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Hard leadership decisions rarely stall because CMOs need one more framework. In this Expert Huddle, leadership coach Ty Hammond of One Mountain Leadership explains why the real blocker is often awareness: the blind spots, assumptions, and discomfort that shape what a leader sees before they act.
Most CMOs have enough leadership advice. They know when a standard is unclear, when a senior leader is not meeting expectations, when a cross-functional relationship needs repair, or when a decision has been delayed too long.
That is why Ty Hammond’s opening challenge matters. As he put it in the Expert Huddle, “When folks already know what to do, but they’re still not doing it, what do we do then?” For CMOs, that question lands hard because the avoided move is often already visible.
The issue is not always information. Hammond argues that “tips and tricks are not going to work when what’s missing is not knowledge or skills, but it’s awareness.” In other words, the CMO may not need another tactic; they may need a clearer view of what is shaping their hesitation.
Hammond’s work starts with what leaders cannot yet see about their own role in the situation. “The primary thing is being able to identify what I call your blind spots, your assumptions, and your limits,” he said.
For CMOs, those blind spots can show up in subtle ways. A leader may intend to be collaborative but create ambiguity, intend to be supportive but avoid accountability, or intend to protect the team while delaying the clarity people need.
That gap between intention and impact is where the real leadership work begins. Hammond noted that “if the intention that you have is not actually creating the impact that you want, it’s likely that you’re missing some very critical information.” The hard part is that the missing information is often internal, not something another checklist can supply.
Hammond’s glasses metaphor is useful because it makes blind spots less abstract. Leaders do not simply respond to reality; they respond to reality as filtered through assumptions they may not realize they are carrying.
This matters deeply for accountability. Hammond offered a simple example: “If I’m wearing glasses that say I am the nice guy, and me holding somebody accountable means that I’m not a nice guy, there’s no tip or trick that you can give me.” That belief will keep shaping behavior until the leader can actually see it operating.
For CMOs, the “nice guy” story can take many forms. It might sound like protecting the team, preserving trust, waiting for better timing, or keeping the peace with a peer. Sometimes those instincts are wise. Sometimes they are polished avoidance.
One of Hammond’s most useful distinctions for CMOs is the difference between tactical problems and adaptive challenges. Tactical problems have practical fixes: clearer ownership, cleaner dashboards, stronger briefs, better meeting rhythms, or more explicit decision rights.
Adaptive challenges ask something deeper of the leader. Hammond said, “There’s a real tendency that we as human beings have, which is any time that I feel difficulty, I imagine that there’s a problem outside, that there’s something for me to do about it or to fix it.”
That tendency is understandable, especially for CMOs. Marketing leaders are trained to solve, optimize, clarify, measure, and move. But if every discomfort gets treated as an external problem, the leader may miss the internal assumption that keeps the pattern alive.
The first question reveals the operating issue. The second often reveals the leadership issue: fear, identity, power, trust, or an assumption that has gone unexamined.
If the challenge is tactical, fix the system. If it is adaptive, examine the assumption. If it is both, do both, but do not pretend the process change alone will create the courage to use it.
Hammond’s bigger point is that not every hard moment should be solved away as quickly as possible. “If we solve an adaptive challenge away,” he warned, “we’re losing the opportunity of what an adaptive challenge is actually here for, which is to grow you and your capacity to actually see, be with complexity, increased uncertainty, ambiguity, volatility.”
That is not soft advice. For CMOs, it is boardroom practical. The job increasingly requires leaders to make decisions before every variable is settled, manage tension across functions, and keep teams moving while market conditions keep changing.
Avoidance can therefore become data. If the same leadership move keeps getting delayed, the discomfort may be pointing directly at the growth edge.
The hard decision you are avoiding may not need another leadership tip. It may need a clearer look at the assumption making the decision feel unsafe. For CMOs, that is not abstract self-reflection. It is how leaders build the capacity to make cleaner calls, hold clearer standards, and stay useful when the work gets uncomfortable.
Want to hear the full conversation yourself? Listen here.
Adaptive leadership is the ability to stay present with complexity, uncertainty, and discomfort long enough to see what the situation is really asking of you. For CMOs, that might mean recognizing when a challenge cannot be solved by another dashboard, meeting, process, or framework alone.
A tactical problem has a practical fix you can name, such as clearer ownership, cleaner reporting, or a better decision process. An adaptive challenge exposes something the leader or team must learn, confront, or grow into before the practical fix will actually work.
CMOs may avoid hard decisions because the move threatens an identity story or assumption. For example, if accountability feels like becoming “the bad guy,” a leader may keep looking for more data or better timing instead of naming the issue.
Start by asking what assumption is making the move feel unsafe. The next step may still be tactical, but the delay itself is useful data: it points to a blind spot, fear, or belief that needs to be seen before the decision gets easier to make.