Dr. Cara contrasts two leadership problems—overly rigid process and constantly shifting expectations—framing both as symptoms of a leader’s attempt to control outcomes rather than responses. She argues the bigger problem is constantly changing expectations because it prevents teams from building momentum, mastery, and sustainable excellence, and it harms team members’ sense of inherent value (the "avocado principle"). This is presented in the video’s concluding segment as a transformative insight about leadership control.
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All right, we are down to our final two. Too much process versus constantly changing expectation. And here's what's fascinating about this matchup. These are actually two sides of the same coin, but they're symptoms of a leader who has not learned to conquer control. Think about it. When you implement too much process, you're trying to control how the work happens. When you constantly change expectations, you're desperately trying to control what happens. Certain searching for the magical formula that will finally deliver you the results you need. Both stem from the fundamental misunderstanding of leadership. The belief that your job is to control outcomes. Yet here's the truth that transformed my own leadership journey. The only control that you truly have is how you receive, perceive and respond. So which one of these is the ultimate leadership killer? The winner? Constantly changing expectations. Here's why too much process is at least stable. Your team can figure out how to work with it or around it. They can build strategies. But constantly changing expectation, that eliminates your team's ability to respond effectively. They can't build momentum. They can't deliver mastery. They can't create sustainable excellence because the target keeps moving. And here's the part that keeps me up at night. When. When leaders constantly shift expectations, they're not just killing team performance, they're killing their team's sense of inherent value. Remember the avocado principle? Your value doesn't change based on others opinions. But when expectations shift constantly, your team members start believing their value does depend on hitting a moving target that they can never actually hit. That's not just a performance problem, that's a human problem.
