Throw Away The 9-Box: There's A Better Way To Build Leaders

We’ve turned leadership development into an elaborate circus. Entire industries profit from convincing organizations that leadership is some mystical art requiring endless assessments, frameworks, and color‑coded diagnostics. And we’ve bought into it enthusiastically.

From 9‑Box matrices to DiSC to 360 feedback to EQ scoring, we’ve created a world where leadership potential supposedly lives inside a template. The real tragedy isn’t that these tools exist, it’s that we actually believe they work.

The result? Leaders and HR teams paralyzed, over‑engineered talent processes, and organizations terrified of choosing the “wrong” model. We’ve mistaken complexity for sophistication.

Worse, we’ve allowed these tools to distract us from a much simpler truth: leadership development fails not because our people lack ability, but because our workplaces lack the conditions for leadership to emerge.

The Dirty Secret of Popular Leadership Tools

We rarely say this out loud, but we've seen it too many time before:

• The “high‑potential” 9‑Box star crumbles after promotion.

• The high‑EQ leader still presides over a dysfunctional team.

• The CliftonStrengths standout burns out.

• The DiSC‑perfect communicator still can’t secure cross‑functional support.

• The cognitively gifted manager leaves relational wreckage behind.

• The 360‑degree darling loses half their staff.

These aren’t anomalies. They are the predictable outcomes of mistaking individual traits for leadership readiness.

Every one of these assessments takes a microscope to the individual, but leadership doesn’t just live in the individual. It also lives in the system around them.

And none of the popular frameworks tell you a thing about:

• Role clarity

• Decision rights

• Communication channels

• Cultural norms

• Organizational structure

• Incentives and misaligned rewards

• Workload distribution

• Information flow

• Process friction

• Authority boundaries

• Conflict escalation patterns

  
  

By using these flawed assessments, we don’t simply fail at developing leaders, we fail at building environments where leadership can actually function.

Organizations Want Leadership Without Paying the Cultural Price

Most companies claim they want leadership at every level. What they really want is predictable performance with the least possible disruption.

Leadership, however, is disruptive by nature.

True leadership requires knowing people deeply - their motivations, fears, goals, ambitions. That takes time and emotional investment. It requires a culture where leaders are expected to coach, confront, encourage, challenge, and develop others daily, not as a KPI, but as a default.

Very few organizations have this kind of culture. Not because it’s impossible, but because it’s inconvenient.

It’s easier to chase quarterly targets than cultivate leaders.

It’s easier to buy assessments than build relationships.

It’s easier to measure personality traits than redesign broken systems.

We’ve been chasing the golden egg for decades while steadily starving the goose.

Leadership Development Must Start Somewhere Else Entirely

Leadership development is not actually about competencies, traits, or personality archetypes. It begins with two foundational human qualities:

1. Moral courage

2. Evolutionary drive

   
   

If a person lacks the courage to make difficult, unpopular decisions or the internal drive to grow, adapt, learn, and improve, then no amount of matrix‑ranking or color‑coding will ever turn them into a leader.

Equally important is the environment they operate within. A dysfunctional culture can do one of two devastating things:

1. Drive away high‑potential talent.

2. Corrupt the talent that stays.

   
   

You cannot “train” your way out of a broken culture.

And no assessment will fix what your workplace consistently destroys.

Leadership Has Never Been About Tasks or Goals

For decades we have conflated leadership with management. As long as someone hits numbers, we assume they can lead people. But tasks and goals are the domain of managers.

Leadership is the domain of influence.

Leadership is the development of other leaders.

Leadership is the ability to move people, not just metrics.

And none of the mainstream assessment tools measure the ability to build leaders. They measure personality snapshots, not leadership outcomes.

Stop Outsourcing Leadership Judgment to Templates

Leadership development and succession planning don’t begin with tools, they begin with people and culture. Tools can support the journey, but they cannot define it.

Leadership continuity should emerge organically from:

• A culture that rewards growth

• A system built around clarity and trust

• Leaders who develop leaders

• Individuals with courage and drive

  
  

The billion‑dollar leadership industry wants you to believe leadership is complicated. It isn’t. What’s complicated is rebuilding a culture that naturally grows leaders - and that’s precisely why most organizations avoid doing it.

There is a better way—simpler, clearer, and far more human.

Throw out the templates. Stop worshipping the 9‑Box. Stop believing you can spreadsheet your way into a strong leadership bench.

Leadership development isn’t a tool. It isn’t a framework. It isn’t a process. It's a culture - and cultures aren’t downloaded; they’re built. One courageous, growth‑driven individual at a time.

Dr. Neal McIntyre, DPA