When Good Intentions Backfire: Leadership Lessons from a Pipeline and a Broom

Sometimes the biggest leadership failures come from the best intentions. In this article, I unpack two powerful stories, one real, one fictional, where leaders tried to help, but ended up doing harm by skipping the most important step: listening. Whether you're leading a team or launching a new initiative, these stories reveal why influence without empathy quickly becomes imposition, and how trust is built not by having the answers, but by asking the right questions first.