Just six months into Mason’s promotion to Chief Marketing Officer at a Fortune 500 company, the company was acquired by a private equity firm looking to expand the brand’s national footprint. Mason, who had been brought in for his sharp eye for digital transformation, was quickly looped into boardroom discussions that questioned the future of the company’s founder and long-time CEO, Greg.

While Greg had built the Fortune 500 company into a beloved regional staple, the board viewed him as resistant to innovation, stuck on past successes. Revenue growth had plateaued. Customer retention was slipping. And internal surveys showed a workforce that, while loyal, was uninspired.

After a series of tense meetings and back-channel conversations, the board made its move: Greg was fired. 

And Mason? He stayed.

The morning after the announcement, the corporate Teams chats were silent. Mason’s calendar filled with 1:1’s, but not the kind you hope for.

From the brand manager in Atlanta to the warehouse supervisor in Colorado, the message was the same: “If Greg wasn’t safe, how do I know I am?”

Suddenly, Mason wasn’t just the CMO tasked with scaling the brand. He was the face of corporate change—and to many, the face of corporate betrayal.

What happened at the Fortune 500 company isn’t uncommon. Founders get pushed out and boards act decisively. But the mistake many leaders make in these moments is assuming that business decisions exist in a vacuum.

Employees don’t clock in just for the pay. They stay because they believe in a mission, trust their leaders, and see themselves as part of something bigger. Rip that foundation out without care, and you’ve created instability—no matter how strong your business case may be.

Mason understood this. And so, instead of retreating to strategy decks and investor calls, he did something unexpected: he got personal.

He gathered the entire team—virtually and in-person—and didn’t lead with a PowerPoint. He led with honesty.

“Greg built something incredible. That doesn’t go away. But for us to grow, we need to evolve. And I want to do that with you, not to you.”

When people understand the “why” behind a decision—and feel like they’re included in the “what next”—they’re far more likely to re-engage. Leaders must humanize transitions, especially when legacy figures are involved.

He scheduled 30+ one-on-one meetings over 3 weeks. Not to give performance feedback, but to listen.

Each meeting included three key questions:

“What do you wish leadership would stop doing?”

“What’s one thing you love about working here?”

“What would make you proud to stay for the next 5 years?”

Top-down change feels threatening unless it’s paired with bottom-up understanding. People don’t need to be coddled—they need to be heard. These conversations help rebuild psychological safety and show that leadership isn’t operating in a silo.

After Greg’s exit, morale dipped because the culture was too tied to him. Mason helped the team co-create new guiding principles—ones not reliant on a single figure, but rooted in shared values like “playful excellence” and “growth through curiosity.”

They even introduced a new employee recognition system where peers could reward each other with digital tokens for living those values, redeemable for team experiences.

When identity is built around one person, their departure creates a vacuum. A value-based culture, co-designed by the team, gives people a new anchor—a reason to stay, belong, and contribute.

Instead of vague statements like “We’re going to scale,” Mason created a one-pager with clear, actionable priorities. Each team could map their work to one of the three goals:

2. Launch two new national locations

3. Improve employee engagement scores by 15%

Each goal had a team lead, a monthly update cadence, and an open feedback loop.

In times of uncertainty, clarity is comfort. People need to know where they’re headed and how their role contributes to the mission. A transparent, measurable roadmap builds buy-in and momentum.

He celebrated the first time a regional manager improved customer reviews. He highlighted a tech intern who built a new booking tool. These weren’t PR stunts—they were authentic stories shared across the company’s intranet and weekly all-hands.

Wins rewire the team’s mindset. When a company goes through a shakeup, people assume failure is next. But seeing progress—even in small doses—starts to shift the narrative toward hope.

When employees don’t know what tomorrow holds, they stop focusing on performance and start scanning for risk. They wonder if they’ll be next to go, whether their work still matters, or if leadership can be trusted. In this fog of doubt, building—or more accurately, rebuilding—culture must become an urgent priority.

Mason realized that creating a healthy, resilient culture in an unstable environment wasn’t about keeping everyone happy. It was about reinstating meaning, rebuilding trust, and creating consistency where there was none. He couldn’t offer long-term guarantees. But he could create an environment where people felt heard, seen, and supported.

Here’s how any leader can build culture even when the ground is still shifting:

Ambition In Motion’s Executive Mastermind Groups emphasizes how asking better questions—not giving more answers—builds trust, especially during change. This transparency makes teams feel invited to shape the future, not just endure it.



2. Foster Meaningful 1:1s—Not Performance Reviews in Disguise
In unstable environments, people need connection, not evaluation. That’s where AIM Insights comes in. It helps leaders create data-informed, emotionally intelligent 1:1s that don’t just measure performance but nurture resilience, motivation, and clarity.

Use these meetings to ask:

Leaders who listen this way make employees feel psychologically safe—even if everything else is shifting.

3. Create Micro-Rituals to Anchor Belonging
Culture isn’t built through big speeches. It’s built through small moments repeated consistently. Small, purpose-driven rituals can reinforce team connection and reinforce values.
Consider:

Ambition In Motion’s AIM Insights platform facilitates 360° feedback loops that help leaders and employees understand how they’re perceived, and what behaviors they need to adjust.

It’s not about “scoring” culture—it’s about co-creating it in real time.


5. Tie Every Role Back to Purpose and Personal Development
When the future feels blurry, people look inward. They ask: “What am I learning? Where am I going?” Ambition In Motion’s mentoring programs and leadership tracks help employees develop personal clarity even when the organization is evolving.

Encourage your team to connect their work to their growth goals—not just company metrics. A great place to start:

 “What skill do you want to master this quarter?”

“How can we align your role with where you want to be in a year?”

Culture is sustainable when it invests in people’s future—not just the company’s.

Mason didn’t save the Fortune 500 company with a rebrand or a viral campaign. He rebuilt it through trust, transparency, and human-centered leadership.

For any leader facing instability after an acquisition, a founder's exit, or internal restructuring, here’s the truth: compensation alone won’t motivate your people. In fact, the more uncertain things feel, the more employees crave purpose, connection, and clarity.

Leaders like Mason prove that when you lead with empathy and intention, even the most jarring transitions can become launchpads for something better.

Innovation isn’t just a buzzword—it’s a business imperative. While companies pour millions into R&D departments and flashy brainstorming retreats, they often overlook the simplest, most powerful tool for innovation: curiosity.

Curiosity is the mindset that drives teams to ask better questions, challenge stale assumptions, and pursue creative problem-solving when the way forward isn’t clear. But in many companies, curiosity is unintentionally suppressed. Metrics, meetings, and margin pressures often overshadow the quiet (but vital) work of wondering what if.

Take Claire, a mid-level manager at a growing company in Chicago. A few years ago, her team was tasked with improving user retention for their core product. Rather than jumping straight into solution mode, Claire took a different approach. She encouraged her team to spend a full week doing nothing but asking questions—about user behavior, onboarding friction points, and customer psychology. No answers, just curiosity.

At first, leadership questioned her methods. Wasn’t this a waste of time? Why not just try something and see what happens? But Claire stuck to her guns. And by the end of the week, her team discovered a completely overlooked friction point in the account setup flow. They implemented a simple fix and saw a 38% increase in user retention within three months.

The takeaway? Curiosity creates space for meaningful insights—and in turn, real business growth.

An innovation culture goes beyond fancy slogans or hackathons. It’s a systemic commitment to exploration, experimentation, and learning. Companies with strong innovation cultures consistently outperform their peers. According to McKinsey, organizations that invest in innovation are 2.4x more likely to deliver top-quartile revenue growth. This is because they are agile, adaptable, and capable of responding to change before it becomes a threat.

At its core, an innovation culture starts with leadership. Leaders who embrace curiosity signal to their teams that it’s okay to take risks, ask questions, and admit they don’t know everything. This kind of psychological safety isn’t just feel-good fluff—it’s directly linked to higher engagement, creativity, and performance.

Yet many leaders shy away from uncertainty. They want proven playbooks and predictable outcomes. But here’s the thing: innovation isn’t predictable. Thomas Edison famously tested over 1,000 different materials before inventing the working light bulb. Imagine if he’d been an entry-level engineer at a Fortune 500 company—how many quarterly reviews would he have survived?

Fortunately, he was the CEO of his own operation. He had the freedom to fail forward.

That’s the kind of grace today’s leaders need to practice when the answer isn’t obvious. Giving grace means allowing space for trial, error, and reflection. It means rewarding effort and learning—not just outcomes.

When curiosity is embedded into company culture, the outcomes speak for themselves:

Claire’s story is a perfect example of how one curious leader can transform a team—and a company’s bottom line. By modeling curiosity and championing grace, she created a ripple effect that not only improved customer retention but inspired cross-functional teams to adopt similar discovery-first mindsets.

It’s not enough to say curiosity is valued. It has to be baked into how we lead. Here are three ways leaders like Claire can embed curiosity into everyday management practices:

Instead of:

This encourages team members to reflect, not retreat. Ambition in Motion’s executive coaching for leaders and teams helps leaders build these kinds of reflective habits—transforming feedback conversations into moments of growth, not judgment.

Performance shouldn’t only be about execution—it should also reflect exploration. Try incorporating prompts like:

This communicates that curiosity is not just tolerated—it’s expected. Tools like AIM Insights make the performance review and metric-tracking process simple and insightful for managers. 

Claire made curiosity part of her weekly 1:1s. She’d ask:

Over time, her team began coming to those meetings not just to report on tasks, but to explore ideas. That’s when innovation becomes not just a moment—but a movement.

It’s almost halfway through 2025, and the ripple effects of last year’s economic distress is still felt across America. Countless companies—big and small—were forced to restructure, tighten budgets, and let go of team members. While layoffs might have been necessary to stay afloat, they’ve left behind a quieter, more cautious workforce. And the result… employees are hesitant to take risks, propose bold new ideas, or challenge the status quo.

Why? Because employees are unsure if anyone is listening—or if speaking up might put them at risk of being laid off. 

But here's the critical truth: if your company isn't innovating, it's falling behind. As leaders, it’s time to move beyond the triage of layoffs and begin cultivating a resilient, forward-looking, and innovative culture once again.

In the aftermath of layoffs, companies often experience a psychological freeze. Talented employees begin to question their value. Communication gaps grow wider. New ideas are seen as risks instead of opportunities. And leaders, scrambling to stabilize, often neglect a key ingredient of success: psychological safety.

Bob manages a cross-functional team at a mid-size tech company in Chicago. In Q4 of 2024, his company cut 20% of its workforce. While Bob retained all his team members, the atmosphere shifted drastically.

Where once his team ideated freely in brainstorming sessions, now meetings were filled with silence. People stopped volunteering for stretch projects. Even casual Slack messages became more formal and distant.

When Bob reached out to HR and upper leadership, they were just as unsure. The company still hadn’t solidified its 2025 goals. Some departments were moving in different directions, and communication was fragmented. Leadership was nervous about clashing visions—so they avoided committing publicly to any strategy.

Bob realized two things:

2. His company was drifting, lacking clarity and cohesion.

So he decided to lead from where he stood.

One of the biggest mistakes post-layoff organizations make is failing to reset the vision. Employees are left wondering: “Why am I here? What are we even trying to accomplish?”

This is especially frustrating for employees still waiting to hear what the company’s goals are—even though we’re halfway through 2025.

Bob decided to take initiative. He sat down with his leadership team and asked:

Once he had clarity (even partial), he shared it with his team in a direct, transparent way.

After layoffs, employees often feel “lucky” to still have a job—but that sentiment quickly shifts to anxiety. Why wasn’t I laid off? Am I next? This leads to disengagement, not gratitude.

Bob took a personal approach. He scheduled 1-on-1 goal-setting meetings with each team member and shared:

This wasn’t empty praise. It was rooted in truth. By reinforcing their purpose, Bob helped rebuild his team’s confidence.

Telling people they’re safe to speak up isn’t enough. You have to prove it—with your reactions, your language, and your culture.

Bob noticed that in meetings, people rarely spoke first. So he started modeling vulnerability. He admitted when he wasn’t sure about a decision. He actively solicited pushback. And most importantly, when people did share ideas—even ones that wouldn’t work—he thanked them and asked follow-up questions.

Soon, others followed suit.

Another innovation killer? Stagnation. After layoffs, promotions and lateral moves often freeze. But people need momentum to feel hopeful and motivated.

Bob worked with HR to reopen some cross-functional project opportunities and mentorship pairings. In addition, he encouraged members of the leadership team to join executive mastermind groups to be paired with executives in other companies and departments to gain fresh perspectives, share best practices, and rebuild their strategic confidence by learning how peers were navigating similar post-layoff challenges. 

He encouraged employees to:

Bob also recognized a broader issue: employees were afraid to share new ideas because they weren’t sure what leadership actually wanted.

So, he escalated this concern. He advocated for the C-suite to host a company-wide Town Hall where they could:

This meeting was a turning point. It didn’t answer everything, but it showed employees that leadership wasn’t hiding in silence. That alone helped shift the culture from fear to openness.

By Q3 2025, Bob’s team was not only more confident—they were creating again. They launched a pilot product feature based on employee input. They beat sprint deadlines. And they had the highest employee engagement scores in the company.

All of this came from clarity, connection, and a culture of safety.

Bob didn’t wait for top-down permission. He led from where he stood, and in doing so, re-ignited a team that was once paralyzed by fear.

At first glance, a culture built on positivity seems like a dream. Uplifting messages, cheerful attitudes, and constant encouragement are all hallmarks of a "healthy" work environment. But what happens when positivity becomes mandatory—when it overshadows reality and invalidates the honest struggles employees face? That’s when positivity becomes toxic.

Toxic positivity is the subtle, yet damaging practice of demanding optimism at all costs. In this kind of culture, employees may feel they are not allowed to express disappointment, frustration, or doubt without being labeled “negative” or “unmotivated.” Over time, it leads to emotional shutdown, superficial conversations, and a lack of real feedback—all under the illusion of morale.

Take, for example, a mid-sized marketing tech company that has experienced rapid growth during the pandemic and was celebrated for its “can-do” attitude and upbeat culture. “We only want positive energy here” became a catchphrase repeated in all-hands meetings and internal Slack channels.

But as the company hit a plateau and began facing delivery delays and client churn, employees started to feel a disconnect. Team members who voiced concerns about deadlines were told to “trust the process.” Junior staff who asked for clearer priorities were reminded to “stay positive.” Over time, employee engagement scores fell and levels of burnout rose. And trust in leadership began to erode.

While leaders may adopt positivity as a well-intentioned morale booster, its overuse can undermine team performance, trust, and retention. When people feel they cannot express what’s really going on, innovation stalls, accountability slips, and emotional fatigue sets in. Employees don’t want to work in environments where emotions are filtered and struggles are ignored—they want to feel heard and valued for the full range of their experiences.

Moreover, research shows that psychologically safe workplaces—where employees can voice concerns without fear—outperform those where only agreeable input is welcome. In short, a culture that denies problems denies progress. For companies navigating uncertainty or change, addressing issues with realism and empathy isn’t just important—it’s essential for long-term success.

Fixing toxic positivity doesn’t mean abandoning optimism. It means rebalancing it with emotional authenticity. The marketing tech company began this shift by implementing three key strategies:

Recognizing that leaders need space to process difficult decisions before delivering them with clarity and compassion, the company instituted quarterly executive mastermind groups. These confidential peer sessions gave senior leaders a space to discuss challenges openly, get advice on how to deliver hard news with empathy, and reflect on how to model vulnerability without losing authority.

One CFO shared, “Being able to talk through layoffs with other executives before I spoke to the team helped me center the message in care and transparency, rather than panic or forced positivity.”

2. Real Feedback Systems

To rebuild psychological safety, the company launched an anonymous feedback platform and encouraged managers to hold monthly “Open Reality” sessions—non-judgmental, structured conversations where employees could discuss what wasn’t working and where they needed more support. This initiative helped surface actionable insights and fostered trust, as employees saw their concerns acknowledged and addressed.

3. Modeling Honest Optimism

Executives stopped ending every company meeting with “everything’s great” and began adopting a new mantra: “It’s okay to not be okay—but we’ll face it together.” By sharing challenges alongside successes, leaders signaled that being real was not only allowed, but valued. This shift helped employees see that optimism wasn’t about pretending, but about committing to progress, even when it’s tough.

Transforming a culture of toxic positivity doesn’t happen overnight—but it starts with intentional shifts in how leadership communicates and creates space for others to do the same. Here's how business leaders can begin:

Use employee surveys, listening sessions, or facilitated focus groups to ask tough questions: Do people feel safe speaking up? Are concerns being brushed aside in favor of “staying positive”? Identify areas where feedback is absent or glossed over.

2. Reframe Leadership Messaging

Instead of over-relying on optimistic language, aim for a tone that balances encouragement with honesty. Phrases like “We’re facing a challenge, and we’re working through it together” are more grounding than “Everything’s going to be fine!”

3. Build Support Systems

Set up mastermind groups or peer circles for executives and managers to talk candidly, vent in a healthy space, and get advice on how to communicate tough news with empathy. When leaders feel supported, they’re better able to support others.

4. Train Managers in Psychological Safety

Provide training on active listening, validating emotions, and managing conflict without avoidance. Give middle managers the tools to foster authenticity in 1:1s and team check-ins—without defaulting to forced optimism.

5. Celebrate Transparency

Reward transparency. When an employee voices a hard truth or surfaces a risk, acknowledge it publicly as a courageous and constructive act. This shows that the company values integrity as much as performance.

A strong company culture doesn’t shy away from the hard stuff—it meets it head-on with honesty, empathy, and shared resolve. The marketing tech company’s journey shows that when leaders move from toxic positivity to genuine optimism, they unlock not just morale, but meaning. By embracing reality and building space for honest dialogue, businesses create the kind of trust that fuels resilience, and results.

For years, a large retail company stood at the pinnacle of its industry. Once known for being an industry leader, the company now faced declining revenues, dwindling market appeal, and a growing perception of being outdated. Internally, employees felt disengaged, and stakeholders began questioning the company's ability to innovate.

Jenna, the company’s Chief Strategy Officer saw the warning signs: flatlining sales, a lack of excitement around new product launches, and a growing disconnect between leadership and consumers. But by the time these trends became impossible to ignore, the company was already slipping. She knew that a rebranding effort couldn’t just be cosmetic; it required a deep, cultural shift that engaged employees, reinvigorated consumer trust, and positioned the company as a forward-thinking leader once again.

Many companies fail to notice their decline until it's too late. Signs of stagnation such as declining market share, reduced consumer engagement, and an outdated brand perception often creep in gradually. The large company had long relied on its reputation, assuming customer loyalty would remain intact. But Jenna understood that a successful company cannot operate on past achievements alone. Monitoring industry trends, consumer sentiment, and internal engagement through regular feedback loops, data analytics, and direct customer insights are critical to staying ahead. Companies must use tools to detect early warning signs of market and company shifts.

Rebranding is more than just a new logo or marketing campaign—it’s a company-wide commitment to change. The company’s leadership recognized that for their rebranding to succeed, employees had to be at the center of the transformation. Jenna led an initiative to involve employees at every level, conducting internal surveys, town hall meetings, and brainstorming sessions that encourage innovation and direct input from those on the ground. She partnered with HR to redefine corporate values, aligning them with a more customer-centric and agile mindset.

To truly reshape the company’s culture, leadership adopted a transparent approach. They communicated the company’s challenges openly, showing employees why change was necessary and how they could be a part of the solution. Incentives were introduced to reward innovative ideas, and cross-functional teams were formed to pilot new projects. Employees who once felt disconnected from leadership now saw themselves as vital players in the company's evolution.

For rebranding and cultural transformation to be successful, employees must feel like active participants rather than passive recipients of change. Engagement and enthusiasm stem from clear communication, meaningful involvement, and a sense of ownership. Employees need to understand not only what is changing but why it matters and how they contribute to the company's renewed vision.

With an energized workforce, the company turned its focus outward. Re-establishing trust with consumers required more than an updated brand identity—it needed genuine engagement. The company launched interactive campaigns, leveraging social media to connect directly with customers and solicit real-time feedback. Personalized experiences, product enhancements driven by consumer insights, and strategic partnerships with influencers helped reintroduce the company as a brand that listened, adapted, and innovated.

Additionally, leadership worked on rebuilding trust with stakeholders by showing clear, measurable progress. Transparency in reporting, a commitment to sustainability, and a renewed focus on corporate social responsibility reassured investors and partners that the company’s transformation was more than just rhetoric.

Two years after initiating the rebranding strategy, the company saw a remarkable turnaround. Employee engagement scores were at an all-time high, product launches were met with renewed excitement, and the company’s financial performance rebounded. Customers who once viewed the brand as stale now saw it as dynamic and responsive to their needs.

For Jenna and the company’s leadership, the experience served as a crucial lesson: reinvention is not a one-time event but a continuous process. Businesses that remain agile, listen to their consumers, and empower employees to drive innovation will always have a competitive edge.