When Thinking Errors Take the Driver’s Seat in Leadership Transitions

Dr. David Burns has this list of “cognitive distortions” that feed anxiety and depression: overgeneralization, discounting the positive, jumping to conclusions, fortune-telling, labeling, and blaming. Fancy words for the ways we twist our thinking until it makes us miserable.

When I first read the list, my stomach sank. Not because I didn’t know them, but because I saw them everywhere—especially in the middle of leadership transitions.

Let’s be honest: our world is already running hot. Post-pandemic, post-George Floyd, mid-Trump—people are living like they’re on fire all the time. That level of stress doesn’t stay outside the office. It walks right in with us. And when it collides with the fear, power struggles, and distrust that already come with leadership change, you get a perfect storm.

Here’s how it plays out:

• Discounting the Positive. Boards that obsess over what went wrong with the last leader but never acknowledge what worked. Staff who can only see their boss’s flaws and forget the years of hard work. In that atmosphere, nobody feels seen, and hope evaporates fast.

• Labeling. One slip-up and suddenly someone is “not leadership material.” A department is “dysfunctional.” Those labels stick, and they shut down any chance for growth.

• Fortune Telling. People assume the next ED is doomed before they even walk in the door. Or they assume the staff will resist any change, no matter what. Once those stories harden, it doesn’t matter what the reality is; everyone acts like failure is inevitable.

I’ve walked into transitions where these distortions had already taken over. Meetings are thick with tension. Staff whispering about board politics. Everyone was convinced that nothing good could come out of the situation. And here’s the truth: if you let those thinking errors drive, they will wreck the culture, chew up your people, and run retention straight into the ground.

But it doesn’t have to be that way. Part of what we do in interim and transition work is hit pause on the panic. I name what’s happening. I help boards and staff recognize when they’re operating out of fear or false assumptions instead of facts. And once people can see the distortion for what it is—just a distortion—it loses some of its power.

That’s where the real work begins: rebuilding trust, setting up systems that make sense, creating space for honest conversations, and reminding folks of the wins along the way. Transitions are hard enough without layering toxic thought habits on top. When leaders learn to spot and stop these thinking errors, they create space for a healthier culture and a smoother handoff to the next leader.

Workplace toxicity isn’t inevitable. It’s often just a reflection of the way we think. And if we can change the thinking, we can change the outcome.