Giving Language to What Shapes How We Show Up
Why leadership behavior is often the outcome, not the starting point.
Most leadership conversations focus on behavior—what people do, how they perform, and whether outcomes are achieved. Yet behavior is rarely where influence begins.
Long before action becomes visible, something quieter is already at work beneath the surface. An inner climate—often unnamed and unexamined—shapes how people interpret situations, respond to one another, and decide how fully they will engage.
- What we feel in a room before a word is spoken.
- What we brace for in conversations we’ve had many times before.
- What we expect—often silently—of ourselves and others.
These experiences do not emerge randomly. They are shaped.
Behavior Is an Outcome, Not a Starting Point
Across decades of leadership, organizational transformation, and relationship-centered work, one truth has remained consistent: behavior is usually the expression of something already operating internally.
What we do is downstream from how we see, how we interpret, and what we assume is required to belong, succeed, or remain safe. This aligns with longstanding research in cognitive and social psychology demonstrating that perception precedes behavior (Bandura, 1986; Kahneman, 2011).
In 3 Silent Relationship Destroyers, I argue that many relational and cultural breakdowns are not caused by overt conflict, lack of effort, or misaligned goals. Instead, they emerge from forces that quietly shape experience without ever being spoken (Kay, 2026).
When these forces go unnamed, they do not disappear. They simply continue to influence outcomes without accountability.
The Need for Language
Over time, I began noticing the same pattern across leadership roles, coaching conversations, and organizational transitions—not as a checklist or formula, but as a recurring dynamic shaping trust, culture, and connection long before performance issues appeared.
Eventually, these forces required language.
That language became the AAE™ framework: Attitude, Assumptions, and Expectations.
Not as a strategy to implement, but as a lens through which leaders and individuals can notice what is already influencing how they show up—and how others respond to them (Kay, 2026).
The Quiet Forces Beneath the Surface
Attitude shapes the emotional tone we carry into spaces, often before we realize it ourselves. Research on emotional contagion confirms that affect is frequently transmitted nonverbally, influencing group climate and relational safety (Goleman, 1998; Hatfield et al., 1994).
Assumptions influence how we interpret others’ actions, motives, and silences. Cognitive biases and mental shortcuts routinely fill informational gaps with meaning—accurate or not (Kahneman, 2011).
Expectations quietly define what feels normal, acceptable, or “never enough,” even when they are never clearly named. Expectancy theory and self-fulfilling prophecy research demonstrate how unspoken expectations shape behavior and performance over time (Rosenthal & Jacobson, 1968).
When left unexamined, these forces do not announce themselves. They simply teach others how to respond:
- How much to share
- How much to risk
- How fully to show up
As I note throughout my work, people are rarely responding to our intentions; they are responding to what they consistently experience (Kay, 2025).
Leadership Is Experienced, Not Explained
In relationships—professional and personal alike—culture is not shaped by what leaders intend to model. It is shaped by what they tolerate, avoid, assume others should “just know,” or quietly enforce without clarity.
This reflects what organizational scholars have long observed: culture is formed through patterns of behavior and meaning, not formal statements or directives (Schein, 2010).
This is what I often refer to as the culture beneath the surface—the layer of influence that determines whether people merely comply or genuinely engage.
These insights continue to deepen as I explore them alongside leaders across different contexts and cultures. In the coming year, this work will be examined in global leadership spaces including the 17th Women’s Leadership and Empowerment Conference in Bangkok, the Euro-Global Women’s Forum in Barcelona, the Global Summit on Women’s Leadership and Empowerment in Orlando, and the Pellissippi Academic Center for Excellence Teaching & Learning Conference.
Different rooms. Different roles.
The same underlying questions.
The Questions That Precede Change
Before we attempt to change behavior…
Before we redesign systems…
Before we ask people to give more…
It is worth pausing to ask:
- What attitude am I bringing that others feel before they hear me?
- What assumptions am I carrying about what people should understand or endure?
- What expectations have I never clearly named—but quietly enforce?
- What might become possible if I gave language to what has been operating silently?
Awareness does not weaken leadership.
It steadies it.
As explored throughout 3 Silent Relationship Destroyers, clarity is not harsh. Clarity is kind. And the most sustainable shifts—in leadership, relationships, and culture—begin not with action, but with understanding (Kay, 2026).
References
Bandura, A. (1986). Social foundations of thought and action: A social cognitive theory. Prentice-Hall.
Goleman, D. (1998). Working with emotional intelligence. Bantam Books.
Hatfield, E., Cacioppo, J. T., & Rapson, R. L. (1994). Emotional contagion. Cambridge University Press.
Kahneman, D. (2011). Thinking, fast and slow. Farrar, Straus and Giroux.
Kay, M. (2025). 3 Silent Relationship Destroyers: Attitude, assumptions, and expectations. [Publisher].
Rosenthal, R., & Jacobson, L. (1968). Pygmalion in the classroom. Holt, Rinehart & Winston.
Schein, E. H. (2010). Organizational culture and leadership (4th ed.). Jossey-Bass.
