Tuff Leadership: The Human Side of Self-Management
Tuff Leadership Training has spent over two decades helping organizations shift how people relate to each other at work. Founded in Sweden and now active in more than 20 countries, the company does not install operating models or deliver off-the-shelf solutions. Instead, it invites teams and leaders to examine the often-invisible behaviors, habits, andassumptions that shape their day-to-day interactions. Tuff’s core belief is simple but profound: if organizations want to work in more self-managed, responsive, and human ways, then the people inside them must learn to show up differently.
This blog post is part of 80+ case studies of progressive organizations we created for the ZeroDX awards 2025. These organizations embody the principles of RenDanHeYi in their work structures:
Zero Distance to customer: Decision what to build is based on insights from the marketplace
Autonomy: Small teams with full decision-making autonomy enable speed in execution
Shared Rewards: Everyone in the micro-enterprise participates in its financial success.
This approach has found new relevance as more companies experiment with decentralized models, including RenDanHeYi. Where many focus on structure, Tuff begins with mindset. Its trainers work with teams to uncover whatholds them back from taking ownership, engaging in honest feedback, and acting with initiative. Rather than teachingpeople what to do, Tuff helps them become the kind of people who can co-lead effectively, without hierarchy.
The company’s origins lie in the work of co-founder Karin Tenelius, one of the early pioneers of coaching and self-managing teams in Sweden. Her experiences, later described in the book Moose Heads on the Table, exposed a central paradox in workplace transformation: most people say they want more freedom and collaboration, yet still operate from patterns rooted in control, fear, or dependency. Tuff’s work emerged from this tension, focused ondeveloping the inner capabilities needed to make new forms of work viable.
Tuff’s approach to transformation has been shaped by decades of practical experience across diverse sectors and cultures. Its trainers and coaches work closely with organizations as they navigate the emotional and relationalchallenges that come with stepping away from traditional management. One of them is Lisa Gill, a long-standing Tuff trainer and coach who has been instrumental in sharing this work internationally.
In her work with teams exploring self-management, Gill often sees the same pattern emerge. Organizations adopt new structures or frameworks, hoping they will spark cultural change. But without addressing how people think, relate, and behave in everyday interactions, those changes rarely stick. Tools are rarely the problem. What limits progress is the mindset behind them. If the underlying operating system stays the same, even the best tools will struggle to take hold.
One of the most important shifts Tuff supports is the move from parent-child dynamics to adult-to-adultrelationships. In conventional organizations, it is common for managers to feel responsible for their team’s performance, and for employees to hold back, defer, or avoid conflict. Even in supposedly flat organizations, these dynamics persist, shaping how feedback is given, how decisions are made, and how accountability is shared.
Tuff helps participants learn to speak more clearly and listen more openly. Its programs involve real practice: roleplays based on live workplace challenges, coaching around blind spots, and immediate feedback on how people show up.
Participants learn to hold space for disagreement without avoiding or dominating. They practice giving feedback that is direct but grounded in respect. They also begin to notice the unconscious habits, over-explaining, rescuing, softening, that often get in the way of real ownership.
This is not abstract theory. Tuff applies the same principles in its own organization. It is a self-managing company of around 20 people across seven countries. There are no traditional managers. Decisions are made through a process called Concordance, which emphasizes collective clarity.
Roles are flexible and shaped by individual strengths and interests. Compensation is adapted by country: in Sweden, for example, trainers are paid based on the number of programs they choose to lead; elsewhere, remuneration is setthrough open agreement based on needs and contribution.
Financial information is transparent. Surpluses are reinvested or shared. Trainers are expected to continue their own development through regular Dev Days and coaching. Rituals such as "Moose Heads" and "Pebbles Conversations" create space to address tensions before they become problems. In a "Moose Heads" session, team members are invited to name difficult topics or uncomfortable truths that are often avoided, based on the metaphor of a moose head left on the meeting table that no one wants to acknowledge. "Pebbles Conversations" are used to address smaller,often interpersonal tensions before they accumulate, encouraging openness and emotional honesty in everyday collaboration.
This way of working reflects a culture intentionally designed to foster responsibility, transparency, and personalagency. While Tuff does not formally implement RenDanHeYi, the choices it has made as an organization mirror many of the same principles. Decentralized authority, open financials, flexible roles, and individual accountability are notabstract ideals at Tuff. They are daily practices that shape how the organization functions and evolves.
This same emphasis on lived practice carries through in Tuff’s training programs. Just as the company itself operates through trust, clarity, and mutual accountability, its programs are designed to cultivate those same qualities in the organizations it supports.
One area where this becomes especially clear is feedback. Feedback is one of the most challenging areas for teamsin transition. Many participants arrive with experiences of feedback that are top-down, linked to evaluation or control. Others have swung to the opposite extreme, avoiding it entirely for fear of damaging relationships.
Tuff’s training reframes feedback as a gift, a way to support someone’s growth based on what they want forthemselves. Participants are taught to name what they see clearly and kindly, and then to step back. The goal is not to correct or fix, but to contribute to the other person’s development.
This reframing matters especially in decentralized structures. Without traditional authority, teams must rely on shared responsibility, honest dialogue, and mutual support. Tuff’s programs give people the tools and the practice to do just that. The process is not always comfortable, but it is consistently described as transformative.
Participants come from a wide range of sectors, including public institutions, legal firms, creative agencies, and self-managing companies. Some are exploring new approaches within hierarchical systems. Others are already workingwithout managers. What they share is a desire to work in a way that is more grounded, more collaborative, and more human.
Tuff’s programs are not about adopting a model. They are about learning to notice, name, and shift how we relate toone another. In doing so, they help build the emotional infrastructure that decentralized systems require but rarely address.
With this foundation in place, structures like RenDanHeYi gain the relational depth they need to thrive. The principles themselves are strong, and when supported by the right mindset and capabilities, they become genuinely transformative in practice.
Tuff’s contribution is to develop that capacity. By helping people give meaningful feedback, speak with clarity, and take shared ownership, the company supports a deeper kind of transformation. It is not just a change in roles or reporting lines, but in how people grow, contribute, and lead together.
