behaviour.
Some remnants of that thinking still linger. Edgar Schein wrote extensively about how hierarchy can inhibit honest communication, especially when leaders fail to create the conditions for upward candour. And as leaders progress up the ladder and gain more authority, people often become even more selective about what they share with them.
TODAY'S TRUTH: If people decide that telling you the truth is unsafe, inconvenient, or pointless, you may be the last person to know what is actually going wrong. Strong leaders create the conditions for honest feedback to travel upward, not just downward.
SO WHAT IS STILL SITTING IN YOUR LEADERSHIP ATTIC?
The tricky thing about outdated leadership beliefs is that many of them genuinely did work back in the day, or at least seemed to. Some rewarded us earlier in our careers, which is exactly what makes them so sticky. The people who believed those old RetroCodex 'facts' were not foolish; they were operating with the assumptions, norms, and accepted wisdom of their time. Leadership is no different.
Nobody wakes up in the morning and consciously decides to lead like it's 1987. Old beliefs linger because they once helped us succeed, feel competent, or stay safe in systems that rewarded them. That does not make someone a bad leader. It simply means leadership has evolved.
Some of today’s most confidently held leadership beliefs will eventually look just as dated. The more interesting question is which ones you may still be holding onto without realizing it.
YOUR COACHING CHALLENGE
Most outdated leadership beliefs do not announce themselves with a little flag that says Hello, I am obsolete. They tend to feel sensible, responsible, and strangely familiar. This practice is designed to help you uncover one belief that may still be shaping your leadership, and then test whether it still deserves shelf space.
YOUR LEADERSHIP RETROCODEX
STEP 1: SPOT THE MOLD: Read through the beliefs in this article and notice which one made you uncomfortable, slightly defensive, oddly validated, or uncomfortably seen. That reaction is useful. Complete this sentence: One leadership belief I may still be holding onto is... Examples: "Good leaders should always have the answer." "If I want something done right, I should handle it myself." "Being busy means I am valuable."
STEP 2: TRACE ITS ORIGIN STORY: Most leadership beliefs started life as adaptations, not mistakes. Ask yourself: Where did I learn this? Who modelled this for me, or rewarded me for it? When did this belief first help me succeed? What did it help me avoid?
STEP 3: EXAMINE THE CURRENT COST: Now get brutally honest. Ask yourself: How might this belief be limiting me now? What does it cost my team? How does it affect trust? What undesirable behaviour does this belief keep reinforcing?
STEP 4: WRITE THE UPDATED LEADERSHIP TRUTH: If your old belief belongs in the RetroCodex, what replaces it? Complete this sentence: Today’s truth for me is... Example: Old belief: I need to stay involved in everything important. Today’s truth: My leadership value grows when I build capability instead of dependency.
STEP 5: RUN A LIVE EXPERIMENT: Within the next week, experiment with deliberately behaving according to your updated belief. Say less in the meeting. Delegate the thing. Ask the uncomfortable question. Admit you don't know. Protect thinking time. Invite dissent. Whatever your belief requires.
STEP 6: REFLECTION QUESTIONS: What happened? What surprised me? What story did my inner narrator start telling? What felt easier than expected? What still felt risky? What does this tell me about my next experiment?
If outdated leadership beliefs are influencing how you lead, and you're curious about what stronger, more modern patterns might serve you better, reach out for a free exploratory Executive Coaching conversation at www.leslierohonczy.com.