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Leadership Limbo

Leadership Limbo

By: Josh Hugo and John Clark
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Summary

This is Leadership Limbo —a podcast aimed at helping leaders embrace the discomfort and power of leading themselves and others in the midst of it all. We blend real insight with practical tools to help you lead with self-awareness, purpose, and influence—wherever you are on your leadership journey.

Learn more about the work both Josh and John to support leaders by visiting our websites:

John Clark, Founder of Best Days Consulting: bestdaysconsulting.org

Josh Hugo, Founder of PIQ Strategies: piqstrategies.com

Copyright 2025 All rights reserved. Economics Management Management & Leadership Personal Development Personal Success
Episodes
  • Psychological Safety: The "Safe" Language That Undercuts Psychological Safety

    Psychological Safety: The "Safe" Language That Undercuts Psychological Safety
    May 12 2026
    Episode Overview In this episode of Leadership Limbo, Josh Hugo and John Clark continue their conversation on psychological safety by moving from theory into the subtle language and behaviors that shape team culture every day. Building on the prior episode, the discussion explores how leaders unintentionally avoid tension, soften conflict, and emotionally accommodate others in ways that ultimately weaken trust, accountability, and growth. The episode begins by revisiting a core idea from the previous conversation: psychological safety is not the same thing as comfort. Real psychological safety involves the ability to take interpersonal risks—sharing disagreement, offering difficult feedback, asking questions, and speaking honestly without fear of punishment. But in many organizations, the language of safety has quietly shifted toward preserving comfort and minimizing discomfort. Josh and John explore how this dynamic shows up in common workplace phrases that often sound healthy on the surface. Statements like “let’s take this offline,” “I’m not comfortable with your representation of the actual facts,” or “let’s create a working group” can sometimes reflect thoughtful leadership. But they can also become mechanisms for avoiding direct tension, delaying disagreement, or outsourcing difficult conversations. A major theme of the episode is emotional accommodation—the tendency to prioritize emotional comfort over honest engagement. Leaders may rescue others from discomfort, soften necessary feedback, or suppress disagreement in order to preserve harmony. While these behaviors are often well-intentioned, they can unintentionally create cultures where people avoid risk, withhold truth, or rely on leaders to manage tension for them. The conversation also dives into anonymous feedback and surveys, questioning whether they truly build psychological safety or simply compensate for leadership cultures where direct feedback does not feel possible. Josh and John argue that healthy organizations ultimately create conditions where people can speak in their own voice, rather than relying on anonymity to protect themselves. The episode closes with a deeper reflection on leadership rescue dynamics. When leaders speak on behalf of others rather than helping people speak for themselves, they may unintentionally reduce ownership and reinforce dependency. Instead, strong leadership creates the conditions where people can name their own experience, engage in disagreement directly, and develop the confidence to take interpersonal risks themselves. Ultimately, the conversation reframes psychological safety not as the elimination of tension, but as the ability to remain engaged within it. Timestamped Chapters 00:00 – Introduction and Returning to Psychological Safety 02:11 – Revisiting Risk, Comfort, and Emotional Accommodation 05:48 – Why Engagement Remains Low Despite Psychological Safety Trends 09:20 – Emotional Accommodation and Leadership Validation 13:44 – “Let’s Take This Offline” and Avoiding Tension 19:56 – Facts, Truth, and Competing Perspectives 25:21 – Working Groups and Outsourcing Conflict 28:57 – Anonymous Surveys and Feedback Culture 34:03 – Speaking for Others vs. Helping Them Speak 36:43 – Final Reflections and Taking Interpersonal Risks Key Takeaways Psychological safety is about enabling interpersonal risk, not protecting comfort. Leaders often emotionally accommodate others in ways that reduce honesty and accountability. Avoiding tension does not create trust; engaging it productively does. Common workplace phrases can unintentionally suppress disagreement and delay growth. Anonymous feedback systems may reveal deeper leadership and culture problems. Strong leaders create conditions where people speak for themselves rather than being rescued. Growth-oriented cultures normalize respectful disagreement and direct feedback. Real psychological safety requires both courage and responsibility. Listener Homework Pay attention this week to the language you use when tension or disagreement appears. Notice when you instinctively move conflict offline, soften feedback, outsource decisions, or rescue others from discomfort. Ask yourself: am I responding from principle, or reacting to relieve tension? Choose one conversation this week where you can remain present in the discomfort instead of immediately trying to resolve it. Practice creating space for direct engagement rather than emotional accommodation. Resources Referenced Josh's Article on Psychological Safety on SubstackAmy Edmondson’s book, "The Fearless Organization" on psychological safetyGoogle’s Project Aristotle research
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    36 mins
  • Psychological Safety: Playing It "Safe" When Risk Is the Path Forward

    Psychological Safety: Playing It "Safe" When Risk Is the Path Forward
    May 5 2026

    In this episode of Leadership Limbo, Josh Hugo and John Clark take on one of the most widely used—and often misunderstood—terms in modern leadership: psychological safety. While the concept has become a cornerstone of team culture conversations, this discussion challenges how it is being interpreted and applied in today’s workplace.

    The episode begins by examining a growing tension: by many measurable standards, society is objectively safer than it has ever been. Yet in workplaces, leaders and teams increasingly report feeling less safe—less heard, less respected, and less able to speak up. This disconnect raises an important question: what do we actually mean when we say “safety”?

    Josh and John ground the conversation in the original intent of psychological safety—the ability to take interpersonal risks such as speaking up, challenging ideas, admitting mistakes, and asking for help. However, they argue that in practice, the concept has often drifted away from risk and toward comfort. And when safety becomes synonymous with comfort, something essential is lost.

    A central theme of the episode is the inherent contradiction between safety and risk. True growth, innovation, and healthy team dynamics require discomfort. If individuals feel completely comfortable, they are likely not taking meaningful risks. This creates a dangerous pattern in organizations where teams prioritize agreement over challenge, harmony over honesty, and comfort over growth.

    The conversation explores how this dynamic leads to emotional accommodation—where leaders and teams avoid difficult conversations in order to maintain short-term comfort. While often well-intentioned, this approach ultimately erodes trust, weakens accountability, and limits development. Instead of creating safe environments, it creates fragile ones.

    Josh and John also highlight the role of leaders in this tension. Leaders are not responsible for eliminating discomfort, but for creating conditions where people can take risks and know they will not be punished for doing so. This requires a shift from protecting comfort to building resilience, responsibility, and mutual accountability within teams.

    The episode ultimately reframes psychological safety not as the absence of discomfort, but as the presence of trust, challenge, and growth. It sets the stage for a deeper exploration in the next episode, where the focus will shift toward practical ways leaders can build truly healthy team environments.

    Timestamped Chapters

    00:00 – Introduction to Leadership Limbo and Hosts 04:02 – Why Psychological Safety Became a Leadership Focus 07:13 – Are We Actually Safer Than Before? 10:01 – The Tension Between Safety and Risk 15:07 – Defining Psychological Safety (Amy Edmondson) 20:01 – Why Comfort Is Not the Goal 23:11 – Emotional Accommodation in Teams 28:17 – Agreement vs. Challenge in Organizations 33:41 – Leadership Responsibility and Risk-Taking 39:44 – The Problem with Over-Accommodation 41:49 – Closing Reflections and What Comes Next

    Key Takeaways

    Psychological safety is about enabling risk, not preserving comfort.

    Safety and risk are inherently linked—growth requires discomfort.

    Organizations often drift toward agreement and harmony at the expense of honest challenge.

    Emotional accommodation can weaken teams by avoiding necessary tension.

    Leaders are responsible for creating conditions where risk is possible, not where discomfort is eliminated.

    True safety means people can speak up without punishment, not without disagreement.

    Over-protecting individuals can reduce accountability and limit growth.

    Healthy teams balance support with challenge.

    Listener Homework

    Reflect on your last team conversation where there was clear disagreement or potential for it. Ask yourself: did I lean toward comfort or toward growth?

    Identify one moment this week where you can take a small interpersonal risk—whether that is asking a harder question, offering a different perspective, or naming a concern. Pay attention not just to what you say, but to how you respond when others challenge you.

    The goal is not to eliminate discomfort, but to build your capacity to stay engaged within it.

    Resources Referenced

    Amy Edmondson’s research on psychological safety

    Concepts from Edwin Friedman’s Failure of Nerve

    Jonathan Haidt's and The Anxious Generation
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    41 mins
  • Leadership Limbo Conversations: Suzi Lantz on Leadership Architecture, Self-Awareness, and Building Healthy Cultures

    Leadership Limbo Conversations: Suzi Lantz on Leadership Architecture, Self-Awareness, and Building Healthy Cultures
    Apr 28 2026
    Episode Overview In this episode of Leadership Limbo, Josh Hugo and John Clark sit down with Suzi Lantz, leadership consultant, executive coach, and CEO of Personal Peak Consulting, and Co-Founder of Oxygen to explore the intersection of self-awareness, behavior change, and organizational culture. Suzi’s journey begins in education, where her experience teaching and coaching middle school students shaped her understanding of human development. What started as a desire to impact students evolved into a deeper curiosity about how people grow—and what prevents them from doing so. That curiosity ultimately led her into leadership development, where she now works with organizations to design cultures that don’t just look good on paper, but actually develop people over time. A central theme of the conversation is the concept of “wet cement”—the idea that while early life experiences shape us, leaders always have the opportunity to return to a more pliable state. Suzi challenges the notion that leadership behaviors are fixed, emphasizing instead that growth requires self-awareness, honesty, and a willingness to revisit formative experiences that continue to influence how we lead. The discussion moves into behavior change, where Suzi reframes it not as correction, but as awareness and control. Leaders are not trying to become someone entirely different; they are learning to understand their tendencies and harness them appropriately depending on the context. This shift from judgment to understanding is what allows behavior change to become sustainable. From there, the conversation expands into leadership architecture—the systems and environments that either enable or inhibit leadership growth. Suzi shares a critical insight: even the healthiest individual leader cannot thrive in an unhealthy system. This realization drove her work beyond individual coaching and into helping organizations intentionally design cultures that support development at scale. The episode highlights what strong cultures actually look like in practice. They invest in people development as a core function, not an afterthought. They operate with clear, lived values that shape behavior. And they maintain a disciplined commitment to protecting those values, even when it requires difficult decisions. The conversation also addresses the current leadership landscape, where uncertainty, social pressure, and constant change have created a sense of paralysis for many leaders. Suzi emphasizes that the answer is not more control or more certainty, but a deeper sense of internal security. Leaders who are grounded in who they are—who can offer calm, clarity, and presence—create stability for others, even in chaotic environments. The episode closes with a powerful reminder that leadership is not about having all the answers. It is about knowing yourself, staying curious, and creating the conditions for others to grow. Timestamped Chapters 00:00 – Introduction to Leadership Limbo and Hosts 07:14 – Suzi’s Background in Education and Coaching 13:05 – The “Wet Cement” Concept and Human Development 18:01 – Behavior Change Through Self-Awareness 22:06 – What Is Leadership Architecture? 24:00 – Why Healthy Leaders Struggle in Unhealthy Systems 26:52 – The Current State of Organizational Leadership 31:25 – Leading with Presence, Security, and Calm 35:08 – What Strong Cultures Actually Do Differently 41:10 – The Role of Principles in Leadership Development 47:25 – Leading Through Change and Uncertainty 50:33 – Personal Leadership Advice and Self-Reflection 54:22 – A Leader Who Inspired Suzi 58:00 – Final Reflections and Closing Key Takeaways Leadership development begins with self-awareness, not behavior correction. Past experiences shape leadership, but they do not have to define it. Behavior change is about understanding and harnessing tendencies, not eliminating them. Healthy individuals cannot thrive in unhealthy systems—culture matters. Strong organizations invest in people development as a core strategy. Values must be lived and protected, not just stated. Leaders create stability through presence and internal security, not certainty. Curiosity is one of the most important traits a leader can develop. Listener Homework Identify one behavior you tend to default to under pressure. Instead of labeling it as good or bad, ask: what is driving this behavior? What need is underneath it? Then, practice noticing when that behavior shows up this week. In one moment, choose to respond differently—not by forcing change, but by intentionally adjusting how you express it. Focus on awareness and control, not perfection. Resources Referenced Work from Oxygen and leadership development frameworks Liz Fosslien’s leadership illustrations on change and communication Maya Angelou and I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings
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    57 mins
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