The absorption advantage: How elite leaders shield teams to drive performance

The best leaders don’t just motivate their people, they protect them. They act as a buffer, absorbing external pressure so their teams can focus fully on performance, providing an absorption advantage.

Highly effective leaders only ever share the tip of the iceberg with their teams, even if there’s plenty more happening below the surface. Craig Tiley, CEO of Tennis Australia, has seen this play out in one of the world’s most high-pressure sporting environments.

“Great leaders become a buffer. They become a buffer to the barriers, to the challenges, to the negative, to the external factors. Remember, as a leader, your objective is to create an environment where you can maximize your performance and achieve great things, so you have to create that buffer.”

While humans are naturally curious – and transparent communication is important – the best leaders will only reveal certain details when it makes sense to share them. They absorb irrelevant information and external pressure, rather than taking their team on a journey of coulds, shoulds, and woulds that might never happen.

The impact of strong leadership

Culture Amp’s research across more than three million employees and 4,700 companies confirms just how critical leadership is. As we detail in our report, The leadership advantage, the data shows that leadership has a far greater impact on employee experience than direct management. For example, while a change in manager will affect employee commitment, a leadership change has a far bigger effect.

Our data also shows that employees with great leaders but poor managers report better experiences than those with great managers but poor leaders. And employees under high-performing leaders are 4.5 times more likely to be high performers themselves.

Leadership sets the tone, and when leaders create psychologically safe environments, high-performing employees give 36% more feedback. This feedback loop fuels innovation and improvement, creating the conditions where teams consistently outperform.

Buffer-style leadership in action

What does great leadership look like?

As the leader of the organization delivering the “world’s favorite Grand Slam” – aka the Australian Open – and nurturing a new generation of emerging athletes to contribute to record numbers of Australians now ranked in the world’s top 100, Craig Tiley’s model of leadership has a proven track record.

In his role as CEO of Tennis Australia, Tiley has put the absorption advantage into practice. During the COVID-19 crisis, he deliberately positioned himself between his people and external stakeholders. With government restrictions shifting daily and global media scrutinizing every decision, he absorbed the criticism and pressure, shielding his teams so they could deliver a successful Australian Open in highly unusual circumstances.

“I created the buffer externally,” he recalls. “I became the face of the problem. I created the buffer between the board and the leadership team. I created the buffer between the externals and the organization. If you fall on your sword by creating the buffer, that is being a leader,” says Tiley.

He applies that same philosophy year after year at the Australian Open. So that the 4,500-person staff can focus on execution of the event – managing nearly 800,000 attendees and delivering a $400 million economic impact – while Tiley focuses on absorbing pressure and managing external forces such as government agencies, player associations, sponsors, and international media.

By absorbing and redirecting that complexity, he gives his team clarity and support, not distraction and chaos.

This absorption style of leadership also shaped Tiley’s earlier career in the US, where he inherited a struggling college tennis program at the University of Illinois. For years, the team had been weighed down by institutional doubt and resource constraints. Tiley dealt with those burdens himself, projecting only clarity and confidence to his players.

Within four years, the team went from last place to national champions.

A need-to-know basis

Rather than relying on charisma, drive, or vision, the absorption approach to leadership protects people and gives them space and permission to focus on delivery, without the distraction of top-level decision making or the unknowns of external stakeholders.

Buffer leaders absorb the shock from external forces and prevent unnecessary noise from overwhelming people. By creating this protective layer, they give teams the space to perform at their best.

And the data backs it up.

Culture Amp finds that leaders who earn the highest possible ratings are significantly more likely to lead high-performing teams. As we share in our report, The science of sustainable high performance, it’s not because these leaders are the loudest or most charismatic, but because they consistently set new standards, protect their people, and create environments where pressure becomes fuel for performance rather than a drain on energy. Our research shows that the systems, behaviors, and cultural norms that surround employees contribute to their long-term success.

Consistency rather than uncertainty

Leaders can’t completely eliminate the pressure employees face – some changes are out of their control – but they can manage how the pressure is distributed.

For leaders, this means:

1. Be the shield, not the source. Your team should feel clarity and focus, not the full brunt of external pressure.
2. Remember that leadership outweighs management. Invest in leadership development, not just managerial skills.
3. Create psychologically safe environments. When leaders model openness, high performers share 36% more feedback, a critical driver of success.
4. Treat pressure as energy management. Absorb and redistribute energy so teams can sustain high performance over time.

Ultimately, absorption leadership means you’re better equipped to manage challenges. As Craig Tiley says:

“As a leader, it's not your success. It's the success of a team and the success of the people that you are providing the opportunity for, or the pathway for. And therefore, you’ve got to maximize every opportunity, and you’ve got to enable an environment that can be completely seamless in what can be achieved.

“You're going to have external factors that are going to negatively impact that environment, and those are simply challenges. And a challenge is there to simply overcome and not to create a limitation.”