Sometimes leadership is just being the first person to say “okay, this isn’t working.”

Groups will continue with a failing approach far past the point where everyone privately knows, because stopping requires someone to make the failure official. Each person assumes the others still believe in it, and the effort already spent makes the admission feel expensive. The first plain sentence releases everybody.

If something you are part of is clearly not working, say so without blame and without a full alternative ready. Suggest a short pause to decide what to do instead. You will usually find most of the room had been waiting for exactly that.