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Executive Update  & Networking Breakfast

The 7 Dysfunctions of Leaders

Join senior leaders in Brussels to find out how the 7 dysfunctions undermine performance — and how to prevent them.

  • 4 March 2026
  • 08:00 - 10:00 CET
  • Steigenberger Icon Wiltcher’s Avenue Louise 71
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MCE Executive Update & Networking Breakfast

How the 7 Dysfunctions Undermine Performance — and How to Prevent Them.

In a recent conversation with a senior executive navigating a major transition, one question surfaced repeatedly: “Why do capable leaders sometimes derail, even when they know better?”

Leadership today is exercised under constant pressure: speed, complexity, ambiguity, talent shortages, technological disruption, and heightened expectations. In such conditions, it is not incompetence that causes failure — it is predictable human dysfunctions that quietly take hold, especially during moments of growth, crisis, or transition.

After more than 35 years working with leaders , Olivier Courtois has observed that leaders lose touch with themselves. Their circle of influence narrows. Communication weakens. Vision fades. Energy disperses. Trust erodes. Exhaustion sets in. The consequences spread far beyond the individual leader — affecting teams, culture, performance, and long-term sustainability.

Based on his recent book “The Seven Dysfunctions of Leaders”, this business breakfast explores why leadership is such a rare discipline — and how leaders can develop the vigilance, clarity, and daily practices needed to remain effective, grounded, and impactful over time.

What Will Be Covered?

  • Why leadership failure is rarely about skills — and almost always about human blind spots
  • The 7 most common dysfunctions that cause leaders to lose their way
  • How pressure, transition, and success amplify dysfunctional patterns
  • Practical strategies to prevent derailment and restore clarity, trust, and focus
  • How leaders can strengthen performance while remaining human and sustainable
  • Reflection, dialogue, and shared learning with peers

Who Is It For?

Senior leader and manager of managers. You are responsible for the overall strategy in your department, team or organization. You are faced with many executive challenges in your role. You want to boost the performance of your organization, division or department.

  • Senior Executives & Managers
  • Business Leaders
  • HR & L&D Executives and Directors
  • People and Culture Business Partners
  • Learning and Development Teams

Facilitator Details

Olivier Courtois

Author and Senior Associate at MCE

Olivier Courtois is a Senior Associate at MCE and has held senior roles in global people consultancies, including Korn Ferry.

He is an entrepreneur, coach, and keynote speaker with over 35 years international experience with senior leaders and leadership teams around the world and continues to support leaders facing complexity, transition, and growth.

He is the author of The Seven Dysfunctions of Leaders: 21 Questions to Transform Your Business, Your Career and Your Life (Novaro Publishing), a self-coaching guide designed for leaders of today and tomorrow.

Recognised for his clarity, depth, and human approach, Olivier helps leaders transform performance by working on what matters most: how they think, decide, relate, and act — every day.

The 7 Dysfunctions of Leaders

Overcome seven dysfunctions to become the best leader you can be: a self-coaching guide for leaders of today and tomorrow

For those looking to be the best leaders they can be, seven dysfunctions stand in the way. These patterns of behaviour repeatedly undermine performance and derail careers, even for those with the best intentions.

In 35 years as an international coach, Olivier Courtois has seen all the traps into which leaders can fall. To keep your career, your team, your organisation and your life on track, he says, it takes constant vigilance.

In this self-coaching guide, you will learn how each dysfunction can drag you down, how you can defeat it and what gains you can make. Through a series of 21 questions, it gives you the tools, the practices and the skills to let you realise your potential as a leader who can transform performance in the workplace and keep making a difference in life.

More about the book