Unleashing the full human potential in an organization is why forward-looking companies work so hard to create environments of belonging and psychological safety.
By Aaron De Smet, Arne Gast, Johanne Lavoie, and Michael Lurie
Some days, it feels like everything is urgent and nothing is resonating.
Leaders are moving fast, chasing deadlines, running between meetings, switching focus while scrolling through emails on their mobile. It’s part of modern leadership in a state of always powered on or connected in the digital cosmos. But when everything is moving faster than your brain can comprehend, how do you know if you’re steering it all in the right direction?
That’s where situational awareness comes in, not just a sense of what’s happening, but the deeper behavioral currents shaping the room’s mood, the pressure building in a team, and the quiet signals that things are off-track before the data says so.
Executive awareness positions leaders in the middle of all the dynamics. It is an approach to tap into the intelligence system that augments the ability to see, decide, and act. In this space, EAs can amplify this presence by mapping the unseen, filtering the noise, and surfacing what matters.
And when we do that well, we raise more than awareness. We raise velocity. When we operate without situational awareness, especially around calendars and cross-team collaboration, it creates invisible friction that slows down decision-making and drains team energy. Taking the time to step back drives dynamic thinking and altitude agility, ultimately leading to a clearer path to improved velocity and empowered execution..
Let’s take a look at McKinsey’s leadership model which outlines mindset shifts they say leaders need to make and the aligned EA opportunity.
the five shifts reframed for executive impact
| From | To | Executive Implication | EA Opportunity |
|---|---|---|---|
| Profit | Impact | From delivering returns to delivering purpose. | Introduce dashboards that reflect long-term value. |
| Expectations | Wholeness | From performing roles to embodying authenticity. | Design check-ins and syncs that humanize the workplace. |
| Command | Collaboration | From issuing orders to enabling networks. | Map influence networks and facilitate connections across silos. |
| Control | Evolution | From planning for certainty to iterating with agility. | Create agile feedback loops, templates, and debrief spaces. |
| Competition | Co-creation | From guarding turf to building partnerships. | Open the gateway, schedule co-labs, facilitate knowledge exchanges. |
Each shift improves awareness. Each one accelerates velocity. The more clearly a leader sees the system, the faster they can respond with intention. That’s where the EA plays a vital role, supporting the strategic elements of the office and the flow of decisions.
These shifts don’t happen in a strategy document. They show up in habits. Leaders must be conditioned to see and move differently. Stop normalizing inefficiency. If a leader is still chasing performance metrics at the expense of purpose, the EA is the one who can help reframe the calendar, balancing workstream updates with time spent listening to customers or visiting frontline teams. That’s impact in motion.
Or wholeness. It’s the EA who senses when a team is drained, not saying what they need to say. Maybe we open the next team sync with a two-minute check-in. Maybe we delay the project update and make space for someone to share what’s really on their mind. That small move shifts the whole tone, unlocks trust and signals concern for well-being.
EAs also have a pulse on what’s not being said. They notice the third time someone stays quiet in a meeting. We hear the hesitation in a follow-up email. We see the facial expression in a video is actually a stress signal. We carry this awareness, not to be surveillance, as a natural human risk radar that activates when the environmental frequency feels off.
We pick up signals, surface patterns, and protect time for dynamic thinking. We know when to ask, direct delegation or hit pause. That’s how velocity works. It’s not rushing. It’s moving with intention.
EAs are an executive radar extender. They help leaders see what’s ahead and what’s in the way. Filter out the noise. Create the space where deep work can happen. Define a new approach. Turn calendar complexity into a measurable system, and guide executives to higher-altitude engagement through data-backed situational awareness. This will naturally increase velocity by reducing distractions that drain everyone’s energy.
Raise the altitude. Sharpen the awareness. Help your leader move not faster, but with intention.
Case Study: the five shifts reframed for executive Impact
Scenario: Zoey, the senior executive assistant to the CEO at Empowering Titans, spearheaded a transformative shift from traditional operational methods to a digital-based agile environment, significantly enhancing efficiency and data integrity within the organization. She leaned on the five shifts to model a new approach and built out templates for the leaders to use across the organization.
Profit → Impact = Stakeholder-First Calendar Engineering
Context: A tech CEO was overwhelmed with investor updates, operational meetings, and back-to-back internal reviews. The executive’s calendar reflected shareholder-first priorities.
EA review: Zoey conducted a calendar audit and restructured it to reflect broader impact, added quarterly customer feedback sessions, social impact briefings, and employee-led town halls.
Result: The CEO became a more visible, purpose-driven leader. Employee net promotor score [eNPS] rose from 4 to 8. Stakeholders noticed and applauded the shift.
💡 Add a “stakeholder quadrant” to calendar planning that includes customers, community, employees, investors. Ensure every month touches each.
Expectations → Wholeness = Ritualizing Realness
Context: A senior executive felt disconnected from their hybrid team. Zoom fatigue and robotic updates ruled team meetings.
EA review: Zoey introduced a “3P Check-In” at the start of weekly team meetings: Personal, Professional, Purpose. 2-minute updates from each member. Also scheduled monthly “unscripted” circles.
Result: Psychological safety soared. Employees began surfacing challenges earlier. The executive started modeling more vulnerability.
💡 As an EA, propose weekly space for wholeness: 1:1 walk-and-talks, gratitude notes, or mood check-ins.
Command → Collaboration = from Gatekeeper to Gateway
Context: A COO operated through top-down directives. Team morale was low, and cross-functional efforts stalled in bottlenecks.
EA review: Zoey quietly mapped the informal influence network across the org—who people naturally turned to for insight and decisions. They began looping in key cross-functional peers earlier in the COO’s meetings and created shared docs for real-time co-authoring.
Result: Decision-making accelerated, teams felt more ownership, and the COO became known as a connector versus a commander.
💡 Map the executive’s “influence net.” Use tools like Miro or Notion to visualize who shapes what. Elevate hidden influencers into the room.
Control → Evolution = Building the Debrief Muscle
Context: A regional VP clung tightly to quarterly planning cycles, frustrated when change derailed execution. Micro-pivots caused anxiety.
EA review: Zoey built a simple “experiment log” and facilitated bi-weekly micro-debriefs: What worked? What didn’t? What’s next? This evolved into a rhythm where learnings, not plans, drove forward motion.
Result: The team normalized change. Adaptation became proactive. The VP stopped over-orchestrating and started seeding experiments.
💡 Set up a recurring 15-minute “What did we learn this week?” moment. Capture it in shared notes. Look for patterns.
Competition → Co-creation = the Innovation Lab
Context: A product leader was stuck in “win-the-market” mode, treating every external org as a rival even those with shared goals.
EA review: Zoey noticed potential in an industry contact and proposed a joint innovation session. She set up a 2-hour design sprint with both teams. The outcome formed a collaborative pilot.
Result: The executive began prioritizing partnership. The team created intellectual property [IP] they could never have built alone and the external brand equity multiplied.
💡Keep a “relationship radar.” When you hear resonance with external contacts, flag it. Propose cross-org jams to co-create, not compete.
