Dale Robinette introduces 12 practical agreements for leading, engaging and retaining talent in a workplace where the old rules no longer apply.
SAN DIEGO, CA, UNITED STATES, September 1, 2026 /EINPresswire.com/ — The unwritten agreement between companies and their employees has fundamentally changed. The problem, according to executive coach and author Dale Robinette, is that many organizations are still managing as though it hasn’t.
In his new book, Modern Leadership Agreement: How Leaders Adapt or Get Left Behind; Navigating the New Deal Between Companies and Talent, Robinette argues that many of today’s most persistent workplace problems are symptoms of a larger issue. These problems include disengagement, accountability gaps, distrust, turnover and friction between leaders and employees. Companies and talent are operating with different expectations of what each owes the other.
“The old contract between companies and their people expired decades ago. Most organizations never wrote a new one,” Robinette writes.
Modern Leadership Agreement provides leaders with a practical framework for writing that new agreement.
Drawing on more than two decades working with CEOs, boards and executive leadership teams, Robinette introduces the MODERN LEADER framework, 12 practical agreements that redefine how organizations and their people work together.
Rather than approaching leadership as a collection of soft skills or management techniques, Robinette treats leadership as an operating system. The agreements address issues ranging from mutual commitment and decision rights to accountability, communication, development, rewards and enterprise stewardship.
When employees don’t understand what the organization owes them or what the organization expects in return, leaders fill the gaps with policies, employees fill them with assumptions, and both sides become frustrated when those assumptions don’t match.
“The workplace has changed dramatically, but many of our assumptions about leadership haven’t,” Robinette said. “Employees want greater autonomy, transparency, flexibility and development. Companies still need accountability, performance, adaptability and commitment. Neither side is wrong. The problem is that we haven’t clearly defined the new agreement.”
The book is written specifically for CEOs and senior executives trying to build organizations that can scale without sacrificing accountability or culture.
Robinette argues that modern leadership should not mean lowering expectations. In many cases, it means making expectations considerably clearer.
Among the questions the book challenges leadership teams to answer:
• What does commitment mean when lifetime employment is no longer the expectation?
• How much authority should employees have to make decisions without approval?
• What does a company owe employees in exchange for accountability and performance?
• Who owns an employee’s development: the employee, the manager or the company?
• How should organizations balance flexibility with the needs of the enterprise?
• What does it mean for executives and employees to act as stewards of the enterprise rather than simply occupants of a job?
Robinette developed the framework through years of working with CEOs and executive teams ranging from entrepreneurial companies to large enterprises. His career has included executive leadership, board service, entrepreneurship and advising companies on growth, strategy, leadership and execution.
He is a CEO coach with Vistage International, a Certified Scaling Up Coach and Chairman of the Board of publicly traded Flux Power. He previously authored Rich Layers: Six Strategies to 10X Your Business, which focuses on the strategic pathways companies can use to achieve exponential growth.
With Modern Leadership Agreement, Robinette turns from the strategy of scaling a business to the leadership system required to scale the people inside it.
“Companies can’t build tomorrow’s organizations using yesterday’s leadership agreement,” Robinette said. “The organizations that figure out the new agreement will have an enormous advantage in attracting talent, retaining their best people and getting them to perform at their highest level.”
Modern Leadership Agreement: How Leaders Adapt or Get Left Behind; Navigating the New Deal Between Companies and Talent was published in August 2026 and is available through Amazon and other booksellers.
ISBN: 9798195173036
ABOUT DALE ROBINETTE
Dale Robinette is an executive coach, author, board chairman and growth strategist with more than 25 years of experience helping companies grow and scale. He serves as a CEO coach with Vistage International, is a Certified Scaling Up Coach and is Chairman of the Board of Flux Power. Throughout his career, Robinette has worked with organizations ranging from entrepreneurial companies to Fortune 50 enterprises, helping CEOs and executive teams improve strategy, leadership, execution and enterprise value.
For additional information about Dale Robinette and Modern Leadership Agreement, visit DaleRobinette.com.
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