Beyond Talent & Strategy: Why Context is Key to High-Performance Teams

“The biggest mistake leaders make is believing their job is to have all the answers. It’s not. Their job is to create the conditions where others can execute with confidence.”  

That’s how Professor Mark Fritz, leadership specialist and Associate Faculty at Headspring, summarises the role of a leader in 2025. While the definition sounds simple enough, it is far from the reality that businesses face globally. 

Corporate leadership in 2025 is under siege. Across industries, companies are pushing for greater efficiency, faster execution, and higher performance with fewer resources. Large employers such as Southwest Airlines, Meta and Amazon have all recently announced mass layoffs targeting employees deemed low performers or non-core divisions.  

While some of these decisions may have been influenced by the recent changes in the political landscape, the broader trend is clear: leaders are expected to do more with less. 

Despite aggressive efficiency initiatives, many organisations continue to struggle to achieve a culture of high performance. In Fritz’s assessment the source of these issues come from a failure to provide context. 

“When leaders fail to provide context, teams default to either inaction or inefficiency,” says Fritz. “People will always prioritise the easiest task, not necessarily the most important one.” 

Context—the missing link between strategy and execution—is, according to Fritz,  what separates agile, high-performance teams from sluggish, bureaucratic ones.  

Why Teams Struggle Without Context 

While large businesses tend to have a strong culture of strategic planning, execution remains their Achilles‘ heel. And this leaves employees often unsure of priorities, stuck in reactive mode, and overly dependent on leadership for decisions. 

According to Fritz, when employees lack clear context, their decision-making becomes reactive rather than strategic, prioritising low-impact work over initiatives that drive real value. Uncertainty leads to hesitation, with employees delaying decisions for fear of making mistakes, he argues. 

“Organisations that fail to provide clarity create employees who simply wait for orders,” says Fritz. “This is the opposite of a high-performance culture.” 

Without clear priorities, teams fall into reactive mode, focusing on immediate demands instead of long-term objectives. This not only erodes efficiency but also slows execution, making it harder for organisations to achieve their strategic goals. 

This lack of context, according to Fritz, can lead to leadership bottlenecks.

“If your team needs you for every decision, you are not leading—you are micromanaging,” says Fritz.    

This lack of autonomy kills accountability and disempowers employees, reducing them to order-takers rather than problem-solvers. Meanwhile, executives become overwhelmed with tactical decisions, spending more time firefighting than focusing on strategy. 

Leaders who fail to provide context create dependency, whereas those who set clear direction and decision-making autonomy enable teams to execute faster without constant oversight, according to Fritz. 

How Leaders Can Create Context for High-Performance Execution 

For organisations to meet the demands of ruthless efficiency, leaders must provide clarity and autonomy. This requires a fundamental shift from control-based leadership to context-driven leadership. 

Define the ‘Where’ and ‘Why’

High-performance cultures are built on clarity of purpose. “Vision is a mental picture of what could be, fuelled by the conviction of what should be,” says Fritz. 

To establish context, leaders must:

Communicate strategic objective: so employees understand where the company is heading.
Define priorities: so teams know what matters most.
Reinforce the ‘why’: so employees are motivated by more than just execution. 

Fritz detailed the example of how a global technology firm struggling with slow execution introduced weekly leadership briefings focused solely on priorities and expected outcomes. Within months, teams moved faster and required less managerial approval.

Shift from Activities to Outcomes

Too many organisations focus on task completion rather than business impact. High-performance leaders shift their focus from process to progress. 

🔹 What are the key milestones that define success?
🔹 How do we measure progress, not just completion?
🔹 What barriers prevent teams from executing efficiently? 

“When teams focus on hitting milestones rather than just completing tasks, they take ownership of the result,” says Fritz. 

Instead of discussing tasks completed, leaders should review progress against defined milestones. The shift will result in more strategic thinking and faster execution. 

Adopt the ‘NIFO’ Approach: Nose In, Fingers Out

High-performance leaders stay informed but resist the urge to micromanage. This is what Fritz calls the “NIFO” principle—Nose In, Fingers Out. 

Monitor progress but avoid interfering.
Ask better questions instead of providing solutions.
Use stories and analogies to guide teams, rather than direct instructions. 

“Asking questions forces employees to think critically. Telling stories makes lessons memorable,” says Fritz. 

Instead of giving direct orders, leaders should ask team members to identify their biggest barriers. By shifting from instructions to insight, he empowered his team to own their solutions—resulting in a dramatic improvement in sales performance. 

Build a Culture of Accountability

Context-driven leadership fosters a culture where employees take full ownership of results.

However, accountability must be modelled from the top. 

Set clear expectations: define success unambiguously.
Hold teams responsible for execution: without stepping in to “fix” problems.
Invest in role models: so the right behaviours are reinforced across the organisation. 

“If your best people are modelling the wrong behaviours, your entire organisation will follow suit,” warns Fritz. 

Leadership as a Context-Setting Role 

According to Fritz, leaders who fail to create context end up doing all the work themselves—making decisions, firefighting, and constantly intervening. 

By contrast, leaders who provide clear context create teams that are: 

Faster: because employees don’t need to wait for approval.
More accountable: because they understand expectations.
More strategic: because they focus on impact, not just activity. 

“The best leaders don’t just give instructions—they create the conditions for execution and accountability.” 

The leadership challenge of the future is not about control—it’s about equipping people to perform at their highest level. And that starts with context.  

How HR and L&D Can Shape Leaders Who Inspire Action and Drive Results 

If organisations want to move from a culture of control to one of empowerment, they must invest in role models—leaders who demonstrate context-setting and outcome-driven delegation. However, training alone is not enough. Frequent reinforcement, peer coaching, and real-world application are essential to making leadership behaviours stick. 

“People need to be reminded. Training is an activity, but the outcome should be changing thinking or behaviour,” says Fritz. 

• Continuous learning: embedding leadership principles into ongoing development programmes. 
• Peer coaching and accountability partnerships: providing structured opportunities for leaders to refine skills.
• Reinforcement through storytelling and repetition: embedding context-setting into leadership norms. 

“If you want to change anything in an organisation, invest in role models,” says Fritz. 

Key takeaways for organisational leaders

1- Audit your leadership style: Are you making too many decisions for your team? 
2️ – Refocus your meetings: Shift from reviewing activities to tracking outcomes. 
3️ – Practice the NIFO approach: Ask questions instead of giving instructions. 
4️ – Identify and invest in role models: To embed the right behaviours in your culture. 

Watch full episode here.