Every year, the same sequence. The board of directors sets more ambitious goals than the previous fiscal year. The COMEX breaks them down. Operational leaders receive them. And somewhere in this chain, no one stops to ask the real question: have the conditions to reach these goals been created? Outperformance is not the problem. The way in which it is requested, however, is.
A legacy model that has never been questioned
The logic of increasing performance is structural. It is embedded in shareholder expectations, in quarterly reporting mechanics, in the culture of large listed organizations as well as in family-owned groups that measure their health by the annual growth of their results.
This model has an internal coherence: a company that does not progress moves backward. The competition moves forward, markets transform, customers demand more. The requirement for performance is therefore not irrational. Indeed, in many contexts, it is the only way to remain relevant.
But this model was built at a time when leaders were part of a tacit relationship with their organization: in exchange for their total commitment, personal sacrifices, and limitless availability, they received a predictable career progression, relative security, and strong social recognition.
This implicit contract no longer exists. And no one has taken the trouble to rewrite it.
What I observe in the field
I support organizations in recruiting their C-Level executives. This work places me in a unique position: I see organizations from the inside when they feel the consequences of their leadership choices most strongly.
In a major retail group I supported, monthly reporting to the board had become an exercise in permanent justification. The CEO spent more time preparing for committee meetings than steering his teams. In eighteen months, two COMEX members had left the group. The organization was recruiting replacements in a rush, with profiles chosen too quickly, without checking if the operating conditions had changed in the meantime. They had not.
In a listed industrial group, the N+1 budget was built on growth hypotheses defined by the board even before the field teams had submitted their projections. During the year, a second plan was imposed alongside the first, responding to unanticipated market movements. The executives navigated between two contradictory agendas without ever having a free hand in either.
In a fast-growing family-owned mid-cap, the tension between the CEO and the Chief Financial Officer had been visible for months. It was not interpersonal. It was systemic: two positions whose objectives had been defined in an antagonistic way, with no space for dialogue to reconcile them. The founder, convinced that the tension was "stimulating," had not measured the cost of this friction on the execution capacity of the entire COMEX.
In all three cases, the question was not the competence of the leaders. It was the quality of the conditions in which they were asked to perform.
The new frontiers of work: a signal that leaders have already integrated
There is a signal that HRDs should read carefully, and it does not come from businesses: it comes from society.
The consumption of silent stays, complete digital detox retreats, and unstructured nature trips has exploded among the upper social classes. This is not an anecdotal phenomenon. It is an indicator of saturation. The same profiles who run your organizations, or aspire to run them, are actively looking for spaces of deep recovery because they can no longer find them in their professional lives.
Minimalism is not a lifestyle trend. It is a response to an injunction that has no defined limit. When you don't know where "enough" ends, the only way to regain control is to decide your own limit yourself. And this decision, more and more leaders are making, often to the detriment of their commitment to organizations that would nevertheless need them.
The yoga classes and breathing sessions offered in offices are not without value. But they address a symptom, not a cause. A leader under constant pressure does not need a weekly decompression moment. They need an organization whose structure allows them to carry out their role with real room to maneuver.
Rebuilding the conditions for high performance: the decisive role of the HRD
The question is not to ask less of leaders. It is to ensure that what we ask of them is fundable other than through their own physical and emotional stamina.
Concretely, this engages the HRD on three levels.
Upstream diagnosis: Before starting a recruitment, or before defining the goals of an in-post leader, the question must be asked explicitly: has the organization created the conditions for this position to succeed? This includes the clarity of decision scopes, the consistency between objectives and allocated resources, and the quality of the governance framework surrounding the executive.
Reading early signs: A leader who is disengaging usually does not announce it. They gradually reduce their risk-taking, align with expectations without challenging them, and delegate down decisions they should own. These are not signs of resignation. They are signs of exhaustion of the operational framework. The HRD who knows how to read them can intervene before the situation becomes irreversible.
The board conversation: This is often the most difficult. The HRD must be in a position to bring an honest reading to the board of directors or family shareholders: "The goals you set are achievable, but not under the current conditions. Here is what needs to be changed." This role is not naturally assumed. It implies a posture of strategic partner, not a support function.
Laroze Partners' Perspective
In the executive search missions we lead, we regularly see organizations recruit outstanding profiles under operating conditions that have not been questioned. The outcome is predictable: the recruited executive performs below their potential, or leaves within eighteen months. The organization repeats the same cycle with the same result.
High performance in executives is not an individual attribute that you recruit. It is a result that you build, collectively, by creating the conditions for an exceptional profile to perform what they are capable of.
This is what we seek to understand before each mandate. And that is often where the real work takes place.
Are you an HRD experiencing this type of tension in your organization? Let's take some time to talk. Not to talk about recruitment, but to make the right diagnosis together.
