By Marty Treinen & D. Wesley Spencer

The Boring Disaster That Changed Everything

If you want to understand what’s wrong with modern leadership, you don’t have to look far. You just have to look up — at the sky — and remember Boeing.

In 2018 and 2019, two Boeing 737 MAX jets fell from the sky, killing 346 people. The cause wasn’t just a mechanical failure; it was a moral one. Somewhere along the way, a company that once stood for precision, trust, and safety stopped listening to its engineers and started listening to its shareholders.

What happened inside Boeing was so ordinary it’s almost boring — a perfect case study of what happens when efficiency replaces empathy, when short-term profit takes precedence over long-term purpose. Former CEO Dennis Muilenburg assured investors that everything was fine, even as internal memos showed engineers warning of deadly risks. The boardroom, dominated by financial minds rather than technical ones, nodded along.

When the inevitable happened, Boeing didn’t just lose airplanes — it lost trust, reputation, and 60 billion dollars in market value. Thousands of workers lost jobs. The ripple spread through global supply chains, damaging communities that depended on Boeing’s stability.

A 2020 report from the U.S. House of Representatives concluded that Boeing had fostered “a culture of concealment” where “production pressures were allowed to compromise safety.” What began as a failure of communication became a full-blown collapse of leadership.

I’ve seen that pattern play out in organizations big and small — when fear silences truth, when efficiency outpaces integrity, when management forgets that leadership isn’t about control, it’s about care. The Boeing story wasn’t a one-time tragedy. It was a mirror. And the reflection isn’t flattering.

The Leadership Crisis in Numbers

Here’s the hard truth: we don’t just have a leadership gap — we have a leadership crisis.

A 2023 Gallup study found that ineffective leadership costs the global economy $8.8 trillion every year in lost productivity — that’s 9% of the world’s GDP. You could rebuild entire nations with that.

And the problem isn’t isolated to a few bad apples. Harvard Business Review has reported for decades that around 70% of all organizational transformations fail, most often because of “management behavior inconsistent with strategy.” Deloitte’s 2023 Global Human Capital Trends report found that only 23% of employees believe their leaders “consistently model the company’s values.”

In the 1950s, the average Fortune 500 company survived 75 years. Today, that number is closer to 15. According to McKinsey & Company, half of all publicly traded companies disappear within ten years. Some merge, others collapse, but most simply fade — victims not of markets, but of mismanagement.

Behind every collapse is a story of human disconnect: boards that push too hard, CEOs that listen too little, investors that demand too much. When leadership becomes transactional instead of transformational, organizations don’t just lose money — they lose meaning.

The Anatomy of Ineffective Leadership

Ineffective leadership rarely starts with bad people. It starts with good people making bad assumptions.

The first assumption is that leadership equals authority. It doesn’t. Authority can be granted by position; leadership has to be earned through trust.

The second assumption is that it results in equal effectiveness. That’s only half true. Results matter, but without sustainable culture and emotional maturity, results rot from the inside out.

And the third assumption — the most dangerous one — is that success today guarantees success tomorrow. That’s the myth that keeps entire industries standing still while the world evolves.

Take Wells Fargo. For years, their cross-selling strategy was celebrated as genius. Then the truth came out: employees were opening millions of fake accounts to meet impossible sales quotas. It wasn’t a data problem — it was a leadership one. When managers are pressured to deliver at any cost, integrity becomes optional.

Or Uber under Travis Kalanick. The company revolutionized transportation but built a culture of aggression and fear. Growth came fast, but so did lawsuits, scandals, and resignations.

Or WeWork, where Adam Neumann turned a shared office space into a spiritual cult of personality, raising billions on charisma while the company hemorrhaged money. Investors eventually realized what employees already knew — inspiration without accountability is chaos.

In each case, leadership failed not because they didn’t work hard, but because they didn’t listen. They mistook motion for progress and ego for vision.

Emotional Immaturity and Organizational Decay

Daniel Goleman’s landmark research on Emotional Intelligence (EI) has been validated for decades now. He found that emotional competence accounts for nearly 90% of leadership success beyond technical ability or IQ. Yet most organizations still promote based on productivity, not empathy.

A study by the Stanford Graduate School of Business showed that narcissistic leaders may spark innovation at first but cause long-term cultural decay, creating toxic work environments that destroy trust.

We’ve all seen what happens when emotionally immature leaders are put in charge — conflict festers, communication breaks down, and the most talented people quietly leave. No spreadsheet can measure that loss, but you can feel it in the hallways and hear it in the silence during meetings.

I’ve learned through experience that emotional maturity isn’t softness — its strength. It means knowing when to listen, when to lead, and when to get out of the way.

When leadership forgets that, the organization becomes a body without a heartbeat.

The True Economic Cost of Ineffective Leadership

The global economy is paying an enormous price for ineffective, inefficient, and uninspired leadership. The most conservative studies suggest that the total cost already exceeds $8.8 trillion every year, or roughly 9 percent of global GDP, simply from employee disengagement. That figure comes from Gallup’s State of the Global Workplace 2023, which found that unengaged or actively disengaged employees drain organizations of both energy and creativity. When combined with an additional $1 trillion in productivity losses linked to workplace anxiety and depression reported by the World Health Organization, the lower bound rises well above $8.8 trillion — and that’s before accounting for the ripple effects of high turnover, toxic cultures, and short-term corporate thinking that stifles innovation.

In the United States alone, disengaged workers cost between **$450 billion and $550 billion each year**, according to Gallup’s longitudinal research on American workplaces. Add to that another $45 billion annually in turnover costs caused by toxic workplace cultures, and the total loss reaches the high hundreds of billions every year. The Society for Human Resource Management (SHRM) found that one in five U.S. workers left a job due to a poor workplace environment—costing employers an estimated $223 billion over five years. This was not a matter of pay dissatisfaction but a matter of leadership failure. Supporting that, the MIT Sloan Management Review revealed that toxic culture was ten times more predictive of attrition than compensation. Employees don’t leave companies—they leave uninspiring leaders.

The cost of poor leadership extends far beyond turnover and disengagement. Emotional immaturity and low emotional intelligence among leaders create stressful work environments that amplify burnout, erode trust, and compound mental health costs. The World Health Organization and International Labour Organization report that anxiety and depression result in roughly 12 billion lost workdays annually, representing $1 trillion in productivity loss. These figures show that ineffective leadership doesn’t just demotivate—it literally makes people sick. Fear-based management cultures suppress the brain’s creative and problem-solving capacities, weakening resilience and team innovation precisely when organizations need it most.

The problem deepens when short-termism—pressure from boards and investors for immediate results—undermines long-term value creation. A Harvard study by Barton and Wiseman (2015) revealed that 87 percent of executives feel pressured to deliver quarterly returns even at the expense of sustainable success. Subsequent research confirms that this pressure has only intensified. A 2025 Harvard Business School study found that demands for short-term profit often block climate-related and R&D investments vital for future competitiveness. Similarly, a 2024 study published in the Journal of Financial Economics described “the short-termism trap,” a feedback loop in which firms, catering to investors with limited time horizons, increasingly favor short-duration projects—shrinking innovation cycles and compromising long-term strategic capability. The Corporate Board Member and Long-Term Stock Exchange (LTSE) 2023 report echoed this finding: companies that align leadership with long-term purpose outperform peers across capital allocation, workforce stability, and resilience in economic downturns.

The late W. Edwards Deming foresaw this decades ago when he warned that “a bad system will beat a good person every time.” The system he referred to—driven by fear, fragmented leadership, and profit-chasing without purpose—remains alive and well. Leadership structures still prioritize quarterly earnings calls over creativity, efficiency metrics over emotional mastery, and shareholder appeasement over human development. As a result, even profitable companies can become brittle, unable to adapt, evolve, or inspire.

One measurable symptom of this long-term decline is the shrinking lifespan of major corporations. According to Innosight’s 2024 Corporate Longevity Report, the average tenure of companies on the S&P 500 has fallen from 30–35 years in the late 20th century to just 15–20 years today, and it is forecasted to drop to about 12 years by 2030. That means entire corporations—brands, workforces, and communities—are disappearing within a generation. The cause isn’t a lack of talent or technology; it’s the inability of leaders to cultivate adaptability, creativity, and a shared mission across their organizations.

When taken together, these data paint a sobering picture: ineffective leadership behaviors are linked to a global economic loss of roughly $9–10 trillion annually—a figure so large it’s difficult to comprehend, and yet conservative in scope. In the United States, the floor sits around $500 billion in lost productivity and turnover, but the real cost is far higher when factoring in cultural toxicity, emotional exhaustion, and innovation stagnation. As these costs compound, they not only drain profits but also corrode the human foundation of work—our ability to create, collaborate, and serve others meaningfully.

The good news is that these losses are not inevitable. They are entirely preventable through leadership transformation. Research by Deloitte and Korn Ferry shows that purpose-driven and emotionally intelligent organizations consistently outperform their peers in revenue growth, retention, and innovation. Companies that prioritize psychological safety, creativity, and long-term thinking generate higher returns and navigate crises with agility. These are the very principles embedded in Universal Creative Intelligence (UCI) and CORE-three™—the integrated framework for cultivating leaders who are effective, efficient, and above all, inspiring.

UCI teaches individuals and organizations to reconnect with their innate creative capacities and align them with emotional mastery and collaboration. CORE-three™—which combines Lifelong Learning, The Creative Process, and Service to Others—builds on this foundation to create a measurable pathway for continuous improvement. When these tools are applied systematically, they transform the culture of leadership itself: fear gives way to curiosity, competition becomes collaboration, and efficiency is redefined as empowerment.

What makes the UCI and CORE-three model unique is its universality. It works not just for executives and managers but for teachers, entrepreneurs, public servants, and communities alike. In a world that prizes efficiency yet often forgets humanity, this approach restores the balance. It reminds us that creativity, empathy, and shared purpose are not soft skills—they are the hard infrastructure of sustainable success.

If we are honest, the bill for poor leadership is long overdue. Every unmotivated employee, every project abandoned out of fear, and every board decision made for optics over vision adds to a debt we can no longer afford. The safest, most conservative reading of global research tells us that poor leadership already costs trillions of dollars each year and undermines the very systems meant to sustain progress. Yet these costs can be reversed. By retraining leaders and rehumanizing leadership, organizations can reclaim creativity, rebuild trust, and reignite innovation.

In the words of Deming, “It is not enough to do your best; you must know what to do, and then do your best.” Universal Creative Intelligence gives us the tools to know—and CORE-three teaches us how to do. Together, they form the next evolution of leadership: one that empowers every individual to contribute, every organization to adapt, and every community to thrive.

This is not a future to wait for. It’s a future we can build—today.

A New Human Equation: From Efficiency to Empathy

We can’t solve this crisis with more efficiency programs or productivity dashboards. What we need is a new human equation — one that reconnects intellect with empathy, creativity with collaboration, and purpose with progress.

That’s where Universal Creative Intelligence™ (UCI) comes in.

UCI is the framework that restores balance between human potential and organizational purpose. It teaches people — from children to CEOs — how to think creatively, collaborate authentically, and lead compassionately.

Where Drucker taught that “management is doing things right; leadership is doing the right things,” and Deming taught that “quality is everyone’s responsibility,” UCI goes one step further: it shows how to do those right things continuously.

UCI is built around CORE-three™: the integration of Human-Centric AI, creativity, and service to others. It’s a system where continuous improvement isn’t just mechanical — it’s moral.

Leadership, when grounded in UCI, becomes less about command and more about connection.

Sidebar: The Six Pillars of UCI Leadership

1. Lifelong Learning – Learning in real time. Curiosity keeps the mind flexible; flexible minds build resilient organizations.
2. The Creative Process – Creativity is not luck; it’s a structured practice that turns “what if” into “what now.”
3. Emotional Mastery – The ability to lead without ego, listen without fear, and respond with integrity.
4. Tru-Collaboration – Working as equals toward a shared purpose, where everyone’s voice matters.
5. Organizational Mission – Developing a defined personal and organizational mission that keeps individuals focused on the organizational mission. You can’t get there if you don’t know where there is.
6. Service To Others – The very foundation of what makes humanity possible. 

These pillars don’t replace traditional management — they elevate it.

From Deming to Drucker to CORE-three™

In the mid-20th century, W. Edwards Deming transformed Japan’s postwar economy by introducing continuous improvement — Kaizen. His philosophy was simple: quality comes from process, not pressure.
Deming believed leadership should empower people to find better ways, not simply demand more. His work helped create the Toyota Production System, a model that valued learning as much as output.

Peter F. Drucker, meanwhile, reshaped management by redefining its purpose. He wrote, “The purpose of business is to create a customer.” But he also warned: “Management is doing things right; leadership is doing the right things.”

UCI and CORE-three™ are the natural continuation of that lineage. Deming built systems that empowered workers. Drucker redefined purpose. CCI now fuses those ideas with creativity and service to forge a new kind of leadership — one built not on command, but on collaboration.

We call this next evolution the Service-to-Others Economy™ (STO Economy) — a framework where creativity, empathy, and shared purpose become the new drivers of prosperity.

The Global Leadership Crisis: From Boardrooms to Ballots

The same leadership vacuum that cripples corporations is now crippling countries.

The Edelman Trust Barometer (2023) found that trust in government has dropped to 42% worldwide, with citizens citing self-interest, corruption, and incompetence as primary reasons.

It’s the same disease — leadership inefficiency — but in a different body.
Political systems, like corporations, have rewarded charisma over character, talking points over problem-solving, and dominance over dialogue.

When leaders lack emotional maturity, democracies fracture. When collaboration is replaced by coercion, nations stop creating and start dividing.

From corporate boards to parliaments, from city councils to classrooms, the issue is the same: we’ve mistaken control for leadership and forgotten that service to others is the truest form of strength.

The Path Forward: Training a New Generation of Leaders

To rebuild leadership, we must rebuild how we teach it.

Leadership education today focuses too heavily on metrics — quarterly returns, efficiency ratios, and performance evaluations. What’s missing are the human mechanics: emotional literacy, creative resilience, and moral courage.

That’s why Kaizen Educational Systems™, grounded in UCI and CORE-three™, begins where traditional systems end. It trains people not to manage others, but to lead themselves — and then to serve those around them.

From elementary classrooms to corporate training programs, this model can be applied anywhere. Every participant learns to ask five core questions:

1. What if? (imagination)
2. What now? (action)
3. How? (process)
4. How did we do? (reflection)
5. How do we do it again? (continuous improvement)

This creative cycle doesn’t just teach leadership — it builds it. Every student becomes an innovator; every teacher, a mentor; every leader, a collaborator.

The Path Forward: CORE-three™ and the STO Economy™

The Service to Others Economy™ (STOE) is not an idealistic vision — it’s an inevitable evolution.

If there is one truth the 21st century will teach us, it’s this: efficiency without humanity fails.

The Service-to-Others Economy™ redefines success. It replaces competition with contribution, scarcity with collaboration, and isolation with inclusion. It’s not socialism or capitalism; it’s sustainable humanism — the idea that progress must lift everyone, not just those at the top.

In the STO model, every business, government, and community becomes an ecosystem of mutual empowerment. The arts, sciences, and education merge into one shared purpose: to help people learn, create, and thrive.

In a world driven by AI, efficiency will no longer be our advantage — humanity will.
Creativity, empathy, and adaptability are the only currencies that never devalue.

CORE-three™ — the integration of Universal Creative Intelligence™, Artificial Intelligence, and Service to Others — gives us a pathway. It trains leaders to use creativity as their compass, empathy as their engine, and service as their success metric.

In a true STO Economy, every worker is a learner, every learner a leader, and every leader a servant to the greater good.

Imagine if every company trained its workforce not only to work efficiently but to create joyfully and collaborate fearlessly. Imagine governments led by people who measured success not by polls, but by progress in human potential.When everyone becomes a leader — not by title, but by choice — continuous improvement becomes cultural, not conditional.

That’s not utopia — that’s what happens when UCI and CORE-three™ are put into practice.

The STO Economy™ — Service as the Future of Prosperity

If the twentieth century was about competition, the twenty-first must be about contribution.

The Service-to-Others Economy™ (STO Economy) is the natural evolution of capitalism and democracy — an economy where success is measured not only by profit but by the value we create for one another. It aligns perfectly with UCI: creativity applied in service of humanity.

In the STO model, organizations exist to empower, not exploit. Education and enterprise converge. Continuous improvement becomes continuous compassion. Imagine a world where healthcare systems reward prevention over procedures, where corporations measure “return on empathy,” and where governments compete to serve their citizens better — not control them.

This isn’t utopian. It’s already visible. Cleveland Clinic trains physicians in empathy and has cut malpractice claims by double digits. Patagonia gives away its ownership to the planet itself. Finland’s cooperative schools rank among the world’s most effective precisely because they trust teachers to lead collaboratively.

The future will not belong to the efficient; it will belong to the evolved. Efficiency runs out. Evolution never does.

We stand at the threshold of a new renaissance — one built not on machines or markets, but on minds and hearts aligned in creative service. The blueprint is simple:

Evolve. Lead. Serve.™

If every organization trained its people to create, to collaborate, and to serve, we would not only rebuild our economies. We would rebuild our humanity.

Conclusion: The Call to Lead the Renaissance

The 20th century belonged to efficiency. The 21st belongs to empathy.

Every major failure — from Boeing’s collapse to our political gridlock — teaches the same lesson: leadership without humanity is a dead end.

The time for reform has passed; the time for rebirth is here.

If we want a world that works — not just runs — we have to start teaching leadership as a creative act. We must raise children, train workers, and guide executives to see themselves not as bosses, but as builders of possibility.

This is the beginning of the 21st Century Global Renaissance. And it starts with one question every leader must ask:

“Am I serving others, or am I serving myself?”

When that question guides our decisions, inefficiency disappears. Innovation accelerates. Humanity advances.

The future isn’t waiting. It’s inviting. And it’s time we accepted.

About the Authors

D. Wesley Spence, Ph.D., and Marty Treinen have lived extraordinary lives of creativity, education, and service—lives not finished, but beautifully renewed. Their shared journey has spanned decades of work 

in the arts, education, and human development, united by one purpose: to help children especially and adults rediscover the power of their own universal creative intelligence, and its potential.

Their philosophy is simple but profound—to serve others is the highest form of creation. Through every performance, classroom, and collaboration, they have devoted themselves to inspiring families, 

students, artists, entrepreneurs, and communities of every kind. Their work reflects a deep belief that when we lift others, we rise together.

Together, they authored “Universal Creative Intelligence: How the Arts and Sciences Propel Human Advancement,”and have written more than twenty supporting white papers that explore the science, philosophy, and practice behind Universal Creative Intelligence™ (UCI). Their continuing body of work—including several forthcoming books—forms the foundation for The Perfect Storm and its vision: that California, and particularly the Coachella Valley, holds the power to ignite the 21st-Century Global Renaissance.