Recently, in a two-week period, on seventeen separate occasions I have been asked this very question. Specifically, this question was asked about two individuals that I am working with, in two very different organizations. The frequency was so high that it caused me to keep track in my agenda notebook; it is a questioned that is often asked, but usually once or twice.

Let’s look a bit at these two situations. In one of the organizations the individual in question is the CEO. This privately held organization is small, yet highly sophisticated and enormously successful. This particular organization provides very a unique service and can save the companies that hire them millions of dollars, dramatically reduce time to market, and if executed well, can significantly beat the competition to the marketplace. The second individual is the senior officer managing a global business unit with just over two billion in revenues. This organization is highly structured, formalized, and staffed with senior executives of lengthy tenure.

In both instances I have been brought in to consult with each of these companies on the direction, goals, strategy, and design of their organizations, as well as the level of executive effectiveness, capability, and resilience possessed by these two individuals.

While the specific details of each situation are not critical to understanding the dynamics of each circumstance, what is important is the frequency of expressed doubt of possible change and the statements of skepticism that either of these individuals has the capability and capacity for further individual and personal growth. While each of these executives in question have, in the past, shown great ability to rise to the occasion, their current ability and/or potential for change is questioned on nearly all fronts and the implications of such doubt pile on as an additional obstacle.

What I also see in these two instances is that the person raising the doubt and question removes himself or herself from the situation at hand. It seems like a desire or strategy for separation. In both cases, this separation is coming from people who work quite closely with the individual, and in one case it’s the individual’s manager. How is it that those raising the doubts or questions fail to see themselves as part of the organization system?

Let’s focus on the head of the global business unit for a moment. He is seen as extremely business savvy, and in his past role successfully changed a smaller and somewhat floundering business unit into a major revenue contributor. He built a highly effective management team, so that when he was promoted to his current role, the business unit he left did not miss a beat.

However, what he quickly learned in his new role was that nearly every attribution of praise and rational for how he had built the success of the past business unit, was being conveyed as a potential flaw, criticism, or “watch out” in his new role. This was very confusing to him, isn’t past behavior and results a predictor of future success? He started to doubt, over rationalize, and isolate himself.

In the situation of the CEO, he felt and believed that no one in the organization understood what needed to be done, what needed to be put into place, what strategy needed to be followed, or the how to make an organization successful. In truth, he felt the entire enterprise, its success, and its future lay clearly on his shoulders and that no one else understood.

While it was widely believed he is an intelligent and business savvy individual, few shared his self-view of his capability. At nearly every turn, there is a continual tug-of-war with what he believes needs to be done and the views of his management team. Tempers have flared and highly charged interactions have become commonplace to the point where nearly all communications between the CEO and his management team are done completely through email and voice mail. To add further complexity, the CEO spends less than a day each week at the company corporate headquarters.

In both of these situations, as I listened to their stories of what was taking place in their respective businesses, their worries for the future, and the frustrations they were experiencing, it became clear that each felt deeply separated and alone. They were not connected to their organizations or the people they worked with.

I believe it was Samuel Johnson who once said a statement to the effect that, “Nothing clear the senses like knowing you are going to hang in the morning.” What is it about knowing when one’s life is in its final moments that we might actually be able to make different choices when we realize the time that we have remaining might be relatively short.

From a metaphorical view, the global business unit executive understood this. He took to heart that he needed to do things differently. In many ways he used his existing talents and further develop his capability to catalyze others. In their book, The Starfish and the Spider, 2006 by Ori Brafman and Rod Beckstrom, they describe the role of the “catalyst” and how catalysts seek to inspire others into action. This executive began to more clearly see that the role he was given as a result of his promotion was fundamentally different than the one he had previously. He needed to learn to network across a series of key stakeholders and key functional leaders.

He learned the hard way that a more effective strategy was to find ways to increase the involvement and broaden the network of these key stakeholders in problem solving and decision making, rather than trying to convince them that he had the right answer and knew exactly what to do – even if his proposal was right on target.

As he proceeded and progressed in more effectively including stakeholders and creating ways for others to make meaningful and substantive contributions, many of his more ardent critics started to express what they needed to do differently and how they needed to demonstrate greater support and inclusion of the executive previously in question. While not all consider making these types of changes in the same way, each registered the positive changes they saw in the executive they said would never change.

As for the CEO of the privately held organization, he decided to increase and exercise more and more control.