The Mirroring Effect: Why Leadership Teams All Look the Same
Look at your leadership team photo. Go ahead, we'll wait.
Got it? Now tell us - if you lined up the backgrounds, universities, golf handicaps, and weekend plans of those executives, how different would they actually be?
Here's the uncomfortable truth: You didn't accidentally hire a bunch of clones. Your brain did it on purpose.
The Psychology of "People Like Me"
Dutch executives pride themselves on being data-driven. Objective. Merit-focused. Yet according to Harvard Business Review research by Tasha Eurich, 95% of people think they're self-aware, but only about 10-15% actually are. The biggest blind spot? Homophily: the tendency to surround ourselves with people who think, look, and act like us.
Your brain isn't being malicious. It's being efficient. When you meet someone who shares your background, your neural pathways light up like a Christmas tree. "This person gets it," you think. "They understand the hustle. The vision. The way business really works."
Meanwhile, the candidate who brings different perspectives? Your brain flags them as risky. Unknown. Potentially disruptive to your carefully constructed leadership ecosystem.
The Coffee Test (And Why It's Killing Your Pipeline)
Here's where it gets interesting. According to Napoleon Cat's research, the Netherlands has 62.6% LinkedIn penetration (Napoleon Cat, 2023), making it one of the most connected business communities globally, but when it comes to informal leadership decisions, Dutch executives are just as susceptible to bias as everyone else.
Think about your last five important conversations about talent, strategy, or succession. Where did they happen?
Coffee run between meetings?
Walking back from lunch?
That "quick chat" that turned into a 45-minute strategy session?
Who was included in those conversations? Here's where the mirroring effect becomes lethal. According to a George Washington University study, men interrupt women 2.1 times during a three-minute conversation versus 1.8 times when interrupting other men (Advisory Board, 2017), and are significantly less likely to invite them into informal decision-making spaces.
You're not doing it consciously. Your brain is simply gravitating toward familiar patterns - people who communicate like you, who share your decision-making style, who "fit" the unspoken criteria you've internalized over 20+ years of business experience.
The €540K Quarterly Mirroring Effect Blind Spot
Let's talk numbers, because we know that's what gets your attention.
According to Fiona Ross Consulting research, replacing a C-suite executive in Europe costs between €533,875 to €1,303,990. But here's the part that'll keep you up at night: Most of these departures could have been prevented if she'd been included in the informal networks where real career acceleration happens.
Your "objective" succession planning? It's built on subjective coffee conversations or grabbing lunch. Your "merit-based" promotions? They're influenced by who gets face time during those walking meetings.
The mirroring effect isn't just creating homogeneous leadership - it's systematically excluding the diverse perspectives that could be driving your next breakthrough.
The Dutch Directness Paradox
Dutch business culture values directness. Efficiency. Getting to the point. But when it comes to leadership development, this cultural strength becomes a weakness.
"We promote the best person for the job," executives tell me. "Gender doesn't matter."
But "best" according to whom? Using what criteria? Measured how?
The truth is, your definition of "leadership potential" was shaped by leaders who looked like you, thought like you, and succeeded in systems designed by people like you. You're not seeing bias - you're seeing pattern recognition.
The Boarding School Effect
Here's where it gets personal. The Netherlands has a strong technical and engineering education focus, creating similar educational backgrounds among executives. Similar career paths. Similar ways of processing risk, making decisions, and defining success.
It's like an invisible boarding school that never ended. You're still sitting at the same lunch table, just with bigger budgets and corner offices.
And just like in boarding school, the "outsiders" can feel the exclusion - even if it's completely unintentional. They see who gets invited to the strategy sessions. Who gets mentioned for "stretch assignments." Whose ideas get built upon versus dismissed.
The result? Your best female talent starts interviewing elsewhere while you're still wondering why your succession pipeline looks so... familiar.
The Peer Pressure Amplifier
Want to see the mirroring effect in real-time? Watch what happens when you mention you're considering a female executive for a key role.
The questions that come up aren't "Is she qualified?" (she usually is—according to the UK Behavioural Insights Team, women need to meet 100% of job requirements before applying, while men apply with just 60%).
The questions are:
"Is she ready for that level of pressure?"
"Can she handle the client relationships?"
"Will the team respect her authority?"
Notice what just happened? The criteria shifted. Suddenly, "leadership potential" became about comfort levels and cultural fit rather than track record and capability.
You're not asking these questions to be discriminatory. You're asking them because your peer network (aka other executives who look like you) are asking them. The mirroring effect creates an echo chamber where everyone's biases reinforce each other.
The Competitive Blind Spot
While you're unconsciously replicating yourself, your competitors are building diverse leadership teams that are eating your market share.
According to McKinsey & Company's "Diversity Wins" report, companies in the top quartile for gender diversity on executive teams were 25% more likely to have above-average profitability (McKinsey, 2020). They're better at reading market signals, anticipating customer needs, and innovating faster.
They're not morally superior. They're strategically smarter.
They've figured out that the mirroring effect, while psychologically comfortable, is strategically catastrophic in a world where diverse perspectives drive competitive advantage.
The Emotional Intelligence Gap
Here's a stat that'll blow your mind: According to Korn Ferry Hay Group research analyzing 55,000 professionals across 90 countries, women score higher than men on nearly all emotional intelligence competencies (Korn Ferry Hay Group, 2016).
Yet somehow, when we think "executive presence," we still default to the communication styles we recognize - typically male patterns of authority and decision-making.
You're literally screening out the leadership skills your organization needs most.
Breaking the Mirror
Here's the good news: once you see the pattern, you can interrupt it.
The most successful Dutch executives I work with have implemented what I call "mirror breakers" - systematic ways to diversify their informal networks and decision-making processes.
They've realized that hiring for "cultural fit" was actually hiring for "cultural replication." Instead, they're hiring for cultural contribution - people who can add to their perspective rather than mirror it.
They've restructured their "coffee conversations" to include rotating participants. They've made their succession planning transparently data-driven rather than intuitively comfort-driven.
Most importantly, they've stopped asking "Will she fit in?" and started asking "What can she bring that we're missing?"
The Dutch Board Reality Check
Want to see the mirroring effect in action? According to Amsterdam Law Blog research, in 2022, women held 38% of Dutch supervisory board positions, up from just 18% a decade ago (Amsterdam Law Blog, 2023). This wasn't organic growth, it required legal intervention to break the mirror.
The companies that waited for legislation? They're scrambling. The ones that broke their mirrors early? They're ahead of the game.
The Reality Check
Look, we get it. Change is uncomfortable. Your current leadership team works (mostly). The chemistry is good. Everyone speaks the same language, literally and figuratively.
But here's the uncomfortable truth: while you're optimizing for comfort, the market is optimizing for capability. Your female talent - the women you've invested in, trained, and developed - are being recruited by competitors who've figured out how to break their mirrors.
The choice is yours: Keep hiring people who make you comfortable, or start hiring people who make you better.
The market won't wait while you decide. Looking to break the mirroring effect in your leadership team? At impowr, we help Dutch executives build diverse, high-performing leadership pipelines that drive competitive advantage. Because the best way to see your blind spots is to surround yourself with people who have different perspectives.
