So, your leader is a disaster, a mess, a full-blown – walking, talking, liability to the organization. You sit in meetings watching your leader fumble their way through conversations, derail important discussions, and undo months of work with a single offhand comment. Meanwhile, you, the long-suffering follower, are sitting there, jaw clenched, thinking:

How? How is this person in charge? How do they keep getting away with this?

I get it. You’re mad. You’re exasperated. Maybe even a little hopeless. But before we go any further, I need you to entertain a radical idea:

The problem might not just be them.

Oh, I’m not saying they’re crushing this leadership thing. But leaders don’t operate in a vacuum. The people around them – their team, their direct reports, their advisors (yes, that means you) – create a system that influences their behavior.

They aren’t just incompetent, or narcissists, or oblivious buffoons. Most leaders are trying to do a good job. But leaders don’t get clean, unfiltered feedback. They get reactions. They get subtle resistance, eyerolls, and disengagement. They get a team that tunes them out, rushes them along, or doesn’t step in when they go off track.

In other words, the leader you’re frustrated with – they might be bad at leading and you might be bad at following.

This is where followership – real followership – comes in. Not the “yes-man” nonsense. Not the jump, how high? routine. Real followership is about being an active partner in the process, not a passive victim of bad leadership.

Step One: Manage Yourself First (Before You Burn It All Down)

Before you start planning an internal coup, let’s get a grip on your own reaction. Because right now – you’re probably spiraling. Maybe you’re convinced this is proof of some deep organizational dysfunction. Maybe you’re mentally updating your resume. Take a breath!

One of the best pieces of advice on handling high-pressure situations comes from Dr. Dan Dworkis, an emergency physician and the author of The Emergency Mind. In his interview on the Coaching for Leaders podcast (Episode 701, How to Handle High-Pressure Situations), he talks about the ER mindset:

“Emergencies aren’t just worse bad days. The only way out is through.”

That means step one isn’t wishing things were different. It’s accepting reality. You have this leader, this situation, this moment. The question is: What are you going to do with it?

And let’s be clear – stewing in frustration isn’t an option. You can either act skillfully, or you can contribute to the dysfunction.

Step Two: The Art of the Subtle Save (Improv and Emergency)

Slightly lower stakes than an ER, but you’ve seen bad improv, right? Someone gets up on stage, starts floundering, and it’s painful to watch. A good improv partner doesn’t stop the scene and say, Hey, you’re terrible at this or register their disgust through passive eye rolling. They jump in, redirect, and gently course-correct until the scene works.

Your team meeting is the improv show. Your leader – they’re struggling on stage. And you – you need to step in without making them look incompetent.

Your team meeting? Same principle.

If your leader is spiraling, rambling, or losing the thread, you can’t just stand there waiting for it to crash. You need to jump in skillfully. Not in a way that makes them look foolish. Not in a way that stops the show. But in a way that saves the production.

How to Keep the Team on Track Without Making It Worse

Back to the ER. Borrowing from Dr. Dworkis’ ER Mindset, here’s what actually works:

Label the Problem Clearly (Without Calling Them Out) – The team needs to be working on the same issue. Try:

“I think what we’re really trying to solve here is X. Let’s focus on that.”
“Just to clarify, the key takeaway we need is…”

Use Graduated Pressure – Don’t hammer them with full-force correction. Instead, gently steer with:

“That’s an interesting perspective, and to build on that…”
“Circling back to our key goal, how do we align this with…”

Acknowledge the Mess, Keep Moving – When things are falling apart, deadpan humor helps. In emergency rooms, doctors say things like “Well, this is suboptimal.” It diffuses tension and signals forward motion.

In your case, try: “Looks like we’ve got a few different takes on this. Let’s align on the key next step.”

And most importantly…

Same Team. Same Objective.

Your leader isn’t your opponent. They’re struggling. If you treat them like the enemy, they’ll respond accordingly – with defensiveness, stubbornness, or even more off-track behavior. Your job is to stabilize, not escalate.

Step Three: The Private Feedback Loop (Good Mission, Bad Method)

Publicly, you make it work. Privately, you make it better.

The key to giving feedback to someone who holds positional power over you is framing it in terms of effectiveness, not personality. You’re not attacking them, you’re helping them align with their own needs and the company’s goals.

But before you jump into feedback mode, you need to understand something critical: Your leader has a good reason for what they’re doing.

Now, is it a good method? Probably not. That’s why we’re here. But leaders rarely wake up thinking, How can I derail my team today? More likely, they’re rushing, overwhelmed, juggling too much, or reacting to unseen pressures.

They have a good mission – keep the company growing, hit targets, drive results. But they’re using a bad method – losing focus, steamrolling discussions, mismanaging their team’s energy.

If you start from this understanding, your feedback becomes helpful, not confrontational.

How to Give Feedback That Actually Works

Frame It in Terms of Effectiveness – You’re not critiquing them, you’re helping them succeed.
“I noticed in the meeting, the conversation drifted away from our core objective. We lost some momentum on [goal]. How can we tighten that up next time?”
“One thing I think could help land your points better is [adjustment]. That way, we keep the team engaged and on track.”
“I know you’re juggling a lot, so I wanted to flag that [specific behavior] seemed to create some confusion. I think we can smooth that out by…”

And here’s where the systemic part comes back in: Your leader is reacting to you, just as you are reacting to them.

If you sigh, disengage, or mentally check out, they feel it. Maybe they rush more. Maybe they double down. Maybe they start over-explaining. And before you know it, you’re both reinforcing each other’s worst behaviors.

You have to break that cycle.

Step Four: Stop Feeding the Feedback Loop of Doom

Now, here’s the part you probably don’t want to hear.

You, dear frustrated follower, are part of the system. And the system is reactive. Your leader is reacting to you, just as you are reacting to them.

Every sigh, every eyeroll, every little micro-deflation of energy is reinforcing their behavior. They feel your disappointment, your doubt, your barely concealed exasperation. And guess what? That makes them double down, get defensive, or spiral into even worse behavior.

So, if you want a better leader, start by being a better follower. Not by being a sycophant, but by changing the energy you bring to the table. Set them up for wins, frame feedback productively, and stop passively reinforcing the dynamics you hate.

Final Thoughts: Welcome to the Human Condition

Bad leadership exists. It always has, and it always will. It’s not a glitch – it’s a feature of organizations because leadership is a high-stakes, high-pressure, often impossible job.

But here’s the thing – so is followership.

This isn’t a leader problem or a follower problem. It’s a relationship problem. A chemistry issue. Leadership and followership exist in the same system, constantly influencing one another. You don’t get to sit in the audience, arms crossed, complaining about how bad the performance is. You’re in the scene with them.

So, you have two choices: