Unfortunately, we waste too much time, energy, and resources saying let's have a retreat and bring in a facilitator, let's get our vision agreed upon and our core values and guiding principles established. That is totally unnecessary and counterproductive activity. This is what we need to understand, not the reasons behind all of it. Power Tools Leadership is power. Power is influence.
Influence is the ability to shape perceptions in people's heads.
If you want to shape the perceptions of others, your only tools are your own observable behaviors. Thus, to become more powerful as a leader, a negotiator, or a conflict resolver requires changes in one's own patterns of behavior. Put your aspirations and expectations for others in terms of concrete and specific behaviors and stop playing this guessing game of what's really going on in their head and what kind of person they really are. Do this and you move beyond an awful lot of garbage put in our heads and you can be much more effective. Focus on the behaviors that you want.