The Sticky From The Inside Podcast

Why Good Leadership Can Go Bad

Amar Dhall · September 24, 2026

Leadership · Executive Coach · Life Coachin

Interview with Amar Dhall

Why Good Leadership Can Go Bad — Amar Dhall

Podcast: The Sticky From The Inside Podcast

September 24, 2026 · 48 min

Why can good leadership go bad when we already know so much about what works? In this episode, Andy Goram is joined by psychotherapist and leadership researcher Dr Amar Dhall to explore what happens when leadership, power, pressure and human psychology collide. Amar introduces…

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Key topicsOverdrive — Why Your Most Reliable Leader Is Closest to Burning OutAmar Dhall watches leaders get praised for exactly the habit that will break them. As a psychotherapist and Centre Director at the Canberra Trauma and Well-Being Centre, he has coached executives who carry a team's pressure alone because reliability earned them the job in the first place. In his Neuro-Somatic Leadership framework, delivered as a 12-week program, over-functioning shows up as a nervous system stuck in overdrive long before performance drops. He argues the cost lands on the whole system, not just the leader: judgment narrows, truth-telling stops, and the team learns to lean harder on the one person already running hottest. Listeners walk away able to spot overdrive in their own best people before it becomes a resignation.Fair Weather — Why Leadership Training Works Until the Storm HitsAmar Dhall treats leaders as a clinically registered psychotherapist, and he watches the same thing happen to good training every time: it holds in calm conditions and disappears the moment load rises. Most leadership programmes add more models to people who are already stretched, on the assumption that better thinking survives stress. He argues it does not, because judgment, choice and relational capacity depend on a nervous system that is still regulated, not on how many frameworks a leader has learned. His Neuro-Somatic Leadership framework, taught over 12 weeks, trains state under load instead: what leaders practise so presence and decision-making stay available when the pressure is real. Listeners leave able to tell which parts of their own leadership training will still work on the worst day of the quarter.Not in the Numbers — Why Pressure Shows Up in the Body Long Before the DashboardAmar Dhall reads pressure in people months before it reaches a performance review. A clinically registered psychotherapist and Centre Director at the Canberra Trauma and Well-Being Centre, he works with executives whose output still looks fine while their breathing, sleep and reaction time have already changed. He argues leadership is a physiological process, not only a cognitive one, so the first real signal of load is in the body and in how someone behaves in a room, not in the reporting. That is the basis of his Neuro-Somatic Leadership framework, taught over 12 weeks, which trains state under load instead of adding models to already stretched people. Listeners leave knowing which signs to watch for in their own team while there is still time to act on them.View all topics →

About Amar Dhall

Psychotherapist and Leadership Researcher Focused on Nervous System Regulation Under Pressure

23 Senior leaders interviewed for leadership research5 Industries represented in leadership researchPhD Doctorate in law, University of CanberraFounder Neuro-Somatic Leadership

Amar Dhall works at the intersection of leadership, psychology, and what actually happens inside people when pressure is on. His work focuses on why capable, well-intentioned leaders often lose clarity, judgment, and relational capacity in high-stakes moments — and what helps them stay coherent instead.

Drawing on trauma-informed practice, nervous system science, and real-world organisational work, Amar approaches leadership as a physiological and relational process, not just a cognitive one. He is the founder of Neuro-Somatic Leadership, a framework that treats leadership development as training state under load, rather than adding more concepts to already stretched nervous systems.

Amar works with executives, founders, and leadership teams who are competent on paper but carrying disproportionate responsibility in practice. His work addresses patterns such as over-functioning leaders, fire-fighting cultures that sacrifice the important on the altar of the critical, and the quiet erosion of truth-telling that occurs when stress concentrates responsibility in a few individuals rather than becoming shared capacity. His approach is pragmatic rather than performative, grounded in real organisational constraints rather than ideals of constant openness or emotional intensity.

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About this episode

Why can good leadership go bad when we already know so much about what works?

In this episode, Andy Goram is joined by psychotherapist and leadership researcher DrAmar Dhallto explore what happens when leadership, power, pressure and human psychology collide.

Amar introduces a powerful distinction between capability, what a leader is able to do, and capacity, their ability to access those capabilities when it really matters. From there, Andy and Amar explore why behaviours that once made us successful can become overplayed, why leaders can become increasingly certain under stress, and how genuine care can tip into the Superhero or Rescuer role.

They also discuss the hidden effects of power, why technical expertise doesn't automatically translate into relational leadership, and Amar's memorable proposition that leadership is like dancing: you can know everything about the steps and still struggle on the dance floor.

The conversation finishes with practical reflections on curiosity, self-awareness and the possibility that the next stage of your leadership might require less effort rather than more.

Key Takeaways

Good leadership can fail when capacity drops. Knowing how to coach, delegate or create safety is not the same as being able to access those behaviours when pressure is high.

Your strengths can become liabilities through overuse. Responsibility can become over-carrying, confidence can harden into certainty, and helping can become Rescuing.

Power changes the room, even when your intentions are good. Leaders need to recognise that challenge feels different when one person holds more authority, status and consequence than the other.

The next step may require less, not more. More effort, more control and more knowledge are not always the answer; reflection, curiosity and the ability to let go can be part of mature leadership.

Key Moments

The key moments in this episode are:

01:11 – Why Do We Still See So Much S****y Leadership?

04:53 – Capability vs Capacity: Knowing Isn't the Same as Accessing

06:23 – When Responsibility Becomes Over-Responsibility

08:31 – How Our Strengths Can Turn Into Their Opposites

11:57 – Why Stress Can Make Certainty Feel So Convincing

13:34 – What Does Power Actually Do to Us?

18:46 – When Accumulating More Becomes the Leadership Trap

21:13 – When Leaders Learn to Use Pressure as Fuel

27:02 – The Superhero Reflex: When Helping Becomes Rescuing

31:55 – Leadership Is Like Dancing: Why Knowledge Isn't Enough