There are moments in leadership when something feels off, but not obviously broken. The strategy is sound. The people are talented. The values align. And yet, momentum stalls. Energy drains. Work that should feel generative becomes heavy.
More often than not, the issue isn’t effort or intent. It’s fit.
Awareness of fit is one of the most overlooked leadership disciplines, and one of the most consequential. It influences how people experience their work, how teams collaborate, and whether organizations move forward with clarity or grind against themselves in constant friction. When fit is present, energy flows. When it’s absent, even the most capable teams struggle.
Meaningful work begins when leaders design environments where people can do their best work, together. Awareness of fit is foundational to that work.
Fit Is About Energy, Not Just Alignment
Fit is often described in simplistic terms: “right role,” “right culture,” “right hire.” But fit is more nuanced and more human than a checklist. At its core, fit is about how energy moves through a system.
Everyone has experienced a role that drained them. The work may have looked good on paper, but day after day it felt heavy, misaligned, or exhausting. That feeling isn’t accidental. It’s a signal. When fit is present, work feels fluid. When it isn’t, even success can feel costly.
Fit exists at multiple levels: how a person aligns with their role, how individuals relate to one another, and how teams operate within the broader strategy and culture of the organization. Leaders who fail to account for these layers often mistake friction for performance issues, when in reality it’s a misalignment of fit.
Self-Awareness Is the Starting Point
Awareness of fit always begins with self-awareness. Leaders cannot design alignment for others without first understanding themselves.
Self-awareness includes understanding personal values, behavioral tendencies, and natural sources of energy and stress. Some people are energized by creativity and ambiguity. Others value structure, predictability, and precision. Neither is better. Both are necessary. The problem arises when leaders expect people to thrive in environments that contradict their natural wiring.
Self-awareness also shows up in moments of reaction. When a leader pauses to ask, “Why did that frustrate me?” or “Why did that energize me so much?” they uncover clues about what truly matters to them. These moments of curiosity deepen self-understanding and improve how leaders engage with others.
For leaders, self-awareness is a continual practice. It’s the muscle that allows them to lead with intention rather than assumption.
The Three Dimensions of Fit Every Leader Must Understand
Awareness of fit becomes actionable when leaders understand the three dimensions that shape how people experience work: strategy fit, culture fit, and team fit.
Strategy Fit: Alignment With Direction and Pace
Strategy fit answers the question: Does this person’s natural way of working support where the organization is going?
Some strategies require experimentation, speed, and comfort with ambiguity. Others require precision, risk management, and consistency. When individuals are misaligned with the strategy, regardless of talent, tension emerges. Work feels like swimming upstream.
Leaders must consider not only whether someone can execute the strategy, but whether they are energized by it.
Culture Fit: Shared Values and Ways of Being
Culture fit reflects alignment with values, norms, and how work gets done. It’s about why the organization exists and how people show up for one another.
Culture should be a lived behavior, not aspirational language on a wall. When culture and strategy are misaligned, when organizations pursue bold innovation in rigid environments, progress stalls. Leaders must design environments where culture supports the work required.
Team Fit: How People Work Together Day to Day
Team fit is often the most overlooked and most critical dimension. It’s about collaboration styles, communication preferences, speed of execution, and tolerance for ambiguity.
Two people can align on strategy and values yet struggle deeply at the team level. Without awareness of behavioral differences, teams crash into one another, misinterpret intent, and burn energy navigating avoidable friction.
Team fit is not about similarity. In fact, teams composed entirely of similar styles often feel good but perform poorly. Diversity of behavior is essential, but only when it’s understood and respected.
Behavioral Awareness Turns Intuition Into Insight
Tools like behavioral assessments help leaders move beyond intuition and put language to what they’re experiencing. When individuals understand their own behavioral drives and those of their teammates, work stops being personal and starts being practical.
Behavioral awareness allows teams to see why brainstorming feels easy for some and draining for others. Why certain people thrive in fast-paced environments, while others prefer thoughtful deliberation, and why some leaders default to action while others default to analysis.
This awareness doesn’t replace conversation. It enhances it. It gives teams a shared language to discuss differences without judgment and to design workflows that honor how people actually work.
When Leaders See the Whole Team, Everything Changes
One of the most powerful outcomes of awareness of fit is how it reshapes leadership decisions. Leaders stop assuming that high performance in one role automatically translates to readiness for another. They recognize that promotion is not about reward, it’s about fit.
This awareness challenges the common pattern of promoting individuals into roles that strip away the very strengths that made them successful. Without thoughtful conversation, leaders unintentionally move people away from work that energizes them and into roles that drain them.
Fit-based leadership invites intentional dialogue. It asks: What does this next role actually require? What strengths will it draw on? Where will support be needed? And most importantly, does this person want this role, knowing what it truly entails?
Fit Creates a Common Language, Not a Silver Bullet
Awareness of fit doesn’t eliminate conflict or complexity. Organizations are dynamic. Strategies evolve. Teams grow. What fit looks like today may shift tomorrow.
What awareness of fit provides is clarity. It replaces mystery with understanding. It gives leaders and teams a way to name what’s happening, adjust intentionally, and support one another through change.
When teams share a common language around fit, boundaries become clearer. Expectations are more realistic. People feel seen—not for who they should be, but for who they are.
Why Awareness of Fit Is a People-First Imperative
At PeopleForward Network, we believe meaningful work happens when people are positioned to thrive, not just perform. Awareness of fit is not about optimizing productivity at the expense of humanity. It’s about designing environments where performance and wellbeing reinforce one another.
When leaders understand fit, they stop forcing alignment and start cultivating it. Energy flows. Trust deepens. Teams move forward, not because they’re pushing harder, but because they’re finally moving together.
Listen to the Episode: Gut + Science 298: Awareness of Fit with Matt Poepsel
Key Takeaways:
- Self-awareness is the foundation of great leadership—it’s a muscle that must be built continuously.
- Fit isn’t one-dimensional—it includes strategy fit (role alignment), culture fit (values alignment), and team fit (collaborative compatibility).
- Behavioral assessments provide clarity on why teams thrive—or struggle—and help pinpoint areas of misalignment.
- Promotions shouldn’t be automatic—high performers in one role may not be suited for leadership, and leaders must be intentional in career pathing.
- Team dynamics improve when leaders build self-awareness rituals—making self-reflection and team assessments a regular part of the culture.
Things to Listen For
[00:01:30] Why fit is fundamentally about energy, and how misfit drains people over time
[00:03:45] How self-awareness reveals what truly motivates and frustrates leaders
[00:05:10] Why curiosity about emotional reactions is a leadership skill
[00:07:15] The difference between competing goals and competing styles
[00:09:40] How behavioral assessments translate personality into workplace insight
[00:12:05] Why teams need behavioral diversity—not sameness—to perform well
[00:15:20] What leaders often miss when managing people with different strengths
[00:18:10] The hidden cost of ignoring team fit, even when strategy and culture align
[00:22:45] How awareness of fit helps leaders finally “put their finger on it”
[00:27:30] Why promoting top performers without fit conversations backfires