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Written by: Āndrew Boyton
There's an old story about the Queen. Wherever she went, everything smelled of fresh paint. Not because Britain was perpetually redecorating, but because people painted before she arrived. The result? Her Majesty might have genuinely believed the entire country lived in pristine, freshly maintained glory.
She never saw the peeling walls. The damp patches. The cracks papered over.
And here's the thing: most leaders live in or desire for that same freshly painted world.
The Smell of Performance Theatre
Before you visit the warehouse, someone tidies it. Before you attend the team meeting, the awkward colleague is mysteriously "off sick." Before you review the project, the data gets ... massaged. Just a bit. Just enough.
Fresh paint everywhere.
The problem isn't that people want to impress you. That's natural. The problem is when you start preferring it. When you unconsciously signal that you'd rather see the polished version than the truth. When your presence triggers a performance instead of a conversation.
That's when fresh paint becomes risk.
What Fresh Paint Hides
Fresh paint covers:
- Systemic failures nobody dares mention
- Exhausted teams performing resilience they don't feel
- Processes that only work when someone breaks the rules
- Customers who smile to your face and churn behind your back
- The fact that your "high performer" is a brilliant bully
Fresh paint isn't just about aesthetics. It's about survival. People paint before your arrival because they've learned that truth is dangerous, that problems reflect poorly on them, that you shoot the messenger.
And if you're a leader who prefers the smell of fresh paint? You've created a culture where reality is a liability.
The Bigger Risk
Matthew Syed talks about black box thinking, learning from failure. Margaret Heffernan warns about wilful blindness. Phillipa Perry reminds us that healthy relationships require honest communication.
They're all pointing to the same thing: organisations that hide truth don't just stagnate, they become fragile. One small crack and the whole facade comes down.
When leaders only see fresh paint, they make decisions based on fiction. They allocate resources to solve problems that don't exist whilst the real issues rot beneath the surface. They reward the painters instead of the truth-tellers.
And the people who could save you? They stop trying. Because what's the point?
How to Stop Smelling Paint
- Show up unannounced. Not to catch people out, but to see the ordinary day. The real rhythms. The actual mood.
- Ask about what's not working. Make it safe. Make it expected. Make it rewarded.
- Listen to the people who hesitate. The pause before someone answers tells you more than the polished response.
- Seek out the unglamorous corners. Talk to the person who's been there 15 years. Visit the team that never gets exec attention. Read the complaints file, not just the case studies.
- Notice your own preferences. Do you unconsciously reward people who tell you everything's fine? Do you get impatient with complexity? Do you like your meetings smooth?
- Create truth-tellers, not yes-people. Promote the person who brings you problems with solutions, not the one who brings you only good news.
The Leadership QuestionThe Leadership Question
Here it is, plainly: Would you rather smell fresh paint or see what's real?
Because you can't have both.
Reality is messy. It's contradictory. It doesn't fit neatly into a board paper. It includes people saying "I don't know" and "we're struggling" and "this isn't working."
But it's the only thing you can actually lead with.
Fresh paint is bullshit. It's risk dressed up as reassurance. And every time you accept it, you make your organisation a little more fragile, a little more performative, a little more lost.
So go find the places that don't smell like fresh paint. That's where the truth lives. That's where your real work begins.
From Complexity to Connection
Even the best businesses can lose alignment. Systems stop talking. Teams drift. And somewhere between strategy and delivery, trust breaks down.
At The Relationship Lab, we help leadership teams deter, detect, and disrupt harm by aligning people, processes, and technology.
Because here's the truth:
People and plans deliver products, but relationships deliver success.
When you design for both secure systems and safe relationships, performance becomes effortless. Business becomes sustainable.
What We Do
- Secure Transformation – Future-ready systems that protect both data and dignity.
- Psychological & Organisational Safety – Cultures where truth can be spoken and innovation can thrive.
- Leadership Capability – Confident, values-led decision-making in uncertainty.
The future belongs to organisations that are human and secure. That's where we come in.
Thought to Leave You With
The organisations that survive aren't the ones with the best paint jobs. They're the ones where leaders have the courage to see the cracks, and the people feel safe enough to show them.
Today's Joke
A CEO walks into a warehouse unannounced. The staff panic, frantically tidying. "Please don't," says the CEO. "I need to see how it really works." The warehouse manager pauses, confused: "But sir, we've built our entire culture around your scheduled visits." The CEO nods sadly: "I know. That's the problem I came here to smell."
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