The most hopeful level is also the most frustrating. Here’s why.
When I interviewed Andrew Sewnauth, President and CEO of CDS Life Transitions, for The Power of Being All In, he said something that stopped me cold. “Companies that don’t take time to invest in their employees pay an even greater price.”
He wasn’t speaking theoretically. He was describing what his own organization had lived through. In the wake of the pandemic, talent had become harder to find and harder to keep. The people who were available had needs that organizations had rarely entertained before. And the companies that hadn’t built genuine investment into their cultures — the ones that had good intentions but inconsistent follow-through — were paying the price in turnover, disengagement, and lost momentum.
Andrew’s comment was telling. He reimplemented a leadership development program. He opened communication lines so more people understood the organization’s goals. He began meeting more deliberately with his team. And he reflected honestly on where he could have done better: being more transparent with his people sooner. “Employees don’t mind bad news,” he told me. “They mind when it’s kept from them.”
What Sewnauth was describing, whether he used these words or not, was an organization working its way out of a Points of Light culture. There were good people. There was genuine commitment in pockets. But the infrastructure to sustain and grow that commitment hadn’t been built thoroughly enough, and the best people were feeling it.
That is the defining tension of Level 3. The points of light are real. So is the darkness around it.
What Makes Level 3 Different
The Level 3 culture is the first place in this cultural model where something genuinely important is happening. Here for the first time, there are a number of individuals in the organization who have personally aligned with the company mission and values. They are not just doing their jobs. They care about the outcome. They are growing as leaders. In pockets of the organization, you can feel the difference.
This is meaningful progress from Levels 1 and 2, and it should not be dismissed lightly. But here is what the Points of Light culture has not yet accomplished: it has not made that commitment the norm. The bright spots exist, but they are isolated. Most of the organization is still operating the way it always has, doing the job and going home, waiting to be told what to do next. The ecosystem of compliance remains alive and well.
The azimuth exists in a Points of Light culture, but it is not well understood. There is probably a viable mission statement, and it is perhaps more well-defined than what you’d find at Levels 1 and 2. But it still doesn’t tell people clearly enough who we are, what we do, and most importantly, why it matters. Expected behaviors are assumed rather than defined. Leaders believe people understand the values because no one has raised a hand to say they don’t. That assumption creates costly gaps.
The Tension That Defines This Level
If I had to name the defining characteristic of the Points of Light culture, it is tension. There is a constant struggle underway between the people who want the organization to be better and the systems and habits that keep it where it is. The motivated points of light people are pushing forward. The weight of the existing culture is pushing back. And most days, the weight wins by simply outlasting the energy to change.
Trust and empowerment exist in a Points of Light culture, but these traits are inconsistent. A handful of people get real opportunities, real authority, real development. The rest watch from the sidelines and wonder what it would take to be chosen. And when a decision with real stakes has to be made, authority quietly migrates back up the chain regardless of who was supposed to own it. The empowerment is real until it isn’t, and people have learned not to count on it.
Leader development is episodic. There is a surge of energy around a program or initiative, a few weeks of momentum, and then it fades. The organization reverts to today’s priorities. The world is entirely tactical, never strategic for more than a retreat on the lake or some other event. Development becomes something that happens when there is time; and there is never quite enough time. The people with the most potential watch this cycle repeat and start calculating how long they are willing to wait before they vote with their feet. Or, they just resign themselves to the inevitable.
The Hardest Part: Losing the Best People
The most painful feature of the Points of Light culture is that it tends to lose precisely the people it can least afford to lose. The high-potential individuals, the ones who care, who push, who want to build something real, are the most likely to leave. They leave because the organization keeps offering them glimpses of what could be without ever fully delivering it. They get a token opportunity here, a small project there, enough to stay interested but not enough to stay committed. As the old adage says, they are suffering “death from a thousand cuts.”
Meanwhile, they are shopping their options. In my experience, a significant portion of the best people in a Points of Light culture are actively looking at what else is available. Not because they don’t want to stay, but because the organization has not given them a compelling reason to do so.
When they do leave, the organization fills the seat, usually with someone less capable or less motivated. The culture absorbs the loss, shrugs, and keeps moving. The people who remain notice. And they adjust their expectations accordingly. Resignation reigns.
What Leaders at Level 3 Must Do Differently
The path forward from a Points of Light culture is not about finding better people. The people are already there. It is about creating the conditions where those people can consistently bring their best rather than burning out trying to fight the system. The senior leadership has to make a collective decision to nurture change. A long-term contract with the team must be made and shared. This takes courage.
That starts with the azimuth. Leaders currently at Level 3 need to move beyond a mission statement that exists on paper and build a mission that people can truly connect to their daily work. The intent must become part of the language of the organization, defining success and the why behind the strategy. Values have to be developed collectively and clearly defined. They need to describe expected behaviors explicitly, not assume shared understanding. Leaders must establish trust and empowerment that sticks, not authority that evaporates the moment a difficult decision has to be made. Delegation must be more than a slogan.
Most of all, the champions of change have to protect the Points of Light in the organization. Those individuals who are already aligned, already motivated, already capable of leading others are the seeds of the new culture. Every time one of them is passed over for someone with more seniority, every time their initiative is quietly absorbed back into the hierarchy, the organization signals a lack of commitment to moving forward. And people are paying very close attention to those signals.
The leaders who lead their teams to Level 4 are the ones who figure out how to turn their Points of Light culture into a Coalition of the Willing culture. Next week, we’ll look at exactly what this much better culture looks like.
I’d love to hear from those of you who have been a Point of Light in your own organization, or who have watched one burn out.
What made the difference? Leave a comment below and let’s talk about it.
Enjoy the journey!
