By Anja Neiiendam, CEO of CfL.This op-ed was published in Børsen on September 13, 2025.
One in five large companies struggles with poor leadership. That was the headline of a Børsen article (04.09.2025), based on a survey by the consultancy Ballisager.
It’s both an important and a bold conclusion, and I welcome any study on leadership that gives us data to articulate how we understand and practice leadership in reality.
I want to stress that it remains our responsibility as leaders to ensure good workplaces where employees thrive. But the survey misses something essential. It simply records that poor leadership is perceived as a problem, and that the problem can stem from being either too hard or too soft as a leader.
We need to examine the underlying structures that make poor leadership possible. When we reduce the issue to the individual leader or leadership style, we overlook the fact that behavior is shaped by the organization’s frameworks, culture, and incentives.
CfL’s latest study — the Leadership Well-being Survey 2025 — includes responses from a total of 1,326 leaders. Among them, 286 work in organizations with more than 1,000 employees, i.e., the very largest companies.
In this group, 54% report an imbalance between demands and resources, 48% feel burdened by organizational complexity, and 55% say they lack sufficient time and pace.
These numbers are above the overall average, and the point is reinforced by the fact that the well-being index in this group is as low as 62.1. Index 60 marks the threshold at which the risk of stress and depression becomes high, measured against WHO-5, an internationally recognized tool for assessing mental health and well-being.
Across the full sample of 1,326 leaders, half express a desire for more support and development.
Regardless of organizational size, leaders often find themselves alone in a cross-pressure: expected to deliver results and develop employees — without having the necessary foundation themselves.
If we want to understand poor leadership, we need to shift the focus away from individuals and toward the organizational frameworks.
Tyrannical behavior can be a symptom of a culture that exclusively rewards the bottom line and short-term results. Conversely, conflict-averse and insecure leadership may stem from organizations where everything is measured, but direction is unclear.
In other words, poor leadership is often a human and understandable reaction to unreasonable conditions.
The way forward is not moral preaching but structural change. The Leadership Well-being Survey itself highlights four key measures:
It is serious that one in five large companies struggles with leadership issues. But it becomes truly alarming if we continue to see poor leadership as an individual failing rather than a systemic problem.
Only when we dare to examine the structures that enable it can we create lasting change. And only then can we expect fewer leaders to wake up exhausted — and fewer leaders to practice poor leadership.
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