I was sitting in my boss’s office at HQ during my first week as team Commander in the military peacekeeping mission in Kosovo. The Colonel turned to me and said: “I love you, Urs. You know I do, AND this is not good enough. I know you can do better.”

Like many of you, Linda needed to make the shift from doing it all herself THEN to delegating NOW. Linda’s leadership funeral was a symbolic act of letting go of what was, the THEN leadership, to make room for new possibilities, the NOW leadership.

Why would CEO Mathilde put herself through this nerve-racking experience you might ask? Short answer: Psychological Safety! Performing a musical together as a team is a powerful way to practice THE key element of any high-performance team: psychological safety. Creating and practicing the musical together creates a culture where people can and need to be vulnerable, take risks, make mistakes, fail, try again, fail again and finally improve.

“Open Fire!” I took aim at the target dummy’s head with my handgun, took a shot, took aim and was just about to pull the trigger again when the instructor yelled “Cease Fire, cease fire!” I immediately dropped the gun and glanced sideways at my teammates lined up next to me. The ten of us stood three feet apart.

One of the most powerful ways to build a culture that is tough on results and tender on people is to turn our team into a leadership factory: Making it your explicit goal to produce the next generation of leaders for your organization.

Laura hung up the phone as Paul entered her office. He closed the door slowly and deliberately. He sat down and asked Laura “Have you heard about the payroll spreadsheet?” Laura had no idea what Paul was talking about and looked at him puzzled. “HR accidentally sent the employee payroll to everyone in the company!” Laura’s eyes widened. She gasped “No!?” “Yes”.

By eliminating cigarettes from its stores, CVS embraced the concept of the leadership funeral. The company had the guts and wisdom to let go of THEN beliefs and to lean into new NOW values. As part of that process, they realized that what they had done up to this point would not serve them well going forward.

The response to the Boston Marathon bombings is credited as the most effective and collaborative response to a disaster ever studied. One key reason, according to experts who researched the response, was the leadership of Governor Patrick. It’s exemplified by how he entered the command center each time. Instead of telling people what to do, he would ask: “How can I help?’

The old ways of leading do not reflect new realities and are failing to inspire new generations. Outdated leadership approaches reduce productivity, increase turnover, squash the potential of our people, and ultimately kill profits. But what if the way we lead our teams matched the pace of our rapidly changing world? What if we shifted from top-down, command/control leadership to a more bottom-up, purpose-driven, and human-centered approach?