Goal: To frame the “Invisibility” problem for the executive-level reader.
Most organizations treat evaluation systems as neutral mirrors of organizational health.
They aren’t.
In my analysis of institutional behavior, I’ve found that metrics are rarely objective; they are encoded definitions of success inherited from the past. They act as the political architecture of the status quo.
When we define “production” only through the lens of historical KPIs, we inadvertently stifle any innovation that doesn’t immediately translate into those old forms of currency.
The executive’s real dilemma is this: You can produce genuine transformation and be structurally punished for it. Not because of a failure of character, but because of a collision with “institutional legibility.”
The question for leadership is rarely: “Are we changing lives?” The question is: “Is our system built to recognize the change we say we want?”
If the architecture is designed to hide your progress, your most important act of leadership is not more activity—it is a radical ownership of the evaluation itself.
Read the full breakdown of the “Architecture of Invisibility” on the founder’s personal site: https://empowermentstartshere.net/2026/01/20/the-legibility-gap-why-systems-ignore-transformative-success/
The Empowerment Network 