Are we quietly returning to a leadership culture where becoming an asshole is mistaken for strength?
I’m asking this quite seriously.
Because in a few executive conversations recently I noticed something subtle. A shift in tone. Almost a sense of relief in the room when someone says things like:
“Look… times are changing. Now we can stop pretending. Leadership has to get tough again.”
When I recently read this line from Brené Brown, it landed with uncomfortable precision:
“From the C-suite down to a manager at a local retail shop [are leaders who feel] a sense of relief and permission from the current political climate to be the assholes that they are and have always been.”
It’s a brutal sentence.
But if you spend enough time in leadership rooms, you start to understand why it resonates.
In periods of uncertainty, the atmosphere shifts. Markets tighten. Politics polarizes. Pressure rises. Suddenly empathy is framed as softness, respect starts to look naive, and some leaders interpret the moment as permission to lead through intimidation again.
I’m noticing something interesting in those moments.
The leaders who lean into dominance, pressure and contempt rarely become stronger leaders.
They become narrower.
From a neuroscience perspective that makes sense. When the nervous system moves into threat mode, the brain reorganizes around survival. Cortisol rises, the amygdala becomes dominant, and the prefrontal cortex - responsible for judgment and complex thinking - loses bandwidth.
From the outside this can look like decisiveness.
Inside the system it’s usually contraction.
And contraction spreads quickly through organizations.
Fear changes conversations. People become careful. They stop challenging assumptions and hold back inconvenient truths.
Which is ironic.
Because in complex environments, the real advantage is not aggression.
It’s thinking.
And thinking requires psychological safety.
Another pattern becomes visible when leaders gain real power.
Power doesn’t transform people as much as we think.
It amplifies them.
The grounded leader becomes calmer.
The insecure leader becomes controlling.
The arrogant leader becomes louder.
Leadership exposes the inner structure of a person.
And systems respond to that structure over time.
Not morally. Structurally.
Leaders who create fear slowly get surrounded by silence.
Leaders who humiliate others lose access to truth.
Leaders who lead through contempt rarely notice how quickly trust evaporates.
And once trust is gone, leadership becomes theatre.
So I’m genuinely wondering something right now.
If the climate really is shifting - if harsher leadership suddenly becomes fashionable again - what will leaders interpret as strength?
Dominance?
Or the capacity to stay grounded, clear and human precisely when the environment invites the opposite?
I’m curious what others are seeing in their organizations right now.