Listening note

This episode explores good intentions, ethical leadership, power, organisational politics and the consequences of changing established arrangements.

You’re invited to listen with curiosity and notice where doing what feels fair, helpful or necessary may also change something for the people around you.

Not because your intention is wrong.

Because no meaningful act of leadership is politically neutral.

Episode overview

There is a sentence leaders often reach for when a decision made with care creates an unexpected reaction:

But I was only trying to do the right thing.

Perhaps you make a process fairer, only to unsettle someone who believed an opportunity was already theirs. You distribute work more equitably, and the people who had relied on another person’s invisible labour suddenly feel the inconvenience. You widen participation, increase transparency or protect an overwhelmed team—and discover that an action intended to help has altered influence, certainty, access or control elsewhere in the system.

That doesn’t necessarily mean the decision was wrong.

It means the decision changed an arrangement.

In this episode, Ros explores why good intentions cannot determine how an action will be experienced. Intentions live inside us. Other people encounter what our actions change for them—and the practical and symbolic meaning they attach to that change.

Resistance may reveal self-interest, territoriality or a desire to preserve an unfair advantage. It may also contain legitimate information about timing, workload, risk, trust or consequences we have not yet considered. Often, several of these things are true at once.

Through the four empowered Women’s Leader Archetypes, Ros examines how different forms of leadership energy move an organisational system. The Sovereign creates clarity and changes who can operate within ambiguity. The Warrior creates momentum and changes people’s positions. The Wise Woman names patterns and changes what can remain unseen. The Tribe Builder widens participation and changes whose voice carries influence.

These consequences are not reasons to distrust your strengths or make yourself smaller. They are invitations to exercise power more consciously.

Political intelligence does not ask us to abandon our values or make every difficult decision universally comfortable. It asks us to recognise the terrain our values will move through. When we can distinguish information that should influence a decision from discomfort that simply needs to be carried, we can remain open without becoming directionless—and principled without becoming morally certain.

Good intentions matter.

But they are the beginning of responsibility, not the end.

In this episode

• Why good intentions do not make a leadership action politically neutral
• The difference between what you meant and what your action changed
• How fairer processes can disrupt expectations, influence and informal advantage
• Why practical consequences and symbolic meaning both shape people’s responses
• How moral certainty can narrow a thoughtful leader’s field of vision
• The different ways Sovereign, Warrior, Wise Woman and Tribe Builder energy move a system
• How to listen to resistance without automatically retreating or hardening
• The second-order question that reveals what a necessary action may require

Reflection prompts

• Where might you be relying on the goodness of your intention to explain an action for you?
• If your action works exactly as intended, what will become different for everyone else?
• Who may gain or lose influence, certainty, access, control or room to manoeuvre?
• What consequence might need to be acknowledged, prepared for or consciously carried?

There’s nothing to fix here.

Only patterns to recognise.

Download the free companion Field Guide

The Episode 10 Field Guide will help you apply the second-order question to a real decision or action of your own. You’ll map what the action may change, explore how different people might interpret that movement and decide what needs to be handled, carried or reconsidered.

👉 Download the Episode 10 Field Guide:

https://www.courses.shapingchange.com.au/womens-programs-homepage

What’s next

🎧 Next episode: Executive Presence Is Not What You Think

What allows you to remain anchored when the atmosphere changes, someone challenges you, or the response is not what you expected?

Executive presence may be less about appearing endlessly confident—and more about what becomes possible when you can stay present without abandoning yourself.

Want to see the frameworks being discussed?

I’ve published a set of short explainer videos on YouTube that visually walk through the leadership models and archetypal dynamics referenced in this podcast—including the Women’s Leader Archetypes.

You can explore those here:

👉 https://www.youtube.com/@ArchetypeEffectPodcast

These are designed to complement the podcast, not replace it—offering a visual anchor for the concepts we’re unpacking together.

Stay connected

Follow The Archetype Effect for conversations on feminine leadership, power, authority and presence.

Instagram: @archetypeeffectpodcast

Website: https://www.womensleaderarchetypes.com.au

Working with organisations

This work is applied through leadership development and executive coaching with individuals and organisations via Shaping Change.

Learn more at: https://www.shapingchange.com.au

[00:00:23] There's a sentence that often appears after a workplace decision has gone unexpectedly sideways. It's usually said with some confusion, sometimes with frustration, and sometimes with genuine hurt. "But I was only trying to do the right thing."

[00:01:15] Her intention is fairness. She expects the decision to be welcomed. But the person who thought the opportunity was already theirs feels as though something has been taken away. The senior leader, who had been advocating for them, feels that their judgment is being questioned. Another manager worries that if one of their strongest people applies successfully, they will be left carrying the gap.

[00:02:19] It means the decision was not politically neutral. Because the leader did more than open an opportunity, she changed an arrangement, she altered expectations, she redistributed possibility. She interrupted a process that had been working rather well for some people, even if it had never been particularly fair for everyone else. This is something we don't talk about enough in leadership.

[00:03:19] Sometimes helping one person changes something for another. Sometimes making a process fairer removes an advantage that somebody had quietly come to regard as theirs. And sometimes the resistance we meet is not evidence our intention was wrong. It's evidence that our action had consequences.

[00:04:02] But we sometimes ask our intentions to do something they can't do. We expect them to determine how our actions will be understood. If I meant to help, surely you will experience my action as helpful. If I was trying to be fair, surely you will recognise the decision as fair. If I acted with integrity, surely the people around me will understand this was the right thing to do.

[00:04:55] Protecting an overwhelmed team may be an act of responsible leadership, while someone more senior experiences the same decision as a lack of commitment. The intention can be genuine, the consequence can also be genuine. One doesn't cancel out the other.

[00:05:44] If I've thought carefully enough, if I've acted fairly enough, if I've considered everyone else, then perhaps no one can reasonably object. And when someone does object, the instinct is often to explain the intention again. "I was only trying to help. I was trying to make it fair. I genuinely believe this would be better for everyone."

[00:06:33] That doesn't mean we should be suspicious of our own motives. It doesn't mean every act of integrity needs to be reduced to a calculation about winners and losers. And it certainly doesn't mean we should stop doing something necessary simply because it may create discomfort.

[00:07:24] When I use the word arrangement, I mean the way things have come to work. Who's consulted before a decision's made? Who hears information first? Whose opinion carries weight? Who's expected to step in when something goes wrong? Who gets the opportunities? Who absorbs the inconvenience? Some of these arrangements are formal, but many aren't. They develop gradually through habit, relationships, and repeated choices. Eventually, they begin to feel natural, even when they work much better for some people than for others.

[00:08:29] Let's go back for a moment to the leader who opened that development opportunity to everyone. On the surface, she changed a selection process. Underneath, she changed much more. She interrupted an unspoken promise between a senior sponsor and their preferred candidate. She reduced the sponsor's ability to influence the outcome privately. She introduced uncertainty for someone who believed the opportunity was already theirs. She created possibility for people who'd previously assumed they would never be considered. And she may have exposed something uncomfortable about how opportunities have been allocated in the past. One decision moves several parts of the system at once.

[00:10:11] A leader may share information more openly because she values transparency, but openness changes the position of people who'd previously held influence because they controlled what others knew. She may bring more voices into a decision because she genuinely wants inclusion. But widening participation also changes who has access, whose perspective matters, and who can no longer shape the outcome in quite the same way.

[00:11:09] The manager who may lose a capable team member still has work to deliver. The person who expected the opportunity may have received signals that reasonably led them to believe it was theirs. The people questioning the new process may have lived through previous consultations that appeared open but changed nothing. Not every objection is self-interest disguised as principle.

[00:12:01] The practical impact of an action matters, but so does its symbolic meaning. A transparent process may not only say, "We want everyone to have an opportunity," it may also be heard as, "The way we made these decisions before is no longer acceptable." Requesting evidence may not only say, "We need to make a sound decision," it may also be heard as, "Your recommendation is no longer enough."

[00:12:58] It tells us the action touched something, an expectation, a relationship, a source of influence, a sense of identity, a degree of control, a way of working that somebody had come to depend upon. Once we can see what moved, the reaction becomes less mysterious. We no longer have to reduce it to, "They just don't like change," and we don't have to reduce ourselves to, "I must have handled it badly."

[00:13:47] There's another reason good intentions can be politically difficult. The more obviously right an action feels to us, the less curious we may become about how other people experience it. If I see a decision as fair, someone who objects can begin to look like they're opposed to fairness. If I see a change as progress, hesitation can look like resistance to progress.

[00:14:59] This is one of the risks of being convinced we're doing the right thing. Certainty can narrow our field of vision. We become so focussed on the merit of the destination that we stop examining the way we intend to get there.

[00:15:37] You can see this in organisational change. A leader introduces a new accountability process because standards have become inconsistent. It seems entirely reasonable, but the people expected to implement it may already be operating at capacity. They may not be opposed to accountability at all. They may be concerned that another process will consume time without addressing the reasons performance has become inconsistent in the first place.

[00:16:27] A leadership team commits to greater transparency. But if leaders share uncertainty without explaining how decisions will be made, people may feel less secure rather than more informed. The intention isn't wrong, but intention alone can't carry the complexity of implementation.

[00:17:38] It asks us to distinguish between discomfort that comes from losing an unfair advantage and concern that reveals something important. Between resistance designed to preserve control and resistance that identifies a genuine risk. Between someone rejecting the purpose and someone questioning the way the purpose is being pursued. Those distinctions are important because without them, we tend to move towards one of two extremes. We either treat every negative reaction as something we need to soothe and resolve, or we dismiss every negative reaction as resistance from people who simply don't understand. Neither response requires us to learn very much.

[00:18:49] Human motives are rarely completely pure. That's true of the people resisting the decision. It's also true of the person making it. Our good intentions may sit alongside ambition, frustration, urgency, pride, or the desire to be seen as the person who finally fixed the problem. That doesn't make the intention dishonest. It makes it human.

[00:19:48] Our answer to that question is often shaped by the kind of leadership energy we instinctively trust. Because we're rarely suspicious of our strengths, they feel natural to us. They're often connected to our values and to the qualities other people have praised in us. So we notice the good they're intended to create. We may be less likely to notice what they disturb.

[00:21:30] Then there's Warrior energy. The Warrior sees what needs to happen and creates movement. She acts. She challenges delay. She addresses the issue everyone's been circling and turns discussion into decision. Her intention may be responsibility, progress, protecting the organisation from the cost of continued inaction. But movement changes position. When she steps forward, somebody may feel bypassed. When she accelerates a decision, someone may feel they've lost the opportunity to shape it. When she names a performance problem directly, she may expose not only the person whose performance is in question, but the leaders who allowed it to continue. The action may be necessary, the urgency may be justified, but pace has political consequences. So does accountability.

[00:23:45] And then there's Tribe Builder energy. The Tribe Builder brings people together. She creates connection, invites participation, and looks for ways to ensure that people feel heard. Her intention is inclusion. She wants decisions to be informed by the people they affect. She wants to strengthen relationships rather than impose solutions from a distance. But inclusion also changes an arrangement. When new voices enter the conversation, the existing voices occupy less of it. When participation widens, influence is redistributed. When people are invited to contribute, they may reasonably expect their contribution to matter, even when the final decision can't reflect everyone's view. Bringing people together doesn't remove politics. Sometimes it makes the politics more visible, because now we can see whose voice is welcomed, whose perspective is taken seriously, who's interrupted, who's expected to compromise, and whose disagreement is treated as a problem to be managed.

[00:25:48] This is important because the purpose of the Archetypes is not to make women wary of their own power. It's to help us recognise how that power works. Your strength does not become a flaw because somebody reacts to it. Your leadership is not automatically misguided because it disrupts an established arrangement. But once you understand the kind of movement your strength creates, you're less likely to be blindsided by the response.

[00:27:04] Once we can do that, we face another choice. When a necessary action creates discomfort, do we retreat from it? Do we harden against the people affected by it? Or is there a way to remain both politically aware and anchored in our integrity?

[00:28:21] At the other extreme, we can harden. We can decide that because our purpose is right, the response is irrelevant. People are resisting, protecting their territory, failing to see the bigger picture, so we push through without curiosity. Good intention becomes a form of moral authority. I know this is right, and therefore, I don't need to examine how I'm exercising power. That's not integrity either.

[00:29:19] The leader from our opening story doesn't need to withdraw the open selection process because people are unsettled by it. But she might need to acknowledge that expectations had already been created. She might speak directly with the person who believed the opportunity was theirs, rather than expecting them to absorb the change without reacting.

[00:30:10] This is where political intelligence becomes part of ethical leadership. Political intelligence is not how we make a difficult action universally palatable. It's how we stop pretending the action is neutral. It helps us recognise when consultation is needed, but also when consultation has become an attempt to avoid responsibility. It helps us listen to resistance without assuming that every objection deserves the power to stop the decision, and it helps prepare for consequences without treating other people's discomfort as something we need to always prevent. Sometimes after we've listened and understood, the decision will remain exactly the same. Someone will still be disappointed. An established arrangement will still end. A person may still lose influence, certainty, or advantage.

[00:31:39] Integrity is not about the absence of consequences. It's revealed in how honestly we see them, how responsibly we handle them, and what we're prepared to carry in service of the decision. That needs more than asking whether our intention is good. It requires us to look one step further beyond what we hope the action will achieve towards what will become different if it succeeds.

[00:32:58] Who will carry work they weren't carrying before? Who will have more influence? Who will have less? Who may lose certainty, access or control? Whose relationships will need to change? What will people no longer be able to rely on? And what new possibility might become available to someone who didn't have it before?

[00:33:56] The question doesn't tell the leader to reverse the decision. It helps us see what the decision will require. Perhaps an expectation needs to be acknowledged rather than ignored. Perhaps an operational risk needs a plan. Perhaps people need enough information to trust that the process is real. Perhaps the leader simply needs to be prepared for disappointment without interpreting it as proof that she's acted unfairly.

[00:35:09] Good intentions tell us where we hope to go. The second-order question helps us see the terrain we'll move through to get there, and once we can see that terrain, we have more choice. We can act with foresight rather than surprise, with empathy rather than appeasement, with steadiness rather than defensiveness. The action may still be difficult. Someone may still disagree, but we're no longer relying on the goodness of our intention to carry the decision for us. We're taking responsibility for the movement it creates. Because leadership with integrity is not leadership that somehow avoids having an impact on other people. It's leadership that's willing to see that impact clearly. Good intentions matter, but they're the beginning of our responsibility, not the end of it.

[00:36:50] Political intelligence doesn't ask us to abandon our values. It helps us understand what acting on those values will require. I've created a free companion field guide for this episode to help you explore the second-order question in relation to a real decision or an action of your own. You'll find the link in the show notes.

[00:37:47] Thanks for joining me on The Archetype Effect. If this episode sparked an insight, share it with a woman who leads or leave a review so more women can find these conversations. Until next time, lead with purpose and power that feels like you.