LEADERSHIP ALTITUDE: Are You a Helicopter, Jet, or Starship?

I talk a lot about altitude with my executive coaching clients. One conversation in particular was with a senior leader who sat down across from me and said, "I'm working ridiculous hours, I'm constantly busy, and yet it feels like I'm falling further behind every week."

What struck me wasn't the workload itself, but the contradiction. Things were ticking along well, her team was delivering, and her dashboard showed everything was under control. But she spent most of her days bouncing from issue to issue, rarely finishing what she had planned to accomplish before the next urgent matter popped up. Because she was dependable and responsive, decisions, problems, requests, and approvals continually found their way to her. And every day, she felt like she was climbing up the down escalator.

As we unpacked her reality, we noticed a pattern emerging. There was a common thread at play: decisions flowed through her; problems landed on her desk; questions had to be answered by her. Her team depended on her for direction, approvals, information, and problem-solving, leaving her days consumed by operational details, responding to issues, and helping people navigate obstacles.

Of course, these are all important activities, to be sure. It might be tempting to think that she was not delegating well, or that she was a workaholic, but the real issue turned out to be her leadership altitude. She was spending most of her time operating at a Manager altitude, instead of the more strategic Vice-President altitude. In essence, she hadn't adjusted her altitude with her new responsibilities and span of control. That conversation stayed with me because I've seen countless versions of it throughout my years of executive coaching: leaders unaware they are flying at the wrong altitude.

THE ALTITUDE GAP

One of the most common, and most challenging, leadership transitions a leader can make is the shift from managing day-to-day operations and individual contributors, to leading other leaders, systems, functions, and strategy.

As leaders move through organizations, the horizon line they're responsible for monitoring expands. They become accountable for larger systems, more people, greater complexity, and decisions whose consequences may not appear for years. But many leaders continue operating at the altitude that made them successful in their previous role.

The behaviours that help someone become an outstanding Supervisor differ from those required to become an outstanding Director. The strengths that help someone succeed as a Director may eventually become limitations as they move into Vice-President, Executive, and C-suite leadership. That's why so many talented leaders feel overwhelmed. They're trying to lead a large organization while spending most of their time solving low-altitude problems.

Over the years, I've developed metaphors for leadership using three aircraft: the Helicopter, the Jet, and the Starship. Each operates at a different altitude and provides a different perspective. And each becomes increasingly important as a leader's scope of responsibility expands.

THE HELICOPTER

Imagine your leadership as a helicopter hovering a few hundred feet above the ground. You're no longer standing in the middle of the action, but you're still close enough to see what's happening on the ground. You can spot bottlenecks, notice tension between teams, identify missed handoffs, and observe where work is getting stuck.

This is the altitude of operational leadership, where leaders coach people, remove obstacles, allocate resources, clarify priorities, and help teams navigate challenges. Helicopter altitude keeps leaders connected to reality because they can still see the work as it unfolds.

Most of us spend a significant portion of our early leadership careers here. Supervisors, Managers, Team Leads, Project Managers, and frontline leaders often need to operate predominantly at this altitude because their success depends on helping people execute effectively to produce results.

The challenge is that Helicopter altitude feels productive. You can see a problem and solve it. You can answer a question and help someone move forward. You can remove a roadblock and watch progress happen almost immediately. The feedback is instant, and that sense of usefulness can become habitual.

Over time, some leaders become so accustomed to solving problems that they unknowingly train everyone around them to bring problems to them. Decisions, accountability, and responsibility all begin to migrate upward. And before long, the leader knows everything that's happening this week and very little about what needs to happen three months or three years from now.

I've worked with executives whose calendars looked like emergency dispatch units. Every issue found its way to them, minor conflicts required their involvement, and difficult decision somehow became their responsibility. They were admired, trusted, hardworking... and exhausted.

THE JET

As leaders move into larger and more complex roles, another shift begins to happen. The work itself becomes less visible. At first, it can feel uncomfortable, especially if you've built their careers on being knowledgeable, responsive, and closely connected to the work. Climbing higher often means giving up some of that visibility.

A Director overseeing six teams can't possibly keep track of every conversation, customer issue, project challenge, or interpersonal conflict occurring across their organization. And a Vice-President, responsible for several other leaders, hundreds of employees, and complex organizations, certainly can't.

What emerges in its place is something different: noticing patterns. Instead of seeing a single employee struggling, leaders begin noticing recurring turnover across a department. Instead of focusing on one delayed project, they begin recognizing a resource allocation issue affecting multiple teams. Individual events still matter, but they become clues pointing toward something larger, rather than signals to jump into action and solve them.

This is Jet altitude. The horizon expands dramatically. Details become harder to see (as they must), but the broader landscape becomes clearer. Leaders begin examining how departments interact, where priorities collide, what external conditions will likely impact their business, how information flows through the organization, and which systems are producing the outcomes they see.

The questions change as well. Rather than asking, "How do we solve this problem?" leaders begin asking, "Why does this problem keep appearing?" Rather than focusing on individual performance, they start paying attention to the systems and structure, processes, communication channels, incentives, governance, and culture.

Many leaders arrive at positions that require Jet altitude long before they become comfortable operating there. They continue solving issues one at a time, when the real opportunity is to improve the system creating those issues in the first place.

Jet altitude comes with its own traps, however. Leaders can become so fascinated by the system of strategy, frameworks, organizational design, and planning that they lose touch with the people living inside it. Most of us have experienced a strategic initiative that looked brilliant in a boardroom and bewildering everywhere else. Reality has a way of exposing details that weren't visible from 40,000 feet.

THE STARSHIP

The further leaders advance, the more another question begins to emerge. The focus shifts from "What's happening?" and "Why is it happening?" to a different question altogether: "What will happen next?" This is where Starship altitude becomes necessary.

Imagine looking back at Earth from space. Cities fade from view. Roads become invisible. Eventually, even national borders lose their meaning. Our perspective changes completely.

At Starship altitude, we stop focusing primarily on operations and organizational systems. Our attention shifts toward forces that may shape the organization for years, and sometimes decades, into the future.

We begin asking different kinds of questions: What technological shifts are reshaping the industry? How will demographics change the workforce? What customer expectations are emerging? What assumptions do we hold today that future leaders may laugh at? What must this organization become if it hopes to remain relevant ten or twenty years from now?

This is the altitude of enterprise leadership. It's where leaders wrestle with the big, bold questions of purpose, direction, positioning, legacy, and long-term relevance. They are less concerned with certainty, and more with understanding what version of the future may be emerging and how today's decisions might improve the organization's chances of thriving within them.

Starship altitude is partly about learning to notice what others overlook. Tomorrow rarely arrives all at once. The clues are usually visible long before the disruption becomes obvious, but they can be easy to miss when your attention is consumed by today's challenges.

Starship altitude has risks of its own. We've all encountered leaders who seem permanently stationed in orbit. They speak passionately about the next decade while their teams are struggling with problems that have existed for the last two years. Their vision may be compelling, but their connection to present-day reality becomes increasingly thin.

Organizations need leaders who can imagine the future, but they also need leaders who understand the realities of today.

WHEN SUCCESS BECOMES A LIABILITY

Promotions can create an unexpected problem: the behaviours that helped us earn a promotion to the next level of leadership frequently become the very behaviours that limit us afterwards.

The Manager who built a reputation for being responsive becomes the Vice-President who can't stop getting involved. The Director who became successful through personal expertise struggles to delegate decisions. The executive who built a career by solving problems continues solving them long after the role requires system-level thinking instead.

That's why leadership transitions can feel surprisingly uncomfortable. The issue is rarely intelligence, capability, commitment, or work ethic. It's altitude. The role requires one perspective while the leader continues operating from another.

That's exactly what was happening with the Vice-President I mentioned earlier. She was struggling because her responsibilities had evolved, but her altitude had not. Once she began spending less time solving operational issues and more time leading at the altitude her role demanded, something interesting happened. Her calendar became less crowded; her teams became more capable; her decisions became more strategic. And she finally stopped feeling like she was climbing the down escalator. What a relief!

YOUR COACHING CHALLENGE

The Altitude Audit: Set aside 10 minutes and reflect on the past two weeks. First, ask yourself:

• Have I been spending most of my time at Helicopter altitude, focused on tasks, issues, and execution?

• Have I been operating primarily at Jet altitude, focused on systems, priorities, and cross-functional outcomes?

• Have I been spending meaningful time at Starship altitude, scanning the horizon and thinking about the future?

Now ask a second question: What altitude does my role actually require most often?

Notice any gap between where you've been spending your time and where your leadership responsibilities require you to be. Then reflect on:

• What keeps pulling me toward my current altitude?

• What leadership challenges might be connected to this gap?

• What important signals, opportunities, or risks might I be missing?

• What is one thing I could do this week to operate at the altitude my role requires?

Many leadership challenges are not capability problems; they're altitude problems. Sometimes the most important growth a leader can make is learning to see a different horizon.

If you're curious about how your own leadership altitude may be helping or limiting your effectiveness, I'd love to help you explore it. Reach out for a free exploratory executive coaching conversation at www.leslierohonczy.com.

OUR CAREER-LIMITING ADDICTION TO CERTAINTY: Why Some Leadership Decisions Stay Stuck

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Are you waiting for information you can’t possibly obtain? I don't mean that you're looking in the wrong place. I’m talking about information you’re waiting for that literally does not yet exist.

That may sound strange, but I see it regularly in my executive coaching work with leaders. The decision might involve any number of challenging scenarios: a strategic shift, a career move, a difficult conversation, an investment in a new opportunity. The details vary, but the pattern is remarkably consistent: a leader wants more information, clearer insight, and greater confidence that the decision will work out as they intend. On the surface, that sounds sensible. And most of us would prefer thoughtful leaders to impulsive ones.

The challenge, however, is one of diminishing returns: some decisions eventually reach a point where additional thinking stops producing additional clarity. The facts have been gathered, the options have been explored, trusted people have offered their perspectives, and the risks are reasonably well understood. But there it sits, parked, waiting for... what?

In my executive coaching work with leaders, I've noticed that people rarely get stuck because they haven't thought enough. By the time they're talking to me, they've usually considered their situation from every conceivable angle. They've researched, talked it through with trusted colleagues, slept on it, revisited it, and probably had the conversation with themselves a dozen times.

But something often goes unnoticed: the quest for information that belongs to a future chapter of the story. They assume that if they think a little deeper, analyze a little harder, or wait a little longer, the missing piece will eventually appear. Sometimes it does, and sometimes the information they're looking for can only emerge after action begins.

I was reminded of this recently while speaking with a client who was considering a significant career move. She had done her homework thoroughly. She understood the opportunity, the risks, and the trade-offs involved. She had spoken with people she respected and spent considerable time reflecting on the decision. At one point, she made a joke about it and said she was waiting for the universe to send her a registered letter confirming she was making the right choice. The image made us both smile because it captured the situation, and her wiring, perfectly. (Sometimes, clients come up with the perfect metaphor on their own.)

She wasn't avoiding the decision or being careless. She had simply reached the point where further analysis was unlikely to produce anything meaningfully new. The information she wanted was on the other side of the decision, the result of experiencing it firsthand.

Many leadership decisions eventually arrive at this point. More analysis feels productive because analysis has served us well throughout our careers. Gathering information is often the right response to uncertainty. The difficulty comes when we continue gathering long after we've exhausted what the current chapter can teach us.

Ronald Heifetz's work on Adaptive Leadership offers a useful distinction here. Technical problems can often be solved through expertise and existing knowledge. Adaptive challenges are different. They require learning, experimentation, and movement into territory where important answers emerge only after action has begun.

Senior leaders encounter these challenges constantly. Markets change. Technologies reshape industries. Customer expectations evolve. Business models that once seemed stable begin to shift. In situations like these, leaders often keep searching for information that nobody has access to yet. Not the board. Not the consultants. Not the person with twenty years of industry experience.

Reality is frustrating that way. It tends to hold onto certain information until somebody actually does something. Leaders who would never describe themselves as risk-averse can find themselves waiting for reassurance that cannot be obtained ahead of time. The decision remains under review, another meeting gets scheduled, another discussion takes place, and the future remains politely on hold.

Meanwhile, reality keeps moving. Competitors make decisions, employees draw conclusions, and opportunities evolve. More importantly, new information appears when somebody tests an idea, enters a market, has a conversation, launches a project, accepts a role, or declines one. Action reveals things that analysis cannot.

That's why people who move sometimes appear to have better information than everyone else. In many cases, they created it. I’m not advising recklessness or abandoning thoughtful analysis. Good leaders should examine assumptions, consider consequences, and seek wise counsel. The challenge is recognising when analysis has delivered everything it can reasonably provide. Many important leadership decisions don't begin with certainty. They begin with a willingness to learn.

My client eventually made her move. What struck me afterwards wasn't whether the decision worked out. It was how little new information appeared between the moment she felt stuck and the moment she finally acted. The certainty she had been waiting for never arrived. What arrived was the next chapter of information. Once she stepped into the experience, she began learning things that had been impossible to know beforehand. Those insights had never been available to her while she was standing still.

That realization has stayed with me because it applies to far more than career decisions. Some of the information we want most is unavailable until we begin moving toward it.

YOUR COACHING CHALLENGE

• Think about a decision you've been carrying for a while.

• Write down the information you believe you still need before acting. Then write down what information could only become available after you take action.

• As you compare the two lists, notice whether you've been waiting for information that genuinely exists or information that belongs to a future chapter of the story.

• If certainty never arrives, what decision would you make based on what you already know?

• Sit with that question for a few minutes and notice what emerges.

Reach out for a free exploratory Executive Coaching conversation at www.leslierohonczy.com.

WHAT MUSICIANS CAN TEACH US ABOUT LEADERSHIP: Lessons from the Stage

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I've read hundreds of leadership books. Some were brilliant, some were forgettable, and a surprising number appeared to have been written by people who’ve likely never actually met another human being in the wild.

In fact, some of the most useful leadership advice I've ever encountered came from a conductor, a bass player, a jazz musician, a record producer, and a pop star.

Let’s start with one of the most profound leadership books I’ve ever read. It was co-written by Benjamin Zander, conductor of the Boston Philharmonic Orchestra, and Rosamund Stone Zander, who was trained as a family systems therapist and has coached organizations around the world. I read their book, The Art of Possibility years ago, and it has stayed with me in a way most leadership books haven’t.

That raises a fair question. Why write about a book that is more than two decades old when leaders are already drowning in newer books, newer models, newer acronyms, and newer ways to make a perfectly good meeting sound like a government procurement process?

Because while some ideas age, other ideas deepen. The Zanders’ work has deepened for me because it speaks to something leaders are still wrestling with every day: How do you help people perform at their best when pressure is high, trust is fragile, attention is scattered, and everyone is carrying more than they are saying out loud?

Benjamin Zander has a famous line that has lodged itself permanently in my leadership brain: the conductor does not make a sound. The person standing at the front, a visible focal point for the performance, and getting all the attention and accolades, never plays a single note. In fact, they don’t make a sound. That idea is so simple it almost sneaks past you. A conductor has enormous responsibility and very little direct control, which is a pretty accurate description of senior leadership on most days.

You can't force trust. It doesn’t magically appear because you demand it. Engagement is not something people hand over on command. Creativity, courage, and ownership don't show up because someone in a leadership role says they should, no matter how inspiring your town hall deck may be.

What you can do is create conditions for clarity. You can set the tempo. You can help people hear one another. You can notice when the brass section is overpowering the strings, which is also an excellent metaphor for certain executive teams I've seen in action.

This is where I think musicians have a strange and wonderful advantage as leadership teachers. They spend their lives working with the same forces leaders work with every day: ego, pressure, collaboration, uncertainty, discipline, and the occasional public flop.

They also can't hide behind strategy language when things go sideways. If the music is off, everyone knows it, even if they can't name the particular instrument or musical error. But they feel it.

Victor Wooten, the great bassist and author of another of my favourite books, The Music Lesson, offers a leadership insight I wish we talked about more. He writes about music as a language, something learned through listening, feel, relationship, and practice. Victor talks about how we learn language as babies, as a metaphor for becoming a skilled musician. As babies, we’re not taught the grammatical rules and structure of the English language; we learn to speak English by being immersed in it, observing, experimenting, and trying new moves.

Leadership is similar. We can study the grammar of leadership all day, and I love a good leadership model as much as the next executive coach, but people do not experience us as models. They experience our attention, curiosity, timing, style, and whether we listen before we jump in with the answer we had already tucked in our pocket.

Wooten also writes about space as part of music. That one should be required reading for anyone who has ever filled a silence in a meeting because the pause made them feel squirmy. But silence isn't something to be avoided at all costs. The moment a pause appears, there's no need to rush to fill it with another opinion, explanation, or attempt to move the conversation along.

Musicians know the value of silent pauses, called ‘rests’ in music notation. The rests are part of the music, equally as important (and sometimes even more important than) the notes. In leadership, the pause is often where the more honest thought finally has room to arrive.

Herbie Hancock has told a story about playing with Miles Davis that has stayed with me for years. During a performance, Hancock played what he thought was the wrong chord, and was rattled in the moment. Miles responded by playing something that made the chord work. That story captures one of the most mature leadership behaviours I know: the ability to work with what has happened rather than burn energy wishing the original plan had survived contact with reality.

Leaders face wrong chords all the time. A project stalls, a stakeholder reacts badly, a talented person disappoints you, or the meeting takes a turn no one predicted. Some leaders freeze because reality has deviated from the sheet music in front of them. Others adjust and find the next note by listening for what's emerging.

Then there's Taylor Swift. She may seem like an unusual addition to a list that includes conductors, jazz musicians, classical performers, and music producers, but I think she offers one of the most powerful leadership lessons of all.

Years ago, when ownership of her master recordings became a highly public issue, she faced a situation many leaders encounter in one form or another. Something important was no longer under her control.

Most people, when faced with that situation, focus on the fight. They pour their energy into winning the argument, defeating the opponent, or getting back what was lost. Taylor Swift chose a different path. Rather than spending years fighting a battle on someone else's terms, she re-recorded her catalogue and created a new version of the future. That strikes me as a remarkably useful leadership lesson.

When leaders feel stuck, they often assume they have two choices: accept reality or fight reality. Sometimes there is a third option. Build a different game. I can't tell you how many times I've watched leaders exhaust themselves trying to force a door open when they would have been far better served looking for a different entrance altogether.

Rick Rubin brings a different kind of wisdom into the conversation. In his amazing book, The Creative Act, he writes about creativity through the lens of attention, receptivity, and noticing what wants to emerge. That may sound a bit woo-woo until you consider the damage that can be caused by action without awareness. Many leaders are praised for moving quickly, making decisions, and pushing things forward, even when they are moving quickly in the wrong direction. Rubin’s work reminds me that insight often starts before action. It starts with noticing the pattern, the tension, the missing conversation, or the thing everyone has learned to politely step around.

Yo-Yo Ma offers another leadership lesson, especially through his long-standing work with Silkroad, the organization he founded to bring together artists and cultural traditions from around the world to create something meaningful together. At first glance, that sounds like a music project. In reality, it is a masterclass in collaboration across difference. How do people with different histories, perspectives, experiences, and ways of seeing the world create something together without sacrificing what makes each of them unique?

That feels painfully relevant right now. Many leaders are trying to create alignment in environments where people don't see the world the same way, don't process information the same way, and don't always feel safe saying what they really think. Ma's work reflects a deep respect for curiosity, difference, and the discipline required to create something meaningful across traditions. Curiosity is not decorative in those conditions. It is operationally useful.

Then there is Wynton Marsalis, who has often described jazz as a metaphor for democracy. I think it also offers a useful lens for leadership. Jazz succeeds because each musician has the freedom to contribute their own voice while staying accountable to the rhythm, structure, and needs of the ensemble.

That is also what healthy organizations are trying to build. People need room to think and contribute, but they also need enough shared structure that the whole thing does not turn into twelve soloists competing for oxygen.

I think this is why music keeps giving me better leadership metaphors than most leadership books. Music understands influence without control. It understands dynamics, tension, timing, cadence, pace, listening, calibration, collaboration, and the reality that performance depends on both individual mastery and collective trust. When we pay attention to the whole sound, we notice who is carrying too much and who has gone silent, and we can sense when the tempo is too fast for the quality of performance that’s required.

True leadership is not about proving your own brilliance; it's about making more brilliance possible around you. What stays with me is that every one of these musicians, in very different ways, points to the same truth. Leadership involves shaping the conditions that allow great performances to happen, helping people contribute their best work and connect it to something larger than themselves. The leaders people remember are the ones who helped others find their voice, trust one another, and create something better than any one person could have produced alone.

If you want to expand your leadership repertoire, reach out for a free exploratory Executive Coaching conversation at www.leslierohonczy.com.

YOU DON'T NEED TO BE LESS HUMAN TO BECOME MORE STRATEGIC: Growing into Senior Leadership Without Losing Yourself

Leslie Rohonczy, IMC, PCC, Executive Coach & Author

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I don’t often write about the end of a coaching engagement. Usually, the stories I share in these Leadership articles come from the beginning, when a leader is naming the thing that isn’t working, or from the messy middle, where self-awareness is rising, old habits are getting exposed, and trying on different ways of leading can feel awkward, vulnerable, and occasionally a bit like wearing someone else’s shoes. The ending is different. It's where you find out what actually changed.

I recently wrapped up a coaching program with a senior leader I’ve had the genuine pleasure of working with over several months. Near the end of our conversation, she named something that many leaders I've coached have wrestled with. She reflected on how much of her early career success had come from being deeply involved, highly responsive, emotionally available, and someone people could count on without hesitation. She built strong teams, led in a highly hands-on, relational way, and noticed what others missed.

She said, “What I’m realizing is that the strengths that helped me succeed as a Manager and Director still matter, but how I express them has to change as I grow into a more senior role.”

That landed, because I have heard versions of this tension many times in coaching conversations. A leader gets promoted because they are capable, dependable, thoughtful, and trusted. They build a reputation by being the person who gets things done, notices what others miss, responds quickly, supports their people, and carries a lot without complaint. Then, somewhere along the way, the feedback changes. Suddenly, they are being told to be more strategic, to lead at a higher level, to stay out of the operational weeds, or to focus less on execution and more on enterprise thinking.

And what many deeply relational leaders hear in that feedback is something far more unsettling. "Does that mean I need to stop caring so much? Be less available? Become one of those polished executives who have mastered the art of sounding profound while saying almost nothing at all?"

It can create a genuine identity wobble because, for many leaders, especially high performers, the behaviours that built their early success were quite intentional. They became trusted because they were emotionally present for their people. They became promotable because they were dependable and productive. They earned influence because people experienced them as thoughtful, caring, and deeply committed. So when leadership growth requires change, it can create a real fear that the people around you may experience you as less caring, less accessible, or somehow less 'you'. Becoming more strategic can feel unsettlingly close to becoming less recognisable to yourself.

My client said something else in our closing conversation that I suspect will resonate with more than a few people. We were talking about confidence in the context of external validation, positive feedback, visible signs of success, and being seen as capable. She said, “Even just becoming aware of that has shifted my thinking.” Because once you notice that your confidence has been partly outsourced to the reactions of others, you begin to reclaim some authorship over it.

She also described a deeply human aspect of this coaching work: we build insight and self-awareness, and our confidence can feel steady for weeks, until something comes along that throws us off balance, and we find ourselves slipping back into old habits of thinking and reacting. That’s normal. Greater self-awareness does not mean those moments disappear forever. It means we recognize them faster. With practice, the distance between being triggered and catching ourselves in our 'old way' gets shorter and shorter. We still have the occasional wobble. We just recover quicker.

I see this pattern so often in coaching with leaders growing into more senior leadership roles. Many eventually discover that some of their most valued strengths become 'over-strengths' at more senior levels. Responsiveness can become reflexive order-taking, where the instinct to be helpful overrides the discipline to assess whether the ask actually belongs at your altitude. Inclusiveness can become over-consulting, where the desire to bring people along starts slowing decision-making long after sufficient input has been gathered. Ownership can become over-functioning, where personal accountability turns into doing work that should be delegated, because trusting others feels riskier than stepping in yourself. Emotional generosity can become protective insulation, where the instinct to care protects people from meaningful accountability, hard truths, and the consequences that would ultimately help them grow.

Those qualities are not inherently problematic. The challenge is that leadership context changes, and with it, what the role actually requires. Many of the skills that help someone thrive as a manager aren't the same ones required for senior or executive leaders to be successful. If you remain endlessly accessible, when do you think? If every decision requires broad consensus, when do you decide? If you keep solving problems your team should be solving, how do they grow? And if your calendar looks like a losing game of executive Tetris, where exactly is strategic leadership supposed to happen?

This is where many leaders give me the hairy eyeball, because this developmental ask can feel emotionally confusing, as the internal questions sound like: "Am I becoming colder? Am I losing what made me effective? Am I becoming less authentic?"

In my experience, the leaders who successfully navigate this transition don't become less human as they grow, but they do become more discerning. They get clearer about where their time creates the most value, become more intentional with their energy and attention, stop equating constant 'doing' with leadership contribution, and learn that protecting thinking time is part of the role, not an indulgence. They also become more willing to disappoint someone in the short term if the longer-term decision serves the broader organization. That is leadership maturity in action.

Let me put on the gender lens for a minute. For many women, there can be extra complexity layered into this transition. I say this thoughtfully, not as a sweeping generalization. Many women have spent years being socially rewarded for being accommodating, relational, highly capable, emotionally tuned in, and endlessly dependable. Add perfectionism, caregiving conditioning, or internalized pressure to be both competent and likeable, and this transition can carry extra emotional texture. And that means the leadership identity work can sometimes be more nuanced for women.

What I have consistently seen in leaders who navigate this transition well is something I deeply respect. They don't harden or become emotionally beige, and they don't confuse detachment with sophistication. They keep their humanity, while becoming much more deliberate about where that humanity gets expressed.

Before we wrapped up, my client said something that captured this beautifully: “It’s really about becoming more aware of where I put my energy and time. The things that helped me succeed still matter. But how I do them has just evolved.” That is leadership growth. Learning how to lead in a way that matches the altitude of the role, without losing the parts of yourself that made people want to follow your lead in the first place.

YOUR COACHING CHALLENGE

For the next two weeks, become a curious observer of your own leadership habits.

Pay attention to moments where you instinctively step in, respond immediately, over-consult, solve a problem that arguably belongs to someone else, say yes when your calendar is already gasping for oxygen, or stay deeply involved in work that may no longer require your altitude.

The goal is not to change anything immediately. The goal is to notice. Catch yourself in real time and ask: Is this a strength serving the current role, or a legacy habit from an earlier chapter of leadership?

At the end of your observation period, spend some time reflecting on these questions:

1. Which behaviour(s) showed up most often?

2. Which of these once served you well, and how?

3. What leadership need were these behaviours originally helping you meet: competence, control, belonging, approval, usefulness, certainty, or something else?

4. Which of these habits now creates drag, exhaustion, bottlenecks, or unintended consequences for you and/or others?

5. Where might your team, your peers, or your organization need something different from you now?

6. What is one small experiment you could try that would better match the altitude of your current role?

If you're a leader navigating this leadership transition and want to grow your strategic impact without losing the humanity that helps people trust you, reach out for a free exploratory Executive Coaching conversation at www.leslierohonczy.com

STILL FOLLOWING MOLDY LEADERSHIP ADVICE? What We've Unlearned Since Then

Leslie Rohonczy, IMC, PCC, Executive Coach & Author

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I recently fell down one of those internet rabbit holes that begins with good intentions and ends with me wondering how humanity has survived itself thus far. One of the rabbit holes I fell into (consider yourself warned) was a website called theretrocodex.com, which is essentially a curated archive of things people once believed with remarkable confidence, only to be proven outrageously wrong later. Medical advice, scientific assumptions, cultural 'facts,' all neatly organized by decade, like a museum of human certainty gone terribly sideways. Honestly, it is fantastic!

There is something I find comforting about discovering that entire generations confidently believed things that now sound absurd. Weirdly, it makes me hopeful about the future, and hey, I'll take hope wherever I can find it these days.

Did you know, for example, that margarine was once marketed as a healthy alternative to butter? Or that doctors once endorsed cigarettes? Entire industries were built on 'facts' that now seem unfathomable to most of us.

And naturally, I wondered: where is the RetroCodex for leadership? Well, friends, I'm sorry to be the bearer of bad news, but there isn't one. But if one did exist, some of the outdated leadership beliefs I've helped clients with in my executive coaching work would deserve a prominent place of honour, right beside smoking cigarettes in the office and mandatory skirts and stockings dress code (yep, it used to be a thing.)

The uncomfortable truth is that outdated leadership beliefs rarely look outdated when you're on the inside of them. They usually appear dressed up as other things, like professionalism, accountability, belonging, executive presence, or 'the way things are done around here.'

So in the spirit of public service, let’s scrape the mold off a few winners and see how today's truth challenges those outdated assumptions.

1.  GOOD LEADERS ALWAYS HAVE THE ANSWERS

This one has had an impressively long shelf life. For decades, leadership was often associated with certainty. The person at the top was expected to know, decide, direct, and project confidence, preferably without visible hesitation. That may have worked when business environments were slower and hierarchies were tighter. Today, that model starts to crack under complexity.

Amy Edmondson’s research on psychological safety at Harvard has shown that high-performing teams thrive when leaders create the conditions where people can raise concerns, share ideas, and challenge assumptions without fear. Learning organisations depend on candour, not theatrical certainty.

We have all seen the alternative: a leader makes a spectacularly wrong decision with unwavering confidence, and no one flags their concerns.

TODAY'S TRUTH: Don't pretend to know everything. People can often tell when you're bullshitting anyway, and that erodes trust faster than honest uncertainty ever will. Focus instead on creating enough trust that the best thinking in the system actually surfaces.

2.  IF YOU WANT SOMETHING DONE RIGHT, DO IT YOURSELF

Ahhh... the unofficial anthem of overwhelmed leaders everywhere. This belief often disguises itself as high standards. Sometimes it's called accountability. Sometimes it is a genuine focus on quality. And sometimes, if we are being really honest, it is ego dressed up in sensible shoes.

Liz Wiseman’s work in Multipliers draws a sharp distinction between leaders who expand the capability around them and those who unintentionally diminish it by becoming the bottleneck.

If every important decision, approval, rescue mission, or client issue must pass through you, that is not leadership excellence. It is a leadership model built on dependency.

TODAY'S TRUTH: Your job is not to be the hero of every operational subplot. Modern leadership means building capability, trusting good people with meaningful ownership, and resisting the seductive little voice that says, “Honestly, it’ll just be faster if I do it myself.”

3.  PROFESSIONALISM MEANS EMOTIONAL RESTRAINT

There was a time when professionalism seemed to require becoming emotionally indistinguishable from office furniture. Steady; controlled; stoic even (and before the modern Stoicism enthusiasts come for me, I'm referring to emotional suppression, not Stoic philosophy.) 

The assumption was that emotion made leaders look weak, messy, or unstable. Daniel Goleman’s work on emotional intelligence helped challenge that premise by showing that leadership is deeply relational work. People don't stop being human when they log in to work in the morning.

This does not mean unfiltered emotional leakage, dramatic oversharing, or turning every meeting into personal theatre, but real emotion that others can feel, recognize, and understand because it's authentic and universally human.

TODAY'S TRUTH: Professionalism is not the same as emotional suppression. Knowing and naming what you're feeling, understanding how it affects your behaviour, and paying attention to what others may be experiencing in response to you are all aspects of emotional maturity.

4.  PEOPLE NEED TO BE WATCHED TO STAY PRODUCTIVE

Well, this belief got a fresh makeover during the Covid pandemic, didn't it? While remote work was a lifesaver (and business saver), it was also uncharted territory for businesses. Suddenly, some leaders became strangely obsessed with green dots, login times, and whether Margaret was really still working at 4:17 p.m.

Microsoft’s 2022 Work Trend Index report identified what they called productivity paranoia: 87% of employees said they were productive at work, but only 12% of leaders said they had full confidence their team was productive. Yikes, talk about a delta! This should not have surprised anyone: adults generally perform better when treated like adults.

TODAY'S TRUTH: Trust, clear expectations, autonomy, and meaningful accountability outperform surveillance. If your management strategy involves monitoring mouse movement, the issue may be less about productivity and more about trust and empowerment. Either way, it's worth exploring with a curious mindset.

5.  PSYCHOLOGICAL SAFETY MEANS BEING NICE

This one needs to be escorted out of the building along with its little cardboard box full of platitudes, toxic positivity, and matching 'Teamwork Makes the Dream Work' mugs.

Somewhere along the way, psychological safety got mistaken for permanent politeness, with no space or tolerance for disagreement, no discomfort, and no challenge. But that interpretation misses the point entirely.

Amy Edmondson has been clear that psychological safety supports high standards and honest conversations. It creates the conditions for people to speak honestly, take interpersonal risks, admit mistakes, and challenge thinking.

TODAY'S TRUTH: On a high-performing, healthy team, people can respectfully disagree, raise concerns, share their authentic views, and challenge ideas without fearing social punishment. If everyone is smiling while important truths remain unsaid, what you may be looking at is conflict avoidance dressed up as harmony.

6.  YOU NEED MORE EXECUTIVE PRESENCE

Translation: Somehow be more impressive (but we will provide zero operational definition for what that means, or how to do it.)

Executive presence has suffered some unfortunate branding. For years, executive presence has been confused with airtime, extroversion, charisma, confidence theatre, and that oddly polished panel-discussion voice people seem to acquire at conferences.

Susan Cain’s bestselling book Quiet challenged the long-standing assumption that extroversion naturally equals leadership effectiveness. Adam Grant’s research has also highlighted that leadership effectiveness depends far more on context and behaviour than personality stereotypes.

TODAY'S TRUTH: Influence is not volume, charisma, theatre, or performative posturing. Some of the most compelling leaders I've seen in action are quiet. They don't suck all the air out of the room trying to show how smart they are. They may say less, but when they do speak, people pay attention because their contribution actually moves the conversation forward.

7.  IF I'M BUSY, I'M IMPORTANT

Does your calendar resemble an aggressive game of Tetris? For years, chronic busyness has functioned as a strange status symbol. Packed calendars, midnight email replies, and performative exhaustion sends the message that if I am overwhelmed, I must be important.

Microsoft’s research on the 'infinite workday' has shown how digital work has steadily eroded boundaries, recovery time, and focus.

Packed calendars and performative exhaustion do not signal importance. Sometimes they convey weak boundaries, poor capacity management, or reactive operational focus with little strategic value.

TODAY'S TRUTH: Busy is not a leadership competency. Modern leadership requires protected thinking time, sound judgment, and enough strategic altitude to notice what others miss. If your calendar leaves no room to think, you may be demonstrating operational stamina while actively undermining your strategic credibility.

8.  LEADERS ARE NOT TO BE CHALLENGED

There was a time when leaders were expected to project authority and maintain distance. They did not invite dissent, challenge, input, or inconvenient truths from the people below them. Leadership was something to be respected, and in some workplaces, even feared. Suggesting to your boss that they might handle something differently would have been career-limiting behaviour.

Some remnants of that thinking still linger. Edgar Schein wrote extensively about how hierarchy can inhibit honest communication, especially when leaders fail to create the conditions for upward candour. And as leaders progress up the ladder and gain more authority, people often become even more selective about what they share with them.

TODAY'S TRUTH: If people decide that telling you the truth is unsafe, inconvenient, or pointless, you may be the last person to know what is actually going wrong. Strong leaders create the conditions for honest feedback to travel upward, not just downward.

SO WHAT IS STILL SITTING IN YOUR LEADERSHIP ATTIC?

The tricky thing about outdated leadership beliefs is that many of them genuinely did work back in the day, or at least seemed to. Some rewarded us earlier in our careers, which is exactly what makes them so sticky. The people who believed those old RetroCodex 'facts' were not foolish; they were operating with the assumptions, norms, and accepted wisdom of their time. Leadership is no different.

Nobody wakes up in the morning and consciously decides to lead like it's 1987. Old beliefs linger because they once helped us succeed, feel competent, or stay safe in systems that rewarded them. That does not make someone a bad leader. It simply means leadership has evolved.

Some of today’s most confidently held leadership beliefs will eventually look just as dated. The more interesting question is which ones you may still be holding onto without realizing it.

YOUR COACHING CHALLENGE

Most outdated leadership beliefs do not announce themselves with a little flag that says Hello, I am obsolete. They tend to feel sensible, responsible, and strangely familiar. This practice is designed to help you uncover one belief that may still be shaping your leadership, and then test whether it still deserves shelf space.

YOUR LEADERSHIP RETROCODEX

STEP 1: SPOT THE MOLD: Read through the beliefs in this article and notice which one made you uncomfortable, slightly defensive, oddly validated, or uncomfortably seen. That reaction is useful. Complete this sentence: One leadership belief I may still be holding onto is... Examples: "Good leaders should always have the answer." "If I want something done right, I should handle it myself." "Being busy means I am valuable."

STEP 2: TRACE ITS ORIGIN STORY: Most leadership beliefs started life as adaptations, not mistakes. Ask yourself: Where did I learn this? Who modelled this for me, or rewarded me for it? When did this belief first help me succeed? What did it help me avoid?

STEP 3: EXAMINE THE CURRENT COST: Now get brutally honest. Ask yourself: How might this belief be limiting me now? What does it cost my team? How does it affect trust? What undesirable behaviour does this belief keep reinforcing?

STEP 4: WRITE THE UPDATED LEADERSHIP TRUTH: If your old belief belongs in the RetroCodex, what replaces it? Complete this sentence: Today’s truth for me is... Example: Old belief: I need to stay involved in everything important. Today’s truth: My leadership value grows when I build capability instead of dependency.

STEP 5: RUN A LIVE EXPERIMENT: Within the next week, experiment with deliberately behaving according to your updated belief. Say less in the meeting. Delegate the thing. Ask the uncomfortable question. Admit you don't know. Protect thinking time. Invite dissent. Whatever your belief requires.

STEP 6: REFLECTION QUESTIONS: What happened? What surprised me? What story did my inner narrator start telling? What felt easier than expected? What still felt risky? What does this tell me about my next experiment?

If outdated leadership beliefs are influencing how you lead, and you're curious about what stronger, more modern patterns might serve you better, reach out for a free exploratory Executive Coaching conversation at www.leslierohonczy.com.

HAS YOUR TEAM BECOME BEIGE? How Humour, Playfulness, and Humanity Make Your Team Stronger

By Leslie Rohonczy, IMC™, PCC

(LISTEN TO NARRATED AUDIOARTICLE VERSION) 

There’s a guy at the front of the room, droning over his Powerpoints with the emotional range of a beige filing cabinet. Someone mumbles, “Great point, Ken,” without looking up from his phone. Someone else suggests they “circle back for confirmation and feedback” after the meeting. The rest of the team is not-so-subtly filling out their Meeting Buzzword Bingo cards: “Low-hanging fruit.” “Move the needle.” “Bandwidth.” “Synergy.” “Let’s socialize this.” And the senior leader stares into the abyss of his endless, joyless, budget meeting.

There is no joy here. Nobody laughs. Nobody relaxes. Not a single smirk was had.

And we still wonder why creativity, innovation, and engagement are disappearing faster than the free donuts in the lunchroom.

I spend a lot of time coaching senior leaders, and I’ve noticed something, well, funny. The leaders with the healthiest, highest-functioning teams are usually the most human. Not sloppy or inappropriate. And not trying too hard, like trying to amp up the latest TikTok slang.” Trust me, nobody wants to hear the VP say “it’s giving disruption.”

The best leaders often know how to create emotional oxygen - and they do it with humour and forms of play. Their teams laugh. There’s looseness. People interrupt each other with excitement. Someone occasionally says something weird, and they all laugh together; not 'at', but 'with' each other. The atmosphere feels alive.

And before somebody rushes into the comments to say, “Well, business is serious,” yes, of course it is. So is heart surgery. Research on surgical teams has shown that appropriate humour can reduce tension, strengthen team cohesion, and help clinicians cope in high-stress environments. Serious work has never required emotional sterility. Human beings are not machines.

Research has also consistently linked humour and positive emotional states with lower stress, stronger social bonding, better creativity, and improved cognitive flexibility under pressure; all aspects that contribute to high-performance teams.

A study published in the journal Emotion found that positive moods broaden attention and improve creative problem solving ("The Broaden-and-Build Theory of Positive Emotions," Fredrickson, 2001). Research from Stanford Graduate School of Business has also explored how humour increases status and interpersonal connection in leaders ("Humour, Power, and Status," Cooper, Kong & Crossley, 2018). Even the Mayo Clinic has written extensively about humour’s physiological impact on stress reduction and resilience ("Stress Relief from Laughter? It’s No Joke," Mayo Clinic, updated 2023).

It makes sense. Nobody does their sharpest thinking while simultaneously trying not to sound foolish. You can feel people editing themselves before they speak. Every sentence arrives pre-approved by Legal, rinsed and fluffed by Corporate Communications, and carefully scrubbed of anything that might accidentally sound human.

Meanwhile, belly laughs are coming from down the hall. "Why can't I be part of THOSE meetings?", we grumble. Teams doing extraordinary work often sound like they're having fun. It's a little chaotic, there’s energy, and teasing. There's room for personality and authenticity, and enough psychological safety that people stop rehearsing every sentence before speaking.

I once worked with an executive who was widely respected for her brilliant strategic mind. She was equally well known (one might say notorious) for her relentless intensity and razor-sharp scrutiny. When she entered meetings, it was a sphincter-shifting moment for her team. People physically changed posture! Backs straightened. Shoulders tightened. Voices flattened. And any remnants of humour disappeared instantly. Think the Devil Wears Prada's Miranda Priestly without the zinger punchlines. When she arrived on the floor, instant messages pinged across the team, as staff alerted each other to her presence. You could almost hear everybody’s internal monologue as she arrived: “Okay, everyone, gird your loins.”

In one of our coaching sessions, she said she wanted to find a way to get her team of Vice Presidents to lead more strategically. She thought they typically spent too much time in the weeds, and she'd noticed that they answered carefully, second-guessed themselves, and spoke as if they were students trying not to disappoint a terrifying university professor. She didn't realize that every interaction with her felt high stakes. Again, a wonderful human being and a smart leader with good intentions. But somewhere along the line, she had unconsciously equated seriousness and a critical edge with good leadership. 

Lots of leaders do this. Everything becomes heavy, measured, controlled, earnest, and they become emotionally exhausting in the name of professionalism. Meanwhile, their employees are sitting there thinking: “At what point does a meeting legally qualify as a hostage situation?"

Humour matters because tension matters. Every workplace has tension: deadlines, politics, conflict, pressure, uncertainty, competing priorities. And leaders have enormous influence over whether that tension becomes corrosive or connective.

Connective tension is when the right kind of humour releases pressure without dismissing reality. It tells people: “We can survive hard things without becoming emotionally constipated.” That’s leadership.

And no, this is not permission to become the office comedian. Some leaders hear “bring more humour” and think they suddenly need to transform their PowerPoint presentation into a 12-minute stand-up routine. Please... just don’t. There’s a difference between performative humour and relational humour. One desperately needs attention. The other creates connection.

The most effective humour in leadership is usually self-aware, gentle, and human. It often comes from leaders who are comfortable enough with themselves to stop 'performing perfection'. That kind of humour builds trust because it lowers perceived hierarchy. People exhale around leaders who feel emotionally real and who can laugh at themselves.

I remember one CEO telling me about a disastrous presentation where his technology failed. His speaking notes disappeared, and he accidentally advanced to a slide containing a private reminder that simply said:

“SLOW DOWN. YOU LOOK LIKE A MAN BEING CHASED THROUGH THE WOODS BY A WOLVERINE.”

The entire audience burst out laughing. According to him, it became the strongest presentation connection point he'd had all year. Why? Because everybody suddenly relaxed. The mask cracked. Collective humanity appeared.

Nobody trusts perfection anymore, anyway. We’ve all met those leaders who speak in flawless corporate language while looking like they haven’t experienced a genuine emotion since 2014. That’s not executive presence; that's a corporate chatbot with a pension plan.

Playfulness also matters far more than most organizations realize. I'm not talking about childishness, but rather playfulness. Curiosity, experimentation, lightness, and the willingness to think sideways. Some of the strongest leadership teams I’ve ever encountered, or been lucky enough to be part of, spent some of their meeting time laughing, because they trusted each other enough to think and speak freely.

Research into “Happiness and Productivity” (University of Warwick, 2014) found that happiness can increase productivity by about 12 percent. Other studies have also connected positive emotional states with better problem-solving and broader cognitive flexibility.

This matters because some organizations slowly drain the spontaneity out of communication. People stop speaking casually. Comments get 'optimized', and every email starts sounding like it was reviewed by three lawyers and a hostage negotiator. Listen, nobody wants to say the wrong thing or look foolish. And when nobody is willing to loosen their grip for even ten seconds, eventually, people stop bringing bold ideas altogether. Boldness requires psychological safety, but we humans get cautious when our environment feels emotionally risky.

One of the most useful questions a leader can ask is this: “When was the last time this team laughed together naturally?” I'm not talking about forced fun, like mandatory bowling or trust falls. (Hey, nothing says “this workplace understands human dignity” quite like falling backward into the arms of Steve from Procurement.) I mean real laughter; the kind that happens when people feel safe enough to stop managing themselves so tightly.

Laughter can be diagnostic. Humour is often evidence of the presence of trust, of belonging, and nervous system regulation.  Healthy teams laugh. Not all day, and not constantly, but regularly. And leaders who understand that have an enormous advantage, especially now. Our modern workplaces are tired. People are carrying stress levels that would have sounded medically concerning ten years ago. Many employees feel emotionally overextended, socially cautious, and mentally saturated.

Leaders who can create moments of fun, relief, humanity, and emotional brightness without becoming performative become magnetic. People are drawn toward leaders who can help them feel human.

YOUR COACHING CHALLENGE

For the next two weeks, treat this like a social experiment. Your mission is to see whether small moments of humour and humanity change the emotional climate around you.

Try a few of these:

• Show up to one meeting and announce a ban on corporate jargon entirely. Tell them that every time somebody says, “circle back,” “bandwidth,” or “move the needle,” you will all dramatically sigh like a Victorian widow.

• Tell one story where you were genuinely ridiculous, awkward, or silly. Not polished vulnerability, but the kind where people laugh because they recognize themselves in it.

• Notice how often people shrink their own ideas before speaking. You can usually tell what's coming because they offer qualifiers like “Maybe this is stupid…” “I haven’t thought this through…” "I might be wrong but..." When it happens, interrupt the self-editing with warmth: “Say the thing.” “No disclaimers.” “Now I really want to hear it.”

• Monitor for Beige. Give everyone permission to call out moments when the team starts sounding emotionally over-polished. Encourage callouts like “That sounds a bit beige.” “Your answer sounds suspiciously lawyer-approved,” or “Try that again, but as a human.”

Then reflect on these questions:

1. Which experiment created the biggest shift in energy, and what changed specifically?

2. What surprised you most about your team’s response to a little more humanity?

3. How often did you notice people softening, shrinking, or beige-ifying their contributions before speaking?

4. What happened when you interrupted that pattern and invited the real thought instead?

5. If your team had permission to be a little less polished and a little more human going forward, what might become possible?

Somewhere along the way, many organizations trained personality out of professionalism. I think it’s time to bring a little of it back.

If your team has become emotionally cautious, overly polished, or painfully beige, and you want to build a leadership culture where people think more freely, collaborate more honestly, and actually enjoy working together again, reach out for a free exploratory Executive Coaching conversation at www.leslierohonczy.com.

HOW DO YOU KNOW YOUR LEADERSHIP IS WORKING? Accurate Self-Assessment for High-Performance Leadership

(LISTEN TO NARRATED AUDIOARTICLE VERSION)

Most leaders I work with don’t struggle with effort. They’re showing up, working hard, and trying to get it right. The harder question just below the surface is whether all of that effort is translating into high-performance leadership.

If that question feels a bit uncomfortable, that’s understandable. Accurate self-assessment can be challenging. And as your leadership career moves up, signals get softer. People choose their words more carefully, and that makes it easy to fill in the gaps with our own assumptions. If things aren’t falling apart, it must be working. If the team is delivering, leadership must be effective. If no one is pushing back, things must be aligned. I’ve seen this play out with strong leaders more than once, and it rarely leads where they expect.

High-performance leadership shows up in patterns over time and in what happens when we are not present. The most useful indicators are often easy to miss because they sit in the background of day-to-day work. A more accurate read starts to show up when we pay attention to what repeats, not what happens once.

• Ownership: When something important is in motion, where does it land? Does it move forward through others, or return to us? Work that consistently comes back often points to how expectations, trust, or decisions are set. Leaders who are highly responsive tend to step in quickly, which may help in the moment but can train the system to route work back to them. Over time, ownership concentrates instead of spreading.

• Contribution: In meetings, are we hearing fully formed ideas, or cautious half-steps? High-performing teams speak before everything is perfectly shaped. When everything sounds safe, something is likely being held back. Leaders who jump in quickly with their own thinking can shorten the space others need to think out loud or challenge direction, which narrows contribution (even while conversations feel efficient).

• Decision Durability: When an agreement has been made, does it stick, reopen, shift, or stall? Agreement can happen quickly, while commitment shows up later. A decisive leader can drive toward closure fast, which can be useful, but it can also lead to premature agreement that doesn’t hold after people leave the room.

• Presence: How much depends on us being there? If momentum rises with our involvement and drops without it, the system is relying on us more than it should. What happens when we step out of an email thread or a meeting? Does work stall until we join, or do conversations stall until we weigh in with our opinion? High responsiveness amplifies this pattern by speeding up progress when we engage and slowing it down when we step back, creating uneven momentum.

If we watch closely, we start to notice patterns in how these signals show up in our everyday rhythm. And once those patterns become visible to us, we can't unsee them. A more interesting question then begins to emerge: How does my leadership style influence outcomes over time?

That question keeps our development work grounded in curiosity, and it opens up a different way of looking at what’s happening. If our impact is shaped by what others experience, rather than by what we intended, then a gap can open up. We may believe we are creating clarity while others feel pressure, or think we are being supportive while others experience us stepping in too quickly.

And here's another angle worth paying attention to: leadership is experienced over time through tone and timing. People learn how to respond to us based on repeated interactions, and those responses shape what becomes possible.

When we look at it this way, our self-assessment becomes more accurate because attention shifts toward observable patterns instead of internal confidence.

This is where experimentation becomes useful, because small adjustments create insights about what actually changes.

YOUR COACHING CHALLENGE

Choose one situation this week and run a small, deliberate experiment. Keep it simple so you can see what changes.

• In a meeting where you normally drive the conversation, hold your view for a few beats longer than usual, then watch who steps in and what emerges before you speak.

• Choose one decision that was made in a meeting and name ownership before closing the discussion, then leave the decision untouched for a few days and observe whether it holds or drifts.

Capture what you notice in real time. Look for shifts in ownership, contribution, and follow-through, and use those signals to adjust your next move.

Over time, your observations become data you can rely on. They show you where your leadership is creating movement, and where it is getting in the way. That’s the shift that sticks.

 If you are curious about how to evolve your leadership, reach out for a free exploratory Executive Coaching conversation at www.leslierohonczy.com.

WE HIRED ROCK STARS. WHY ARE WE STILL STUCK? How Strong Talent Reveals Weak Systems

By Leslie Rohonczy, IMC™, PCC

Executive Coach | Leadership Development Expert | Author | Speaker | ©2026 | www.leslierohonczy.com

 (LISTEN TO NARRATED AUDIOARTICLE VERSION)

On paper, it should be working. You raised the bar on hiring and brought in stronger talent; people who’ve operated at a high level, who aren’t easily rattled, and who get results. You expected lift, and fast!

I've heard versions of the following from leaders through my career: “We upgraded the team… and everything got slower. We need to do a better job recruiting the right people.” That 'diagnosis' sounds reasonable in the moment, especially when results don’t match expectations. But often, it isn’t the recruitment process that’s dropped the ball.

See if any of this sounds familiar: after an infusion of top talent, decisions take longer, time or resources get wasted as work circles back around, and conversations multiply. It can feel like the team got smarter and the work got stuck. This is often the point where the story starts to drift in the wrong direction, as leaders revisit hiring choices or question whether the new talent is as strong as it looked in the interviews. 

How is it possible to have less momentum when there’s more intelligence and experience in the room? Well, intelligence and experience aren’t usually the issue, even though this is the first place most leaders tend to look. In fact, hiring rock star talent doesn’t automatically improve performance; it reveals the limits of the systems that they are stepping into.

When capable people enter an environment where priorities aren’t consistently clear, where decision paths shift depending on who’s involved, and where expectations move midstream, the cracks become visible. They’re strong enough to feel the friction and unwilling to pretend it isn’t there.

Less experienced teams often push through messy systems without questioning them, assuming it’s 'just how things are done around here'. Strong talent does something different; they notice what’s off, they test assumptions, and they slow down when something doesn’t add up. Their hesitation is worth paying attention to, because what you may experience as a slowdown is often a system being exposed, which can feel frustrating until you see what it’s pointing to.

A team isn’t just a group of skilled individuals operating independently; it’s more like a busy airspace. You can have the best pilots in the world flying planes in and out, but without clear signals, defined flight paths, fueling and food service systems that keeps everything moving safely and efficiently, things start to circle, delay, and back up (or worse).

I've observed leadership teams full of smart, seasoned people spend an hour circling a decision that should have taken ten minutes, simply because ownership wasn’t clear and no one was quite sure who had the call. Even with highly capable people in place, an unclear structure will create bottlenecks.

This is where leadership habits begin to show up, especially when things feel messy. The instinct for many leaders is to tighten control by adding another checkpoint, getting more involved in decisions, and increasing oversight. It just feels responsible and accountable in the moment.

But what it often does is force high-performing people to adapt to outdated systems that were never designed for how they think or the high level they're used to operating at. You can almost feel their energy drop when that happens, which is where performance stalls and engagement begins to erode well before it becomes obvious. People still contribute, but with less conviction. They start conserving their energy instead of investing their discretionary effort, and they hold back valuable input and ideas when what's really needed is their best thinking and fresh perspectives.

The better leadership move is to examine the systems and processes those people are working within, rather than managing them more closely. Get curious about:

• Where work slows down for reasons that no longer make sense

• Where decisions are delayed because ownership is unclear

• Where approvals add time without adding value

• Where caution is rewarded more than thoughtful contribution

• Where leadership steps in, when stepping back would actually move things forward

High-performing leaders encourage strong talent to question the systems they inherited, even the ones that once worked well, then simplify decision flow so ideas can flow and influence. They remove unnecessary steps instead of layering unnecessary oversight, and they create space for testing and refinement, knowing that good ideas rarely arrive fully formed.

They also invite challenge and stay in those conversations long enough for something better to emerge. This is where alignment actually develops, through people engaging with each other’s thinking and circling back to a shared understanding of what matters. The role of the leader starts to shift as they spend less time evaluating individuals and more time seeing their team as part of a system that is producing the results they’re getting. When different results are needed, the system itself must evolve.

If the environment isn’t set up to leverage the thinking, experience, and judgment of the new people you’ve hired, you aren’t fully leveraging the investment you’ve made in that talent, and you end up carrying the cost of capability without getting the benefit of it, which is a frustrating place to sit when you know how much potential is there.

So if you’ve raised the bar on talent and you're not seeing the lift you expected, look at the system, because that’s where the real leverage sits. If the airspace feels crowded and slow, don’t coach the pilots to fly harder; upgrade the system of signals, communications, and flight paths so air traffic can move efficiently.

YOUR COACHING CHALLENGE

Set aside 30 minutes this week and take a close look at how work actually moves through your team. Think of your team like a busy airspace. Your goal isn’t to fly every plane. It’s to make the routes, signals, and handoffs clear so everything moves without circling.

Choose one recent decision or project that felt slower or heavier than it should have, then write out how it unfolded step by step, noticing where it paused, where it looped, and where it required rework.

Then reflect on the following questions in a single sitting so you can see the full pattern rather than isolated moments.

1. Where did the system make this harder than it needed to be?

2. Where did I step in, and what impact did that have?

3. Where did someone hold back when they could have pushed forward?

4. What would’ve needed to be different for this to move with more clarity and pace?

You aren’t trying to fix everything in one sitting. You’re experimenting with looking for what’s slowing things down, and once you see it, you can clear the path. That’s how you keep the airspace moving the way it should, to create real lift for your rock stars.

If you notice this pattern in your own team, reach out for a free exploratory Executive Coaching conversation at www.leslierohonczy.com.

FEEDBACK ISN’T YOUR PROBLEM (But Your Relationship to Feedback Might Be)

By Leslie Rohonczy, IMC™, PCC

Executive Coach | Leadership Development Expert | Author | Speaker | ©2026 | www.leslierohonczy.com

(LISTEN TO NARRATED AUDIOARTICLE VERSION)

Most leaders believe they’re open to feedback… right up until the moment they hear something they don’t like. But it’s what happens next that reveals our relationship to it.

I remember sitting across from a senior leader who told me he was "very open to feedback". He wasn’t posturing; he meant it. He regularly asked for input, encouraged it, and even thanked people for it. Technically, he was doing all the right things, right up until that critical moment.

His peer offered him feedback about a client meeting they attended together. Within seconds of hearing her observations, he stepped in with all the context: a bit of background, a quick clarification, a touch of justification, a hint of over-explaining, even a suggestion that she had misread his intentions; then a gentle repositioning of what he meant versus what actually happened. It was a lot. He was articulate, calm, and had been completely effective at shutting the whole thing down. His peer didn't argue or push back, and the conversation just wrapped itself up. From his perspective, it was a good exchange. From hers, it wasn’t worth pushing any further - or doing in the future.

This is where the real issue lies: we each have our own special relationship to feedback, a unique pattern of reactions that show up in the first few seconds after we hear it. That relationship determines whether the conversation opens up or closes down. While we’re looking for clear, useful input, our team and colleagues are asking themselves how much of this is actually safe to say.

Amy Edmondson’s research at Harvard Business School has shown that when people sense even a small interpersonal risk, they adjust by softening their message, rounding off the edges, and removing the parts that might upset or land poorly. The feedback doesn’t disappear, but it loses its teeth, sometimes becoming so neutral and mushy that it's unrecognizable - and unusable as a result.

There’s another layer that shows up before feedback is even given: the way most leaders ask for feedback makes it harder to offer anything useful. “Is there anything I could do differently?” sounds generous, but it leaves the other person with too much space and not enough direction. The brain stalls. There’s nothing concrete to grab onto.

Now compare that to, “What’s one thing I could do differently in our next client meeting?” That question gives the other person somewhere to start. It’s specific, focused, and much easier to answer. This small shift can create a big difference.

Now layer that with what happens after the feedback lands, because this is where our relationship to feedback shows up in full colour. We rarely receive feedback as 'neutral data'. Most often, we see it as someone's interpretation of something they saw us say or do. It brushes up against our identity, competence, and reputation, and it pokes the part of us that wants to be seen as credible, valued, and in control. That means we're not just hearing the feedback; we're reacting to what we think it says about us as a person.

Our brains are wired to react fast. Research in social neuroscience by Matthew Lieberman at UCLA shows that perceived social threats, including criticism, can activate the same neural pathways as physical pain. Think about that: our brains interpret both as pain! So the urge to explain, clarify, or straighten the record isn’t a personality flaw; it's a hard-wired reflex. The issue shows up when we're not aware that the reflex has taken us over.

Our teams watch those micro-moments closely. They notice how long we stay with a hard comment, whether we get curious or defensive, and whether the conversation opens up or closes down. Over time, they adjust and bring us the version of feedback that keeps things moving, avoids friction, and sounds useful without creating risk.

And just like that, our access to deeper insights about ourselves narrows. Meetings still happen, conversations still feel productive, and we still believe we’re open to feedback. We just don’t realize how much of it never makes it to us.

Think about the last time someone offered you feedback. What did you do in the first few seconds after you heard it? Was there something that didn’t sit well? Was your instinct to move to resolve it? Did you stay open and curious with it? Did you explain? Did you have the urge to tidy the moment, or did you let it breathe? These are some common reactions to feedback in the moment. What's yours typically?

One leader I worked with ran a simple experiment. Every time he received feedback, he had to ask one more question about their observation. Not a deep dive series of questions that would feel like an interrogation, just one genuine question intended to help him understand what the other person was seeing. At first, it felt awkward and slower than his usual pace, and he worried it made him look unsure.

What actually happened was different. People started giving more details without being asked, offering examples, and staying in genuine conversation longer. The feedback became sharper and more useful because his stance in the moment had changed.

This is where stance matters. In feedback conversations, our job as the receiver is simple (but not easy): receive the feedback, thank the person for offering it, ask a clarifying question if something isn’t clear, and then reflect. Not defend; not explain; reflect. That reflection is where we close blind spots and gaps we can’t see on our own, and it’s the part most of us skip because it can be uncomfortable.

Nothing about the feedback itself had changed. His relationship to it had. We don’t need to agree with every piece of feedback we receive, and we don’t need to suppress our reactions. We do need to notice them and resist acting on them too quickly. Staying in the moment a little longer and asking a genuine question changes what becomes available to us. It also changes how people experience us, and that ultimately determines whether they will tell us what we need to hear.

YOUR COACHING CHALLENGE

Think about the last piece of feedback that stayed with you; the one that lingered, and felt genuinely uncomfortable. What happened in your head in the first few seconds?

Now imagine that moment again, but this time, you take on a deliberate stance as the receiver.

First, receive it fully. No interruption, no correction, no facial gymnastics. Just take it in without judgment or defense.

Second, acknowledge the person. Not just a quick “thanks,” but a genuine appreciation for both the perspective and the courage it took to offer it. Feedback, especially upward or sideways, feels risky. When we recognize that, we create the psychological safety for honesty in the future.

Third, get curious. Ask one question that helps you understand what they saw, heard, or experienced. Stay out of defending your intent and lean into understanding their reality. For example: “Can you say a bit more about what you noticed in that moment?” or “What impact did that have for you?”

Then, thank them for their feedback.

Lastly, and this is the part most people miss: reflect. Take time after the conversation to sit with it. Consider what might be true, even if it’s only partially true. Look for patterns, examples, and evidence of what others might be seeing that you’re not.

Reflect on these questions:

• What part of this feedback felt most uncomfortable, and why?

• What story did I start telling myself about what this means about me?

• What pieces might be valid here, even if I don’t fully agree?

• Where have I seen a version of this before?

• If I took this seriously, what would I experiment with doing differently?

After your reflection, take some time to close the loop. Let the person know what you took from the conversation and what you’re thinking about doing with their feedback. This builds trust and reinforces that their voice matters.

Try this once this week. Not perfectly, just deliberately. That’s where the shift starts.

If this surfaced a blind spot, or you want to deepen your relationship to feedback, reach out for a free exploratory Executive Coaching conversation at www.leslierohonczy.com.

LACK OF PRODUCTIVE CONFLICT IS A WARNING SIGNAL: How Politeness Culture Filters Out the Truth

By Leslie Rohonczy, IMC™, PCC

Executive Coach | Leadership Development Expert | Author | Speaker | ©2026 | www.leslierohonczy.com

(LISTEN TO THE AUDIOARTICLE VERSION)

You’ve likely been in this meeting (and if you’re honest, you may have even been running it). You lay out a direction, walk the group through your thinking, and open the floor. A few people nod as you speak. Someone says 'It makes sense'. Another adds that they are on board and ready to move forward. The tone is smooth, the discussion feels easy, and nothing in the room signals friction. You leave that conversation reassured that you have alignment.

A few weeks later, the energy is different. The work is moving, but not with any real momentum. You find yourself stepping in more than expected, answering questions that shouldn't need your input, and wondering why something that seemed so clear is not gaining traction.

This is usually the point where leaders turn their attention to execution. They start tightening timelines, increasing check-ins, and stepping in more frequently to keep things moving. It feels like a delivery problem that needs more oversight or clearer direction.

But the breakdown did not start in the execution phase. It started earlier, in the meeting itself, when alignment appeared to be present but was never fully established. What looked like agreement, wasn't; it was a group of people making a rapid, often unconscious decision about how to respond in that moment. For some, it may have been about protecting the relationship. For others, it was about not slowing things down, not wanting to challenge too early, or not being certain their perspective would add value. And for some, it was simply easier to agree in the moment and revisit it later, even if that conversation never actually happened.

If this sounds familiar, you're in good company. In Canadian workplaces, politeness shapes how people respond in real time, especially when they are unsure how their input will land. It influences what gets said, how it is said, and in many cases, whether it even gets said at all.

Over time, that creates a gap between what is expressed in the room and what people are actually thinking. Leaders hear support. Teams experience something more complicated.

I recently coached a senior leader who couldn't understand why his teams weren't giving him honest feedback, or bringing forward stronger ideas to challenge the status quo. He had been very clear that he wanted input. He said it often, and he meant it. From his perspective, the invitation was wide open.

From his team’s perspective, they saw it differently. He moved quickly in meetings and responded to ideas as they were raised. He tended to build on what he liked and move past what he did not, often without much pause. He also closed discussions as soon as he felt he had enough to make a decision (which happened faster than he realized). None of his behaviour was aggressive or dismissive; it was just how he liked to operate.

In these conditions he'd created, his team had stopped testing ideas that were not fully formed. They held back perspectives that might have slowed the conversation down. They paid attention to where he seemed to be leaning and aligned themselves accordingly. The meetings stayed smooth, the tone stayed positive, and the appearance of agreement remained intact.

From the outside, the issue is easy to spot. From the inside, it is almost invisible. They were operating within it, shaped by it, adapting to it in real time, like fish that have no awareness of the water they're swimming in. People were no longer bringing their full thinking into the room. They were participating, but in a narrower way; contributing, but without the same level of ownership. They were staying engaged enough to keep things moving while gradually pulling back from conversations that held greater risk.

That shift is easy to miss because it does not create obvious disruption. There are no raised voices, no visible conflict, and no obvious signs that something is wrong. Everything continues to look professional and well-managed.

The cost shows up later, when decisions move forward without the benefit of a broader perspective. Execution starts to stall. Leaders find themselves carrying more of the load than they expected, stepping in to clarify, reinforce, and push things along.

At that point, it is tempting to question commitment, engagement, or capability. More often, the issue is access. Access to what people are actually seeing, thinking, and questioning. Access to the ideas that stayed in someone’s head because the moment did not feel right to share it. Access to the concerns that were softened beyond being recognizable, or left unsaid altogether. When that access narrows, the quality of thinking narrows with it.

This matters even more in the current environment. Canadian organizations are operating with tighter margins, higher expectations, and less room for missteps. Leaders need people who are willing to engage fully, especially when the path forward is not obvious. Politeness, when it goes unchecked, can work against that.

So the question shifts. Instead of wondering why people are not speaking up, it would be more useful to ask what they are responding to in how you lead. Your behaviour sets the conditions for how far others are willing to go. When you jump in within seconds of someone speaking, wrap a discussion before others have weighed in, or signal a preferred direction through your tone or follow-up questions, people notice. They constantly read your pace, your reactions, and your follow-through.

They notice how quickly you respond to ideas and which ones you stay with. They notice whether a differing perspective changes anything or simply gets set aside. They notice how much space there is to think before the conversation moves on.

These signals shape participation far more than any verbal invitation. When people see that their input can influence direction, they lean in. When they don't see that connection, they conserve their effort and contribute in more predictable ways that feel safer. And those conversations, while they may be easier to manage, are ultimately less useful.

Leaders who want stronger engagement often focus on saying the right things: asking for feedback, inviting challenge, and reinforcing candour and openness. Those behaviours matter, of course, but they're not the deciding factor. People are looking for evidence: for moments where input changes the course of a discussion; for signs that it'll be worth the effort to bring forward something that may not land perfectly; for a reason to believe that speaking up will make a difference. That evidence is created in how you handle the conversation, not in how you frame the invitation.

When that evidence is present, you experience a shift. Conversations deepen, and people stay in the discussion longer. When it is not present, politeness fills that space and limits what is shared. Over time, that creates distance between what leaders hear and what their teams are actually thinking. And that distance is where disengagement grows.

YOUR COACHING CHALLENGE

Think about a recent meeting where agreement came quickly; the kind of moment where everyone nodded, and you moved on without resistance.

In your next meeting, when that moment happens again, do something different: Pause the conversation and say, “Before we move on, I want to test something with you. What are we not saying right now?” Then stop talking. Hold the silence. Let the squirmy discomfort show up. Do not rescue the moment, and do not soften the question. This can be harder than it sounds, especially if we're used to a faster pace to a solution.

When someone offers a partial answer, stay with it longer than you normally would. Ask them what else they were considering but chose not to say. Let the room see that 'first layer thinking' isn't enough.

If nothing comes, name that too. Say what you are observing about the speed of agreement, and your curiosity about what might be underneath it.

After the meeting, reflect on what shifted; not just in what was said, but in how the room responded when you disrupted the well-worn pattern. That is where you start to regain access to what is actually in the room.

If you're starting to wonder what's going unsaid in your leadership meetings, that's a conversation worth having. Reach out for a free exploratory Executive Coaching conversation at www.leslierohonczy.com.

YOU’VE MADE YOURSELF THE SYSTEM: The Ego Payoff of Control

By Leslie Rohonczy, IMC™, PCC

Executive Coach | Leadership Development Expert | Author | Speaker | ©2026 | www.leslierohonczy.com

(LISTEN TO THE NARRATED VERSION)

 Leaders, have you ever had that moment where you pause, look around, and realize, “It’s all on me”…? You’re involved in everything, every decision, every escalation, every aspect of the work from strategy to execution. You send late-night messages that start with “Hey, quick question...” You carry the weight, you solve the problems, and you keep the whole machine running.

But if you listen closely, underneath what can start to feel like a kind of performative martyrdom, you might notice a sense of pride in being the one who holds it all together; the one who’s central, necessary, irreplaceable.

We don’t typically acknowledge this uncomfortable fact; hell, we’re often not even aware that it’s what’s driving us. Others might look at us and think, “Wow, that’s commitment.” But from the inside, it’s something deeper. Think about it: if it’s truly all on you, then either the system is broken, or you’ve made yourself the system.

IT FEELS LIKE LEADERSHIP, BUT...

So many of the leaders I coach tell me they haven’t been able to get away for a real break. There’s always something too important, too fragile, or too dependent on them.

The one that really stays with me was a woman who hadn’t taken a proper vacation in nine years. Her team leaned on her constantly, she was the implicit leader of her peer group, and her actual leader repeatedly rewarded her for being “indispensable.”

Nine years without a real break. In one session, after walking through yet another week of being pulled into everything, I asked her: "What do you get out of being needed like this?" She paused for a long time before answering, then she said, “I know that I matter.” Oof! Right in the feels!

It took real courage to say it out loud, to see how something in her was driving her behaviour, and even her identity.

THE SECRET PAYOFF

When you've set up the system so that everything must run through you, you receive constant reinforcement as the one who people turn to, the one who knows what’s going on, and the one who can fix things when they break. That creates a powerful internal reward that goes far beyond external validation.

Behavioural psychology says that we repeat behaviours that are rewarded, especially when the reward is tied to how we see ourselves. The feeling of being relevant, necessary, and relied upon isn’t trivial. It anchors identity.

So when a leader says "I need to delegate more", but then doesn’t follow through, I don’t assume it's a skill gap. I get curious, and invite them to get curious along with me, about the payoff they haven’t named yet. More often than not, that payoff is about keeping them at the center of a system that needs them to function, and reinforcing the belief that they need to stay at the center to remain relevant. It’s as if they believe they won't matter if they’re not involved in every decision and every thread, which helps to explain why letting go feels risky and why control feels so important to them.

CONTROL DISGUISED AS COMMITMENT

Now that we're digging deep, here’s another layer that’s even harder to see: carrying everything is about control. If work runs through you, you can see it, shape it, and intervene before it goes sideways. That reduces uncertainty, which matters more than most of us are willing to admit.

And the pattern reinforces and amplifies itself over time. You stay involved to reduce risk, your team stays dependent because you’re involved, and you feel even more responsible because they depend on you. Eventually, this stops being a leadership approach and becomes a closed system in the exact shape of you, with everything designed to run through you.

THE EGO TRAP

There’s a sharper edge to this that’s worth naming. Believing that it’s all up to you can carry a subtle (sometimes not-so-subtle) form of ego-centricity. It’s not just that you believe it, it’s that you’ve positioned yourself as the center through which everything has to move. Maybe it wasn’t intentional, and it may not look like arrogance in the obvious sense, but there’s a deeply held belief that things won’t function without you at the center.

It sounds responsible and committed, but when leaders place themselves at the center of every outcome, and hold that belief, even unconsciously, it will crowd out the capability of others. There’s little room for different approaches or shared ownership. Over time, it sends a message to the team that says, “I’ve got this...,” which people eventually hear as, “...and that's because I think you don’t.” It's not your intention, of course, but that's the impact nonetheless.

One of the reasons this pattern is so hard to shift is because it’s tied to how leaders see their relevance, their role, their value, and their responsibility.

STAND DOWN, HERO

Many leaders built their careers on being the person who steps in and saves the day, because they see problems faster than others, connect the dots, and move things forward. That ability is often rewarded early and often. Then they get promoted, and the rules change.

At more senior levels, the role is no longer to be the hero. The role is to build a team that doesn’t need one. And that shift is far more difficult than it sounds, because it requires us to let things wobble, to watch others struggle, and to resist stepping in when we can clearly see the answer.

For a leader whose identity is built on being capable and reliable, that can feel like negligence rather than growth. So they keep stepping in, and over time, they find themselves carrying more than they can sustain.

HIDDEN COSTS

This pattern doesn’t just lead to burnout. When everything runs through you, your team stops thinking at the same level. It doesn't just feel like everything runs through you; it actually does. Decisions bottleneck, ownership becomes unclear, and frustration builds. You begin to feel like you’re carrying people, while they begin to feel that they aren’t trusted.

There’s also a structural limit that shows up over time. As your role becomes more complex, your capacity won’t scale if you stay the central hub for everything. You don’t just feel like a bottleneck, you become one, even though your intention is to support the system. Here's a marker for a high-performing leader: they can step away for a good stretch (say the length of a proper vacation), and the team still functions well and achieves their objectives. If performance drops because decisions stall or everything waits for you, you know the system is built around you. And at senior levels, that doesn’t just create strain, it caps your career trajectory, because leaders who can’t step out without things slowing down or collapsing are difficult to move up.

Some leaders don’t fully want to let go of this pattern because it serves something important: it reinforces identity, creates a sense of value, and offers a level of control that feels stabilizing.

If that pattern were to change, a different question would emerge: If you’re not the one holding everything together, then who are you as a leader?

SHIFTING THE ROLE

Leaders who move through this don’t suddenly disengage. They become more deliberate about where they show up and why. The work isn’t just to take things off their plate; it’s to redesign the system so it doesn’t rely on them in the same way.

And a powerful upside: when you step back in the right places, your people step forward. They make decisions, test ideas, and start to question “the way we do it here” instead of waiting for your answer or permission. That’s where capability actually grows, not in perfectly executed instructions, but in imperfect attempts they own. If everything continues to run through you, your team adapts by bringing problems, not proposals, and waiting to be told rather than thinking it through. When you shift your role, you change that pattern and create space for judgment and challenge, and for different ways of doing things to emerge.

They begin to ask themselves more precise questions like, "What truly requires my involvement?" "Where am I stepping in out of habit rather than necessity?" "What am I preventing my team from learning?"

They also develop something that doesn’t get talked about enough in leadership development: tolerance. Tolerance for ambiguity, for imperfect execution, and for outcomes that don’t match exactly how they would have done it. Tolerance (what some might call grace) is what allows leadership to scale beyond the limits of one person.

YOUR COACHING CHALLENGE

Take a clear look at your current load, not just what you’re carrying, but how it got there. Approach this as an intentional practice, not a quick reflection.

STEP 1: MAP YOUR CURRENT LOAD Write down the key decisions, problems, and responsibilities that regularly flow through you.

STEP 2: IDENTIFY THE PATTERN For each item, ask yourself: Where does this genuinely require my involvement? Where am I stepping in because it feels uncomfortable not to? What do I get, emotionally, from being the one who carries this?

STEP 3: NAME THE PAYOFF Be honest here. What does being needed give you? Relevance, control, certainty, recognition? If you don’t name it, you can’t shift it.

STEP 4: EXPERIMENT WITH PULLING BACK Choose one or two areas where you can intentionally step back by about ten percent. Be specific about what you will stop doing, delay, or redirect.

STEP 5: BUILD TOLERANCE As you step back, notice what shows up. Discomfort, anxiety, the urge to jump back in. Don’t fix it immediately. Stay with it. This is where the real work is.

STEP 6: OBSERVE THE SYSTEM Watch what happens when you’re not in the middle. Do others step forward? Do things wobble? Do new ideas emerge? This is data, not a verdict.

The goal of this practice isn’t perfection. It’s awareness and experimentation. What you notice here will tell you more about your leadership than any framework ever will.

And if you want to make some leadership shifts in a practical, grounded way, reach out for a free exploratory Executive Coaching conversation at www.leslierohonczy.com.

IS THIS YOUR 'TRAPEZE MOMENT'? Release the Death Grip On Your Current Bar

By Leslie Rohonczy, IMC™, PCC

Executive Coach | Leadership Development Expert | Author | Speaker | ©2026 | www.leslierohonczy.com

Most of us can picture the glamour and excitement of a trapeze act: the elegant swing, the release and heart-pounding flight through the air, the satisfying grab onto the new trapeze bar, followed by thundering applause. But hold the phone… what about that awkward, slightly terrifying bit in between? The part where the flyer has released their grip on the trapeze bar and, for what feels like forever, is suspended in open air with no connection to anything solid. It’s a hold-your-breath, hope-your-timing-is-good, please-let-this-work kind of moment.

It can feel safer to keep swinging on the same bar we already know. Real change shows up in that split second when we decide to let go and hurtle through the air toward something we can’t yet grab.

If we’ve ever found ourselves staring at our work and thinking, “I can’t keep doing this,” while also having no tidy answer for what comes next, we’re likely there. It doesn’t arrive with fireworks or a perfectly drafted resignation letter. It tends to show up in far less cinematic ways, more like a persistent signal that something no longer fits, like a favourite jacket that used to fit perfectly and now sits just a bit off, no matter how many times we try to adjust it.

WHEN EVERYTHING LOOKS FINE BUT ISN'T

I was coaching a leader recently who had built a strong and credible career over many years. If we were looking for someone who was steady, thoughtful, dependable, respected, capable, and a great people person, he’d be at the top of the list.

From the outside, everything looked… fine. Solid, even. No crisis to solve; no burning platform. No one tapping him on the shoulder saying, “You know what, now would be a great time to blow all this up and see what happens.”

Internally, though, the story was different. He knew, deep down in that ‘knowing place’ we all have, that he needed a change. But the problem was that he couldn’t clearly articulate what he wanted next. There was no neat plan or polished narrative about a bold new chapter. What he did have was a growing awareness that his current situation no longer fit him in the way it once had, and that awareness was only going to become more inconvenient and uncomfortable. So he stayed, gripping tightly to something that had stopped feeling right.

We tend to celebrate decisive moves, promotions, and bold pivots that look great in hindsight. We applaud the hero’s journey once the arc is clear and the ending makes sense. What we tend to skip over is the long, ambiguous stretch in between, when we know it’s time for something different but can’t yet name what that something is without sounding like we’re just making sh*t up as we go.

For many of us, when we find ourselves in that space, we do what we’ve always done well: we use our big brains to analyze and rationalize, believing that we can think our way out of our discomfort. We reflect, analyze, crunch the data, gather perspectives, read articles like this one, and generate insight after insight. It feels productive, and to be fair, it can be helpful as a starting point, but it isn’t a plan of action. Then we pause, often for reasons that sound responsible and strategic in the moment. We wait for a clearer signal, collect a bit more data, and tell ourselves timing matters. All of that can be true, and it also gives us a very comfortable place to remain when things feel uncertain.

Over time, a pattern starts to take shape. Insight leads to hesitation. Hesitation leads to retreat. Retreat leads back to reflection. Around and around we go, often with more sophisticated language each time and less actual movement.

INSIGHT IS CHEAP. EMBODIMENT IS EXPENSIVE

Insight is cheap. Acting on it is what costs us the most, in time, resources, energy, and focus. Think about it this way: we can generate insight by having a conversation, writing a journal entry, or taking a reflective moment to process. These insight-generation acts give us language, perspective, and the sense that we’re getting somewhere, and bonus, it doesn’t require us to change anything yet. What costs us is the moment we decide to act on what we already know to be true.

It might show up as saying the thing we’ve been rehearsing in our heads for months, stepping away from a role we’ve outgrown, or loosening our grip on an identity that no longer fits. These are familiar comforts, and they keep our hands firmly wrapped around the current trapeze bar. And this is where we tend to stall, not because we don’t understand what’s happening, but because acting on that understanding has consequences.

THE MYTH OF READINESS

There’s a psychological layer worth naming. Research in behavioural economics, including the work of Daniel Kahneman, shows that we experience potential losses more strongly than equivalent gains. Leaving a familiar role or identity can feel like a real loss, even though it doesn't fit anymore, and even when we can see the possibility of a new trapeze bar dangling up ahead. From that perspective, staying can feel entirely reasonable. It will also keep us exactly where we are.

Then readiness enters the picture. We assume that at some point in the future, we’ll feel clear, certain, and fully prepared to make a big move. In practice, that feeling rarely shows up in advance. More often, we move first, and then tell ourselves, “I guess I was ready after all.” At the time, it feels more like uncertainty, discomfort, and a slightly unsettling level of exposure, paired with a decision to move anyway.

Which brings us back to the trapeze metaphor, and to a line from a song I wrote called Trapeze, inspired by this exact moment:

Reaching out into the mist you close your eyes

That’s when you discover you can fly

 That’s the reality of it. We don’t reach the next bar by stretching harder while holding on to our current one. The transition becomes possible when we release our grip, even though the next bar isn’t yet in our hands.

THE COST OF STAYING

First, let's look at what we are holding onto. Maybe it's a role that we’ve mastered, a reputation we’ve earned, or an identity that’s been reinforced over years. All that effort, discipline, and contribution we put in over time is precisely what can take up the exact space we'll need to reach for something new. The longer we hold the old bar, the harder it becomes to loosen our grip and engage with what comes next; not because the opportunity disappears, but because our hands are already full.

When clarity is missing, we often try to create it before we move, as if the perfect plan will make everything obvious. In moments like this, honesty tends to be more useful. Honesty about what no longer fits, even if we can’t yet name what would fit better. Honesty about what we’re tolerating, and why. Honesty about what we’re concerned about losing if we let go. Honesty about that whisper of yearning for something different for ourselves.

YOUR COACHING CHALLENGE

Find a quiet place where you won't be disturbed for about 20 minutes. Take a few deep breaths, allow yourself to relax, and fully arrive to this practice.

Listen to the recording of Trapeze here: https://youtu.be/6q_4Tj4nbqg (you can follow along with the lyrics below the video.)

Now consider your own career and what might be calling you toward a new bar. Answer the following questions in your journal:

• Where are you feeling that pull of something that’s asking more of you right now, even if it’s not fully formed?

• What has started to feel too small, too tight, or simply no longer yours?

• When you imagine letting go, what part of that feels energizing, and what part of that feels uncertain or exposed?

• What are you holding onto that still works, and what does it give you that makes it hard to release?

• And what could you loosen your grip on (not necessarily a total release), that could help you take a first step in that direction?

If you're experiencing this in-between moment, or are hurtling through that untethered space between bars, this is exactly the kind of transition I can help you navigate in executive coaching. If you'd like to build your capacity to leap while things are still unfolding, reach out for a free exploratory Executive Coaching conversation at www.leslierohonczy.com.

WHAT’S DRIVING YOUR STRIVING? The High Cost of Relentless Achievement

(LISTEN TO THE NARRATED AUDIOARTICLE VERSION)

The first few years of my adult life were the striving years. I worked hard... very hard. I chased credentials, opportunities, accomplishments, experiences, titles, recognition. If there was a ladder nearby, I was halfway up it. If there wasn’t, I would build one.

From the outside, it looked like I was productive, ambitious, and disciplined; the kind of person that people describe as 'driven,' and in some ways, that was accurate. I had energy, curiosity, and a willingness to work hard.

Inside, though, something else was going on. Beneath the ambition was a voice that I hadn’t yet learned to question. It carried a simple message that kept showing up in my thinking: 'you’re not enough'. That belief became the fuel behind my striving behaviour, even though I didn’t recognize it at the time.

Striving became the strategy I used to soothe the 'not good enough' feelings. Adding another achievement felt like a solution. Another milestone appeared, then another goal reached, and surely the next one would finally be the moment when I felt capable, complete, and secure. But that imagined moment of relief never quite materialized, and the finish line just seemed to push further away every time I got close to it.

Some high performers recognize this pattern once they slow down long enough to examine it, because what appears to be ambition on the surface is often something quite different underneath.

THE STRIVING TRAP

There's no doubt that ambition can be healthy. It can push us to learn, create, contribute, and improve. It’s often fueled by curiosity and purpose, and it can produce remarkable outcomes when it’s aligned with meaning.

Striving, however, is often fueled by something else entirely: fear. It could be fear of failure, fear of being exposed, and fear of not measuring up to some invisible standard that lives inside our heads. And sometimes the driver runs even deeper: a belief formed long ago that our worth can only be earned through achievement. I had an executive coaching client who uncovered the limiting belief that if she wasn't working herself to the point of exhaustion, she didn't deserve to relax or be joyful. What she eventually realized was that her exhaustion wasn’t the problem; it was the proof that, as long as she was depleted, she had earned the right to feel okay about herself. The exhaustion wasn’t just about the work anymore; it had become the evidence of her worth.

Researcher Brené Brown has written extensively about the relationship between shame, worthiness, and perfectionism. She describes perfectionism not as a healthy pursuit of excellence, but as a strategy people use to avoid criticism and judgment. In that sense, perfectionism isn’t really about doing great work. It’s about protecting ourselves from feeling inadequate. And that's an incredibly important distinction.

THE INVISIBLE DRIVERS OF RELENTLESS ACHIEVEMENT

Over the years, I’ve coached hundreds of leaders, many operating at the highest levels of their organizations. From the outside, these leaders often appear confident, accomplished, and highly capable. Their colleagues admire them, their teams rely on them, and their organizations reward them.

Once the coaching conversation begins, however, the internal story often begins to emerge, and a more complicated picture comes into view. Some leaders grew up in families where achievement was the price of approval. Others learned early that praise appeared mainly when they performed well. Some internalized the message that being valuable meant being exceptional. These experiences don’t disappear when someone becomes an executive. They simply follow them into the boardroom.

Those early lessons become powerful internal engines. Add perfectionism into the mix, and you get a drive that rarely switches off. The leader becomes productive, respected, and admired. At the same time, the internal experience can feel like a treadmill that keeps accelerating.

I came across some interesting research about the distinction between work engagement and workaholism (Wilmar Schaufeli & Arnold Bakker, 2008; Clark, Michel, Zhdanova, Pui, & Baltes, 2016), which shows that when people are driven by internal pressure rather than genuine engagement with their work, the long-term results are often less positive than expected. Studies examining compulsive work patterns have linked them to emotional exhaustion, stress, and reduced well-being, even among highly successful professionals.

In other words, relentless achievement carries a hidden cost that leaders only begin to see once they pause long enough to examine the forces driving their striving behaviour.

WHEN SUCCESS DOESN’T FEEL LIKE SUCCESS

One of the most revealing moments in coaching often happens after a major success; perhaps a promotion, a major project delivered, or a milestone that took years to reach.

We would expect to feel a level of achievement or celebration. What some leaders feel instead is relief. That reaction can feel surprising, yet what happens in that moment is that the internal critic finally goes silent. We proved something. We cleared the bar that had been looming over us. Then, before long, the voice returns and introduces the next challenge, asking the inevitable question that follows on the heels of every achievement: what comes next?

This is one of the clearest signs that striving is being driven by insecurity. The finish line keeps moving. Not because we lack discipline or ambition, but because the real goal was never the achievement itself. The real goal was feeling worthy, and no external accomplishment can permanently answer that question.

AMBITION WITH AWARENESS

Many remarkable things in the world have been built by ambitious people. Innovation, progress, and creativity often come from individuals who are willing to pursue bold ideas and difficult goals. The important distinction lies in the motivation behind the drive, because the source of that motivation determines whether ambition expands possibility or ultimately traps a leader on a moving treadmill of achievement.

Ambition says that we want to build something meaningful or explore what’s possible. Striving, driven by insecurity, says that we need to prove something about ourselves so that we can feel acceptable. Ambition expands possibility. Striving often narrows it.

When we begin examining our internal drivers, something interesting happens. We don’t lose our drive. In some cases, the opposite happens, and the drive becomes more powerful because it’s no longer fueled by pressure or fear. Instead, it starts drawing energy from curiosity, contribution, and purpose. The engine remains strong, but the fuel source changes.

YOUR COACHING CHALLENGE

Today's challenge requires about 20 minutes of reflection, so grab your journal and favorite pen, and find a quiet place where you can relax into this practice. Take a moment to reflect on your own striving tendencies, and allow yourself to be genuinely curious about what might be driving it.

Step 1: Identify a current goal. Choose something you're actively pursuing right now. Perhaps it's a promotion, a project, a business milestone, or a personal achievement that really matters to you.

Step 2: Examine the emotional energy behind that goal. Ask yourself what is truly motivating it. Notice whether the energy feels expansive, such as curiosity, purpose, contribution, or the excitement of building something meaningful.

Step 3: Look for a second layer of motivation beneath this. Ask yourself whether any part of the drive is connected to proving something about your worth, gaining approval, avoiding criticism, or quieting an internal voice that says you are not yet enough.

Step 4: Step back, review, and discover themes. Many leaders notice that their motivation contains more than one driver, and simply seeing those drivers clearly is often the beginning of greater freedom and choice.

Step 5: Use your new awareness to guide your choices. What adjustments might bring your striving back into alignment with the future you want to create? If the goal is fueled mostly by purpose and curiosity, then pursue it with renewed energy. But if you notice that insecurity or the need for approval is doing most of the driving, how could you approach the goal differently? What healthier boundaries do you need? How would you redefine success? What is the deeper reason this goal matters so much to you?

Ambition and insecurity often travel together, and recognizing that mixture is part of becoming a more conscious leader. There is no judgment required in that realization. Human beings are complex, and the forces that shape our drive rarely come from a single source.

What matters is awareness. When we understand the true engine behind our striving, we gain the freedom to decide whether that driver is still serving the future we want to create, or whether it is simply repeating an old story about our worth. 

That moment of clarity is often where the real shift begins. Striving doesn't disappear, but it becomes more intentional, more grounded, and more aligned with the life and leadership we actually want to build.

Reach out for a free exploratory Executive Coaching conversation at www.leslierohonczy.com.

SURROUNDED BY IDIOTS: Avoiding The Trap of Similarity Bias

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Be honest. Who’s the person at work who makes you think, “How did you get this far without adult supervision?” You have one. I have one. We all have that one colleague. The one who overthinks everything and wants a subcommittee to review the subcommittee’s findings. Or the one who makes a snap decision and moves on without any real data to go on. The one who needs all the data before they can get into motion. The one who says, “I just have a gut feeling” without anything to base it on. The person who wants harmony over addressing the real challenges. Or the one who walks into the meeting and detonates it, just to see what happens.

At some point, if we are courageous enough to admit it, we have all muttered a private version of the phrase popularized by Thomas Erikson in his bestselling book, Surrounded by Idiots. It is a funny title that also reveals something uncomfortable. Most of us have silently nominated someone for that award.

BUT WHAT IF THEY’RE NOT IDIOTS?

Before you write them off as annoying, flawed, or completely out to lunch, consider this: what if they are simply wired differently than you? One of the most important leadership lessons I have learned, and relearned, is this: difference is not deficiency.

In Chapter 4 of Coaching Life, I explore personality types and wiring. Not as labels, and not as excuses, but as lenses. Our wiring shapes how we process information, communicate, make decisions, and interpret behaviour. It influences how quickly we speak, how much detail we need, how much risk we tolerate, and how we respond to tension.

Carl Jung’s early work on psychological types laid the foundation for many modern personality tools. Later models, such as DISC, Insights Discovery, and others, translated those preferences into practical language that leaders could actually use. Daniel Goleman’s work on emotional intelligence expanded the conversation by showing that success in leadership depends less on technical ability and more on self-awareness and relational skill.

And even with all this research available, we still fall into a very human trap. We assume that our way is the right and reasonable way. The grown-up way. The way that should probably be laminated and handed out during onboarding training.

HOW SIMILARITY BIAS BITES US IN THE BUTT

There is strong evidence that we are naturally drawn to people who think and behave like us. Social psychologists call this similarity bias. We trust people who feel familiar, interpret their behaviour more generously, and see their strengths more clearly.

When someone mirrors our pace, tone, or priorities, we experience it as competence. When someone does the opposite, we experience it as friction, or incompetence, or a threat to everything we hold dear.

Think about the people in your life and see if some of these contrasts feel familiar. These are not personality types, just examples of how different wiring can show up at work:

• The analytical leader experiences the fast decision maker as reckless.

• The fast decision maker experiences the analytical leader as paralysing.

• The relationship-focused leader experiences the direct one as abrasive.

• The direct leader experiences the relational one as overly sensitive.

Notice what just happened. In less time than it takes to refill your coffee, we turned a style preference into a personality defect. We moved from wiring difference to moral judgment in seconds. But your irritation is just information. It’s not proof of a character flaw in someone else. It’s just a signal that something about this interaction is rubbing against your own wiring and preferences. It’s your nervous system flashing a small yellow light that says, “This is not how I think, or would do this.”

In Chapter 13 of Coaching Life, I write about relational awareness and the ability to notice not only what is happening between us, but what is happening inside of us, too. When we feel a surge of frustration in a meeting, that reaction is data that tells us something about our preferences. It doesn’t necessarily tell us that there is something wrong with the other person.

DECISION MAKING: WHERE WIRING COLLIDES

It is in the arena of decision-making that we can really see wiring differences in action. Some people process externally by thinking out loud, and we can hear their brain working in real time. They explore possibilities verbally, and silence typically makes them uncomfortable.

Others process internally. They need time to reflect before speaking. Rapid-fire questions or fast-paced discussion feel chaotic and risky. They look calm, which makes the external processors slightly more uncomfortable.

Some of us decide quickly once we recognize a pattern, and we’re comfortable acting with only partial information. Others want to thoroughly examine risk, implications, and downstream impact before committing to action.

There is no inherently superior approach, although each camp is usually convinced that theirs is. Research on cognitive diversity suggests that teams with varied thinking styles can outperform more homogeneous teams, particularly when tackling complex problems. The challenge is not the diversity itself. It is our inability to interpret it without judgment.

Instead of saying, “You move too fast,” we think, “You are careless.” Instead of saying, “You need more time,” we think, “You lack backbone.” When leaders collapse wiring differences into character flaws, it can have a devastating effect on team culture.

EQ IS NOT ABOUT BEING NICE

Emotional intelligence is often misunderstood as simply empathy, warmth, or emotional expression. Those are elements of it, certainly, but they are not the whole picture. At its core, emotional intelligence is a behavioural range. It is the capacity to notice your default wiring and stretch beyond it when the situation requires something else.

If you are naturally direct, can you soften your delivery so that a more relational colleague can hear you? If you are highly relational, can you tolerate a sharper exchange without personalizing it? If you decide quickly, can you slow down long enough to invite dissent or diverse inputs? If you prefer deep analysis, can you act before you feel completely ready?

We can learn to adjust our communication based on who is in the room, without abandoning our authenticity. By expanding our repertoire, we can connect and communicate effectively with everyone on our team, not just the ones who are wired like us. That expansion requires effort that can be uncomfortable, and sometimes even feel threatening.

WHY CHANGE FEELS SO HARD

In Chapter 11, I explore the psychology of change. Our wiring becomes familiar territory because it has served us well. It helped us succeed, after all. So when someone suggests we adjust it, even slightly, it can feel like an attack on our competence. This is where leadership maturity shows up. Can you hold two truths at once? Your wiring is valid, and it is not universal.

You are not wrong for preferring speed, detail, harmony, candour, reflection, action, structure, or improvisation. But when you lead others, your preferences can’t be the only operating system in the room. The leader who refuses to stretch into different communication styles and preferences creates an invisible hierarchy that says: my way equals professional; your way equals problematic. And that can seem quite ego-driven to the people we lead.

The next time someone triggers you, pause. Instead of asking, “What’s wrong with them?” try asking, “What is different about them? What pace do they prefer? How do they process information? What makes them feel secure? What makes them feel pressured?”

You may discover that the person you labelled as difficult is actually providing something your team needs. The cautious analyst may be preventing a costly mistake. The bold decision maker may be preventing stagnation. The relational leader may be building trust in ways you cannot see. Difference is not deficiency; it’s often the thing that brings the most value.

YOUR COACHING CHALLENGE

Think of one person at work who typically activates you.

Step 1: Name the irritation clearly.
What exactly do they do that gets under your skin? Is it their pace? Their tone? Their need for detail? Their bluntness? Their hesitancy? Vague irritation is not useful data. Be specific.

Step 2: Decode the wiring beneath the behaviour.
Translate each irritation into a neutral description of their preference. Fast might mean decisive. Slow might mean reflective. Direct might mean candid. Diplomatic might mean attuned to impact. Ask yourself:

• What decision-making style is this?

• How do they appear to process information, externally or internally?

• What might make them feel competent or secure in a discussion?

Step 3: Examine your own bias.
Which of their behaviours clashes most strongly with your default wiring? What does that reveal about your preferences? Where might you be interpreting difference as deficiency?

Step 4: Look for the value.
Where could this style strengthen the team? What risk does it mitigate? What blind spot of yours might it be balancing? In what way are you grateful for this?

Step 5: Choose a deliberate stretch.
Select one small behavioural adjustment for your next interaction. If you move quickly, slow your pace and invite input. If you analyse deeply, commit sooner. If you soften everything, be clearer. If you are blunt, add context. Do not reinvent your personality – expand your range.

Step 6: After the interaction, reflect.

• What shifted in the dynamic?

• How did it shape their reaction?

• What did you learn about them?

• What did you learn about yourself?

RESOURCES FOR EXPLORING PERSONALITY AND WIRING

If this topic intrigues you and you would like to go deeper, there are several credible starting points. These tools are most powerful when used not as labels, but as mirrors, to help us see our patterns, widen our behavioural range, and interpret others with more generosity.

• Thomas Erikson’s Surrounded by Idiots. A popular business book that interprets behavioural differences through a simplified DISC-based lens.

• William Moulton Marston’s DISC theory. The behavioural model that later informed many workplace assessments.

• Insights Discovery. A Jungian-based colour model widely used in organisations to build self-awareness and relational skill.

• The Myers-Briggs Type Indicator. A structured application of Jung’s work that explores preferences in perception and decision-making.

• Daniel Goleman’s Emotional Intelligence. The research that expanded leadership conversations beyond technical competence.

• The Wisdom of the Enneagram, by Don Richard Riso and Russ Hudson. A deeper exploration of motivation, fear, and developmental growth patterns.

• Carl Jung’s Psychological Types. The original foundation for much of modern personality theory.

• Coaching Life: Navigating Life’s Most Common Coaching Topics, by Leslie Rohonczy, available in paperback and audiobook

If you are ready to grow your behavioural range and lead across personality differences with more skill, reach out for a free exploratory Executive Coaching conversation at www.leslierohonczy.com.

'ME-FIRST' CULTURE AT WORK: The Demise of ‘WE’ in the Age of ‘ME’

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Last year, I sat in on a senior leadership meeting that felt less like a strategy session and more like an orchestra rehearsal gone wrong. It felt chaotic! Everyone was playing their hearts out, and no one was listening. Each leader came armed with their slides, metrics, updates, entrenched points of view, and well-rehearsed arguments. Every function was defending its priorities. Everyone was articulate, intelligent, passionate, and striving to be 'seen'. There was no shared tempo; no collective score, and no one stepping back to ask, “What is best for the collective? What does the whole need?”

I have been noticing this pattern for years, in coaching sessions, in corporate events, and across media feeds: a steady tilt toward self-protection and self-promotion over shared purpose. Call it ambition if you like, but it feels like something deeper to me. The rise of a “me-first” workplace has been building for a long time.

HOW DID WE GET HERE?

Over the past three decades, Western societies have undergone a measurable shift toward hyper-individualism. Sociologist Robert Putnam wrote about the decline in civic participation and social capital in his book, Bowling Alone, showing how community involvement, from clubs to volunteerism, steadily decreased across North America. The patterns he identified in the 1990s have only intensified.

Journalist Sebastian Junger explored a related theme in his book Tribe: On Homecoming and Belonging, which is one of my favourite books about how we are stronger together. Drawing on history, anthropology, and his reporting on war veterans, Junger points out that humans are wired for tight-knit interdependence, and that modern Western society has weakened many of the shared hardships and collective bonds that once gave people a sense of meaning. When belonging erodes, people don't simply become more independent; they often become more anxious, more isolated, and more likely to build their identity around status rather than contribution. That observation has profound implications for workplace culture.

Technology is also reshaping how we construct identity. Sherry Turkle’s work at MIT points to how digital platforms nudge us to 'perform ourselves' rather than fully engage with others authentically. Algorithms reward visibility and amplification. Attention, likes and follows become currency, and we learn to chase it.

Add to this the rise of monetized identity, influencer culture, and personal brand as career insurance in unstable labour markets. LinkedIn profiles become highlight reels, Instagram turns daily life into curated narratives, and the gig economy encourages workers to market themselves continuously. In many Western democracies, competitive market thinking has gradually pushed the language of individual rights to the forefront, with no room for conversations about shared responsibility.

Layer in performance-at-all-costs organizational environments, where individual metrics, dashboards, and promotion systems reward personal achievement far more visibly than collective contribution.

None of these forces are malicious. They evolved gradually, and responded to real economic and technological shifts. But together, they've shifted our centre of gravity. As a culture, we've elevated individual identity above shared responsibility and obligation. We've optimized for recognition over reciprocity, and it's showing up at work.

WHERE THE DRIFT BECOMES VISIBLE

We see this slide into soloist mode appears inside organizations, in leaders who protect their function instead of tending to the enterprise as a whole. Or when personal brand building starts to consume more energy than team building. “Not my job” thinking creeps into conversations. We celebrate the hero who stayed late to save the day, but overlook the disciplined and collective coordination that would have prevented the crisis in the first place. Performance conversations begin to feel like personal threats rather than shared calibration. Visibility edges out contribution, and underneath much of it sits our old pal, anxiety.

Research on social comparison theory by psychologist Leon Festinger, and later extended in contemporary social media studies, shows that constant exposure to curated success increases comparison behaviour. And comparison fuels insecurity, which narrows the focus toward self-protection. When leaders feel perpetually evaluated, they protect reputation. When employees feel constantly compared, they guard status. When attention narrows to self-preservation, collective awareness declines.

Belonging research consistently shows that strong social connection predicts wellbeing and performance. When connection weakens, anxiety increases. And when anxiety increases, collaboration suffers. It becomes a reinforcing loop. More comparison, more self-focus, less collective trust, and more anxiety.

We are social pack animals, and evolutionary psychology is clear on this point. Human survival historically depended on cooperation, shared labour, and mutual protection. “Every person for themselves” has never been a sustainable survival strategy. And yet culturally, here we are.

WHY THIS MATTERS FOR ORGANIZATIONAL PERFORMANCE

If you look at Edelman’s annual Trust Barometer, you’ll see just how shaky institutional trust has become across Western democracies, including here in Canada. Trust is not abstract; it's a performance variable. When trust declines, decision-making slows, innovation drops, and defensive behaviours increase.

McKinsey has done some interesting research using their Organizational Health Index which shows that companies scoring highest on shared direction and collective accountability are significantly more likely to outperform their peers financially.

When leaders optimize for personal recognition over shared outcomes, there are always telltale signs. See if any of these sound familiar: silo protection increases, succession planning weakens, cross-functional friction grows, innovation slows as risk becomes reputational, and burnout rises as individuals feel they must constantly prove their value.

Think back to that leadership meeting that felt like a rehearsal gone wrong. A real orchestra is disciplined, coordinated in their desire to create something collectively, and anchored in a shared purpose. Musicians spend years learning not just how to play, but how to listen. They watch the conductor. They track subtle shifts in dynamics, and soften when another section carries the melody. They know when their role is to lead and when their role is to support. And everyone is playing from the same score.

When that discipline disappears, and each musician pushes for the spotlight, the result is chaotic noise. Volume replaces harmony, timing fractures, and the piece loses its shape. In organizations, the same thing happens in the absence of shared intent and collective restraint. Having a team of strong soloists doesn't create better performance; it creates distortion.

THE CULTURAL WAKE-UP CALL

This 'me-first' culture we're witnessing reflects a broader cultural current that's been building for years. As leaders, we decide which behaviours get reinforced, so if we reward individual heroics over collective stewardship, we accelerate the drift. Corporate incentives tied to individual performance often create counterproductive behaviours, damage relationships and create burnout in their wake. Why would we want to reward the amplification of personal brand more than enterprise contribution?

When we prioritize what is individually visible over what advances a shared objective, we make our values unmistakable: in effect, our metrics and incentives teach people that personal exposure matters more than collective impact. Left unchecked, that lesson becomes the culture.

This reaches far beyond workplace harmony. Organizations that can't coordinate beyond individual ambition struggle and even collapse when conditions tighten. And most leaders I work with can feel that tightening in their bones. The margin for error is thinner, decisions travel faster, and reputational consequences land harder. You can feel it in your calendar, in your inbox, in the pace of change your teams are absorbing. This moment in time demands that we think beyond ourselves and act for the good of the whole.

Prioritizing the collective good is key to institutional resilience, and yet, much of our development energy still tilts toward individual visibility and positioning. Far less attention goes to teaching leaders how to share power, hold tension, or step back so the whole can move forward.

A corporate culture that prizes the soloist over the symphony eventually forgets how to play together. And as complexity accelerates around us, losing that collective capacity carries real consequences for trust and performance. A room full of screeching soloists creates one hell of a cacophonous noise. But beautiful music happens when every player focuses on contributing to the collective whole.

YOUR COACHING CHALLENGE: 30-MINUTE LEADERSHIP DISCUSSION GUIDE

Share this article with your peers and leader, and put it on the agenda for your next weekly meeting. Use the handy discussion guide below to have a conversation about how this shows up in your organization, and how you might address some of the challenges that come along with it.

Facilitation Guidance
• Allocate 30 minutes for the discussion, and frame it as a curious, blame-free exploration of the topic
• Encourage candour without defensiveness
• Capture patterns and themes, not names

PART 1: OBSERVATION

1. Where do we see “me-first” behaviour inside our own organization?

2. What behaviours are we currently rewarding that may unintentionally reinforce individual over collective thinking?

3. Where do we see personal brand overtaking enterprise stewardship?

PART 2: IMPACT
4. How is this affecting cross-functional trust?
5. Where has anxiety or reputational fear limited collaboration?
6. What is the cost to performance when we protect our own metrics rather than the shared outcome?

PART 3: SELF-EXAMINATION
7. In what ways might I personally be reinforcing individual recognition over shared responsibility?
8. What would it look like for our team to operate more like an orchestra and less like competing soloists?

If you see any of the following behaviours, gently guide participants back to the discussion objectives:

• Leaders defending territory more than strategy

• Reluctance to share credit

• Hesitation to challenge peers for fear of optics

• Metrics optimized locally but not globally

• High visibility, low cohesion

Close the discussion by asking: What is one behaviour we will experiment with and consciously shift over the next quarter, to strengthen the “we”?

If you or your leadership team want help in facilitating these important cultural conversations in your organization, reach out for a free exploratory conversation at www.leslierohonczy.com.

VISIBILITY IS NOT SELF-PROMOTION: Legible Leadership Presence

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You can be respected, competent, and indispensable, and still be invisible where power and influence are actually shaped. You do great work, deliver on objectives, carry responsibility, and when the strategic conversation shifts, your voice isn’t helping to shape it. Not because you weren’t invited to the table, but because you assumed your contribution would speak loudly enough on its own. Then, when decisions move ahead without your perspective, disappointment lands with a thud.

VISIBILITY IS NOT SELF-PROMOTION

Many leaders carry the limiting belief that seeking better visibility equals ego. It's as if the desire to be seen gets tangled up with the idea of performative posturing, self-promotion, or 'playing the game.' If we value substance, humility, and doing work that actually matters, that association feels off-putting, distasteful, or risky. So we keep our head down and trust that our good work will speak for itself. 

For a long time, that approach worked. It doesn’t anymore. Not because organisations have suddenly lost their values, but because the system has changed. Complexity has increased, decisions move faster, work is more distributed, and influence now depends not just on contribution, but on whether that contribution is visible, understood, and connected to what the organization is trying to do next. Think of visibility not as noise, but as legibility.

WHEN GOOD WORK STAYS INVISIBLE

Most leaders who struggle with building their visibility aren’t disengaged or insecure. They’re often deeply committed, values-driven, humble, and thoughtful about not centering themselves unnecessarily. They don’t want to dominate airtime or oversell. And they definitely don’t want to be mistaken for someone who talks more than they deliver.

So they wait until the work is perfect; until they’re asked; until the moment feels fully earned. And by the time they speak, the conversation has often moved on. This isn’t a personal shortcoming. It’s a mismatch between how leadership actually works now and how we may have been taught it works.

Decades of research in organizational psychology show that decision makers rely heavily on what is accessible in the moment, not on what exists elsewhere in the system. This cognitive shortcut is known as availability bias, and it shapes far more leadership decisions than anyone likes to admit. If your contribution isn’t present where meaning is being made, it doesn’t shape the outcome, no matter how solid it is.

EXECUTIVE PRESENCE IS FELT, NOT PERFORMED

Executive presence is often misunderstood as polish, confidence, or gravitas. Like a jacket you put on, a tone you adopt, or a posture you perfect.

In practice, presence is something other people experience. It’s the sense that you’re here, that you’re tracking what matters, and that you’re willing to offer your thinking into the shared space in service of the work. Presence helps people orient by providing context and making complexity easier to navigate.

While it may feel like restraint or good manners, when leaders pull back in the name of humility, the system doesn’t experience it that way. It experiences them as absent, and that absence has consequences.

THE COST OF BEING UNSEEN

When capable leaders remain unseen, organisations pay a price: decision-making narrows, risks go unnamed, and familiar patterns repeat. Over time, the same voices shape the future, not because they are always right, or even the most insightful, but because they are the most present. This is how organisations end up under-leveraging talent while wondering why innovation feels harder than it should.

It is also how leaders begin to disengage. Being overlooked rarely triggers anger first; it more often creates doubt. You may start questioning whether your perspective is wanted, if your instincts are sound, or if it feels safer to remain in execution than to step into influence.

That internal contraction is easy to miss, but over time, it steadily erodes confidence, connection, and impact.

VISIBILITY AS LEGIBILITY

Here’s the reframe that changes the conversation: visibility isn’t about drawing attention to yourself; it’s about making your thinking, contribution, and intent legible to the system you’re part of, so others can work with it.

By 'legibility', I mean making your thinking visible enough that others can easily understand what you see, what you’re prioritizing and why, and how you’re making sense of the situation. Legibility answers questions people are often already carrying, whether they say them out loud or not. What are you noticing that others may be missing? What do you believe matters most here, and why? How does this decision connect to where the organization is heading? Who will be most impacted and how?

This kind of visibility is about presence, and doesn’t require broadcasting or self-promotion. It requires the willingness to place your perspective into that shared space early enough that it can still shape understanding.

Sometimes that presence shows up as naming a pattern no one else has articulated yet, or as linking today’s decision to a downstream consequence that others haven't considered. Or it can look like offering context that helps the group see the situation more clearly. None of this is about elevating yourself; it’s about stewardship of the work and the system you are responsible for.

THE CANADIAN CONTEXT

There is an additional layer worth naming here. Our Canadian culture is steeped in norms of politeness, humility, and not drawing undue attention to ourselves. Standing out can feel uncomfortable, even suspect. Speaking too directly can feel impolite. Naming one’s contribution can feel uncomfortably close to self-promotion. These instincts, baked into us as Canadians, are cultural strengths that support trust, collaboration, and social cohesion.

The tension shows up when those same instincts mute our leadership voice. Withholding our perspectives in the name of humility, particularly in organizations that rely on consensus and shared decision-making, doesn’t protect the collective; it leaves the group working at a disadvantage, with less information, context, and perspectives.

Think of it this way: visibility is not about individual advancement; it’s about serving the collective intelligence of the group. Making your thinking legible to others helps others orient, connect dots, and make better decisions together. This is not the self-oriented, ego-driven personal branding cliché that many of us find so distasteful. It’s a contribution to the collective act of leadership.

Seen through this lens, presence is not about asserting yourself. It’s about contributing your share of clarity so the whole system can function more intelligently.

WHY VISIBILITY FEELS UNCOMFORTABLE

For many leaders, discomfort with visibility isn’t about capability so much as deeply personal patterns formed early in their careers or lives. Some learned early on that speaking up carried risk. Others learned that being visible attracted scrutiny they didn’t want. For some, visibility became associated with being judged, misunderstood, or sidelined rather than supported.

Those patterns don’t dissolve just because we have a senior title. They often travel with us, shaping how much space we take up, how quickly we offer our perspective, and how long we wait before entering a conversation.

When these instincts run the show without being examined, they begin to limit impact. Not in obvious or dramatic ways, but through a gradual narrowing of influence and participation. The work isn’t to override or bulldoze those instincts. It’s to look at them honestly and ask whether the cost of staying invisible now outweighs the risk of being seen. In most senior roles, I can tell you it does.

CONTRIBUTION WITHOUT BROADCASTING

There is a middle ground between disappearing and showboating, where we find the most effective leaders contributing with intention and grounded in relevance rather than self-protection or self-promotion.

It often looks like offering our perspective early enough to shape direction, rather than waiting until it feels completely safe to share our opinion. It means speaking to the work and the system, rather than narrating our own effort. It also means trusting that our thinking adds value, even when it is still forming.

Leaders who work this way don't necessarily speak more than others. They speak when it matters, and in service of clarity. Presence, in this sense, is not about volume or dominance. It is about timing, orientation, insight, and contribution.

YOUR COACHING CHALLENGE

This challenge is not about becoming louder, more polished, or more visible for visibility’s sake. It is about allowing more of your thinking to be seen in places where it can genuinely make a difference for the work and for the collective.

Treat this as a practice rather than a personality change. The aim is to experiment with presence, not to perform or self-promote.

1. CHOOSE THE RIGHT CONTEXT: Select one recurring meeting, forum, or decision-making space over the next two weeks where direction is set, priorities are shaped, or meaning is being made (not a purely operational or transactional update meeting).

2. NOTICE YOUR HABITUAL PATTERN: Before the meeting, take a few minutes to reflect on how you usually show up in this space. Where do you tend to hold back? Where do you wait until you are asked? Where do you assume your work will speak for itself?

3. IDENTIFY YOUR LEGIBLE CONTRIBUTION: Ask yourself the following reflection questions: What am I noticing here that would help others orient? What context, pattern, or implication might be missing from the conversation? How does this decision connect to what we are trying to achieve more broadly?

Choose one observation that feels useful to the system or to the collective knowledge of the group (not impressive to you).

1. PLACE YOUR THINKING EARLIER: In the meeting, offer that observation earlier than you normally would. Keep it simple and grounded. Avoid over-explaining, justifying, or softening your point with excessive caveats. Your task is to make your thinking legible, not to massage or defend it.

2. OBSERVE THE IMPACT: After the meeting, reflect on two things. First, what shifted in the room once your perspective was introduced? Second, what did you notice in yourself when you chose presence over restraint?

This practice is not about ego or performance. Practiced this way, visibility becomes a generous act of leadership and a contribution to the collective intelligence of the system.

If this article resonates, and you want to grow your leadership visibility, reach out for a free exploratory Executive Coaching conversation at www.leslierohonczy.com

HAS YOUR EXPERIENCE BECOME A LIABILITY? When What You Know Gets in Your Way

(LISTEN TO THE NARRATED AUDIOARTICLE VERSION)

The first time he said it, she smiled politely.
He tried again. The second time, she nodded along, already formulating her response.
His third repetition had a certain ‘edge’ in his voice.
And by the fourth, the room became very still.

I was observing a senior vice president in action. Sitting across from her direct report in a one-on-one meeting, she seemed certain about where he was headed in the conversation. After all, she’d seen this situation many times in her career, and could anticipate his concerns, the angle, the familiar hesitation. Her attention wasn’t careless. It was efficient.

Except for one pesky little fact: that wasn’t what he was saying. Not even close! What she thought she knew for sure had already shaped what she unconsciously expected to hear. When his actual position finally registered for her after four attempts, it stopped the conversation cold. She wasn’t defensive or dismissive, just visibly disoriented. It wasn’t even that she disagreed. Her certainty had filtered out important data before it had a chance to even register.

Moments like this are easy to miss in real time. Nothing dramatic happened, and no voices were raised, but something important was revealed. Her experience had shifted from being an asset to creating interference, not because she lacked skill, but because her past success had closed the loop too early. 

EXPERIENCE ISN’T THE PROBLEM. FINALITY IS

We tend to speak about experience as though it automatically produces wisdom. The more years, the sharper the judgment. The longer the track record, the better the instincts.

Often, that’s true. Experience does build pattern recognition. It helps leaders move faster with less information. It allows for decisive action in situations that would overwhelm less experienced colleagues.

The trouble begins when experience becomes a filter, narrowing what leaders bother to question and what they no longer think to ask. When leaders rely too heavily on what they’ve seen before, perception can narrow rather than deepen. New information gets unconsciously screened. Signals that don’t fit the familiar narrative are discounted, not deliberately, but as a form of cognitive efficiency.

Efficiency often feels like competence, which is why it so rarely triggers self-doubt. Meetings end on time. Decisions move forward. Issues appear resolved. Leaders get recognized and reinforced for speed and clarity, not for pausing to explore what might be missing. That’s what makes the cost so hard to spot. By the time misalignment surfaces, it often shows up downstream, in disengagement, rework, or conversations that feel harder than they should.

WISDOM VERSUS CERTAINTY

One of the most important distinctions in leadership is the difference between wisdom and certainty. Wisdom holds experience lightly while it stays alert to context. It assumes there is always more to learn, especially when the situation looks and feels familiar.

Certainty closes the loop early. It sounds confident, calm, and decisive. Teams often experience it as reassuring, and leaders experience it as mastery. But certainty also has a blind spot: it resists disruption.

When the environment changes faster than our past experience can track, certainty starts to interfere with judgment. We begin mistaking confidence for accuracy, not because we’re careless, but because our internal models haven’t been updated to match the current level of change or complexity.

WHEN PATTERN RECOGNITION HARDENS

As humans, we're wired for pattern recognition from the beginning. Recognizing patterns is a powerful leadership capability that helps us to see around corners, anticipate risks, and connect dots others haven’t yet noticed. Over time, though, pattern recognition can harden into pattern entrenchment.

When that happens, we stop asking, “What’s unique or different in this case?” and start assuming we already know the answer. Curiosity gets replaced by speed. Listening moves away from trying to understand what might be different this time to listening for evidence that confirms what we already know or believe.

This pattern often shows up in leaders who have been rewarded for their judgment. Each success reinforces the belief that their reading of situations is reliable. Over time, that reliability can turn into reflex. And reflex is not the same as responsiveness.

THE COST OF OUTDATED INTERNAL MODELS

Many of us learned to lead in less chaotic or ambiguous environments than the ones we now operate in. Decision cycles were slower; hierarchies were clearer; dissent travelled differently.

But leaders are navigating something different in today’s world: more voices, greater tension, cultural challenges and polarization, and an increasing number of competing truths, all layered on top of already complex technical decisions.

When leaders don’t update their internal models, they often feel blindsided by outcomes that no longer line up with their intent. Trust begins to wobble, engagement dips, and feedback becomes harder to interpret, leaving the leader with a nagging sense that something is off, even if they can’t quite name it.

What’s often off in these moments is not capability, but curiosity and adaptability.

LEARNING AGILITY, CURIOSITY, AND TRUST

Learning agility is about staying open to questioning your own assumptions, especially when they’ve served you well. It’s the willingness to let curiosity interrupt certainty. And it’s the discipline of staying interested in what’s actually happening in this specific situation, not just what usually happens.

Research from the Center for Creative Leadership has consistently highlighted learning agility as a differentiator in leadership effectiveness, particularly in complex, changing environments. Leaders who stay curious, reflective, and willing to recalibrate are more likely to sustain trust and performance over time.

Curiosity does something else that certainty can’t: it also builds trust. When leaders stay genuinely curious, they signal respect. They create space for difference, making it safer for people to offer information that doesn’t fit the popular opinion. Over time, that shapes culture far more than decisiveness alone ever could.

WHAT THIS LOOKS LIKE IN PRACTICE

When practicing curiosity, notice how quickly you form an opinion. Make a conscious choice to slow that moment down, and ask questions you don’t already have answers for (that's how you know you've asked a genuinely curious question). Check in on your intention: are you listening to learn, or listening to confirm?

In practice, it can also mean inviting your team into the process, not by asking for validation, but by creating space for challenge. Leaders who do this well tend to make better decisions, earn deeper trust, and adapt more effectively as complexity increases.

If you’ve been successful for a long time, think of this as not as a warning, but as a mirror. Experience doesn’t stop being valuable, but it does need to stay alive. The leaders who continue to grow are not the ones who abandon what’s worked, but the ones who remain curious about when it might need updating. Past success is only a liability when it goes unexamined.

YOUR COACHING CHALLENGE

1. 1.      NAME THE MOMENT: Choose one real, upcoming decision, conversation, or recurring issue where you typically rely on instinct and past experience, or a situation where you usually move quickly because it feels familiar. This might be a team discussion, a performance issue, a strategic decision, or a pattern you think you already understand.

PAUSE THE INTERNAL LOOP: Before responding, pause long enough to surface your assumptions. Ask yourself:

• What am I assuming I already know about this situation?

• What story am I telling myself about how this usually goes?

• What real evidence do I have for my assessment?

• What might I be overlooking because it feels familiar?

PRACTISE CURIOSITY OUT LOUD: In the conversation, ask a question that genuinely invites new information. For example:

• What might I be missing here?

• What’s different about this situation than it appears at first glance?

• If we didn’t have to worry about ‘x’, what would we be doing differently?

• If we slowed this down, what else should we be paying attention to?

OBSERVE THE SHIFT: Pay attention to what happens next. Notice not just the content of what you hear, but how the room responds. Does the conversation open up? Do people offer information they hadn’t shared before? Does the energy change when certainty gives way to curiosity?

REFLECT AFTERWARD: After the interaction, take a few minutes to reflect:

• What new information emerged once I slowed down?

• Where did my initial assumptions hold, and where didn’t they?

• What did I notice about my own listening when I chose curiosity over speed?

• What do I know now that I didn’t know before?

This is not about abandoning experience. It’s about keeping it alive by letting it inform your judgment without prematurely closing the loop.

If this article resonates with you, and you're interested in how Executive Coaching can help you, reach out for a free exploratory conversation with me at www.leslierohonczy.com.

AM I COACHABLE? A 5-Step Self-Assessment For Leaders Considering Executive Coaching

LISTEN TO THE NARRATED AUDIOARTICLE VERSION

Are you coachable? How do you actually know?

Have you received feedback about something you know you should work on, but you’re not fully convinced you’ll be able to shift it? Are you curious about executive coaching, but unsure whether you have what it takes to do the work well? Does having coaching support sound appealing, but you’re not sure this is even the right time to take the leap with a qualified coach?

Here’s what may already feel familiar to you. You’re not lacking in capability or motivation, but there’s likely something you can’t yet see clearly: a blind spot, a limiting belief, or a habitual response that’s shaping your behaviour. You’re thoughtful, competent, and you’ve likely spent a great deal of time analysing your situation, and still, something feels stuck.

You may have replayed the feedback conversation, talked it through with trusted people, read the latest trending books, attended the workshops, or listened to the podcasts. On paper, you may even know what you should do next. Yet when the moment arrives, the behaviour doesn’t quite shift, the decision doesn’t land, or the same pattern shows up again. Sometimes awareness is enough to be able to change a behaviour. But when insight doesn’t translate into different choices or behaviours, and you’re not sure how to work with that gap or blind spot, that’s where coaching can make a meaningful difference. 

If any of this sounds familiar, you’re in good company. Many people wrestle with the vulnerability it takes to seek this kind of support. When curiosity about coaching appears, it’s typically because you want greater awareness and traction. The question becomes: are you ready?

Over the years, I’ve worked with hundreds of leaders across sectors, levels, and personalities, and one thing has become very clear: executive coaching can be powerful, practical, and genuinely transformative. It can also be frustrating, circular, and expensive when the timing or focus is off. That difference often gets described as coachability, but it’s worth pausing here to name a distinction that will shape how you read the rest of this article.

This article’s designed to help you assess that for yourself with honesty and without judgement, while also helping you separate two things that are often blurred together: coachability and readiness. It isn’t meant to convince you to hire me or to position executive coaching as a cure-all. Its purpose is to help you decide whether this is the right conversation for you, right now.

WHAT COACHABILITY IS AND WHAT IT IS NOT

Before diving in, one important clarification. Coachability and readiness are related, but they’re not the same thing.

Coachability speaks to how you typically relate to feedback, uncertainty, and personal change. Readiness speaks to timing, context, and capacity, including what else is happening in your life and in the system around you.

You can be deeply coachable and still not ready. You can also feel ready for support, but struggle with some of the habits that make coaching effective. This assessment’s designed to help you notice both.

Coachability isn’t about being agreeable, positive, or easy to work with. Some of my most coachable clients are sceptical, analytical, and openly challenging, while some of the least coachable are polite, enthusiastic, and highly articulate about why nothing can really change.

Coachability also isn’t about having a clear goal perfectly defined right out of the gate. Many people start coaching with a vague sense of discomfort rather than a neat objective, and that isn’t a problem. In fact, it’s often a strong starting point for the coach and client to begin exploring and then crystallising the coaching topic.

Coachability’s about how you relate to yourself, your patterns, personality wiring, and defence mechanisms, and the possibility that your current way of operating, however successful it’s been in the past, may now be limiting you.

The most reliable way to assess coachability isn’t through labels or personality types, but through how you respond to a small set of very specific questions.

A SELF-ASSESSMENT YOU CAN ACTUALLY USE

Read the prompts below slowly and resist the urge to “perform insight,” meaning the temptation to sound self-aware rather than notice what’s actually happening for you in real time. Pay attention to your internal reactions as much as your answers, because irritation, resistance, relief, and curiosity are all useful data.

To make this more practical, I invite you to use a simple rating scale alongside each question. This isn’t a scorecard, and it isn’t a pass or fail test. It’s a way to notice patterns in how you typically respond.

After each question, rate yourself on a scale from 1 to 5 based on which description fits you most often.

1 = I’m protective or defensive by nature, even if I understand the feedback or situation intellectually

2 = I can occasionally stay open at first, but I close down when things start to feel uncomfortable

3 = I can sometimes stay open and reflective, but when the pressure builds, I revert to familiar patterns

4 = I can usually stay open and reflective, even when challenged, though certain situations still test me

5 = I can almost always stay curious, grounded, and willing to learn, even when the feedback or situation feels uncomfortable

There are no good or bad numbers here. The purpose is to notice where openness comes easily for you, and where it reliably gets harder.

1. HOW DO YOU RELATE TO FEEDBACK THAT DOES NOT MATCH YOUR SELF-IMAGE?

Think about the last piece of feedback that genuinely caught you off guard, not the kind you expected and not the kind you politely dismissed. What happened internally? Did you feel curious, even briefly, about what the feedback might be pointing to, or did your energy go immediately into explaining context, questioning the feedback giver’s intent, or coming up with reasons why the feedback was technically inaccurate?

Your self-assessment score: _____

Coachability doesn’t require you to agree with feedback, but it does require a willingness to stay present long enough to learn something from it. When feedback reliably triggers defensiveness, justification, or a strong need to be seen as right, coaching often feels uncomfortable very quickly. That doesn’t signal failure; it signals that the work will require a level of self-honesty you may or may not be ready to engage.

2. ARE YOU MORE INTERESTED IN EXPLAINING YOUR PATTERNS OR EXPLORING THEM?

Many leaders are excellent narrators of their own behaviour. They can explain why they react the way they do, how their background shaped them, and what pressures they’re under. This level of insight is valuable, and it’s also where progress often stalls.

Your self-assessment score: _____

Coachability shows up when someone’s willing to move beyond explanation into experimentation. Instead of staying with the question of why they’re like this, they become willing to ask what happens if they try something different.

When analysis consistently replaces action, coaching can feel repetitive. When experimentation’s allowed, even imperfectly, coaching tends to gain momentum.

3. HOW DO YOU HANDLE NOT KNOWING?

Executive roles reward decisiveness, expertise, and confidence, while coaching asks for something slightly different. It asks you to sit, at least temporarily, in uncertainty.

Your self-assessment score: _____

The question isn’t whether you enjoy not knowing, but whether you can tolerate it long enough to observe yourself in action. Leaders who are highly coachable aren’t less intelligent or decisive; they’re simply willing to slow their thinking long enough to notice what emerges.

When not knowing feels intolerable, or when ambiguity immediately reads as incompetence, coaching may feel destabilising rather than supportive.

4. DO YOU SEE YOURSELF AS PART OF THE PATTERN, EVEN WHEN OTHERS ARE INVOLVED?

Most leadership challenges involve other people, whether a peer, a boss, a team, or a system that genuinely makes things harder. Coachability doesn’t mean taking responsibility for everything, but it does involve examining how you’re participating in the pattern, even when others are clearly contributing.

Your self-assessment score: _____

It’s also important to name something explicitly here. Even highly coachable leaders can struggle to make progress if the system around them is misaligned. Organisational culture, role clarity, sponsorship, workload, and political dynamics all matter.

Coaching works best when there’s enough room in the system for reflection, experimentation, and learning. If your environment consistently punishes candour, vulnerability, or thoughtful pacing, that doesn’t mean you’re not coachable. It means readiness may depend as much on context as on personal willingness.

When your energy’s consistently focused on how to get others to change, coaching may feel limited. When curiosity extends to what’s within your control, including how you show up under pressure, and when the system allows some space to work with that, coaching has room to work.

5. ARE YOU WILLING TO EXPERIENCE DISCOMFORT IN SERVICE OF GROWTH?

Effective coaching isn’t confrontational, but it isn’t always comfortable. It surfaces habits you rely on, questions assumptions that’ve served you well, and invites you to experiment with behaviours that may feel awkward at first.

Your self-assessment score: _____

Coachable leaders aren’t fearless. They’re willing to feel mildly incompetent for a short period of time while learning something new. When discomfort consistently registers as danger, coaching may feel more threatening than helpful, which makes readiness an important consideration rather than a character judgement.

HOW TO MAKE SENSE OF YOUR RATINGS

Before moving on, pause and look across your ratings as a whole. Don’t add them up yet or average them. This isn’t about a score. What matters most is the pattern.

Notice where your ratings tend to cluster. Are there one or two questions where openness comes more easily for you, and one or two where defensiveness or hesitation reliably shows up? Those areas often point to the exact places where coaching does its most useful work.

If most of your ratings fall in the 4 to 5 range, coaching often feels like a stretch that’s energising rather than destabilising. You’re likely able to stay curious under pressure and to work productively with challenge.

If your ratings tend to cluster around 2 to 3, coaching can still be highly effective, but it may require a bit more time and patience as you build tolerance for uncertainty, feedback, or discomfort.

If several of your ratings are consistently at 1 or 2, that doesn’t mean coaching won’t work. It does suggest that timing, scope, or support structure matter greatly, and that naming this openly with a coach would be essential.

The goal of this assessment isn’t to decide whether you’re good enough for coaching. It’s to help you decide whether you’re ready to engage the work honestly, with support that fits where you are right now.

WHEN COACHING IS PROBABLY NOT THE RIGHT FIT

Coaching may not be the best investment at this moment if you’re primarily seeking advice or expert direction, if validation feels more important than challenge, if you hope a coach will fix a situation without requiring you to change how you operate within it, or if you’re navigating acute crisis, burnout, or mental health concerns that’d be better supported through therapy or medical care.

These aren’t character flaws; they’re signals about timing and fit.

WHEN COACHING TENDS TO WORK EXTREMELY WELL

Coaching’s often most effective when you sense that your current success is built on patterns that may not scale, when you’re willing to examine how your impact differs from your intent, when you want greater internal steadiness alongside external performance, and when you’re open to being surprised by what you discover about yourself.

This is often the point at which leaders move from doing leadership to inhabiting it more fully.

A FINAL REFLECTION BEFORE YOU DECIDE

The most coachable people I work with aren’t the ones who feel ready, confident, or certain. They’re the ones who are willing to tell the truth to themselves about where they are, without dramatizing it or minimising it.

If this article stirred defensiveness, curiosity, recognition, or resistance, that response matters more than whether you liked what you read.

YOUR COACHING CHALLENGE

At this point, you’ve taken an honest look at how you tend to relate to feedback, uncertainty, discomfort, and change.

Rather than treating this as a standalone exercise, I invite you to use what you’ve noticed to clarify your potential coaching topic.

Look back at your ratings and reflections and ask yourself:

• Where did I feel the most friction or defensiveness?

• Which question felt closest to a live issue in my leadership right now?

• What pattern, belief, or habit seems to sit underneath that reaction?

Those answers often point directly to a meaningful coaching focus, not a vague goal, but a real edge you’re currently navigating.

If you’re noticing a clear theme and you’re curious to explore it with support, an exploratory coaching conversation can help you test whether this is the right time, the right scope, and the right kind of coaching for you. There’s no pressure and no obligation, just a chance to think out loud with someone certified to help you explore yourself and your situation more fully.

Reach out for a free exploratory Executive Coaching conversation at www.leslierohonczy.com.

'SOFT SKILLS' ARE FOR SOFT LEADERS: Skipping the Hardest Part of the Job

LISTEN TO THE NARRATED AUDIOARTICLE VERSION

“Soft skills” are for soft leaders. There. I said it.

I know... You probably didn’t expect to hear that from me. When I first typed the title for this article, I thought, “Well, this feels a bit spicy for LinkedIn!” But stay with me.

The phrase “soft skills” has always given me hives. Not because I don't value the things that people usually mean when they say it, or that I think these things are optional or less important than technical skills. It’s because this limiting language massively underplays what relational skills actually bring to and demand from a leader.

And when I refer to “soft leaders”, I mean the ones who intentionally avoid or dismiss the EQ side of their work. By sidestepping, outsourcing, or dismissing them altogether, they're choosing to leave these core leadership skills undeveloped. Which means they’re only doing half their job.

Think about it this way: by the time someone reaches a senior leadership role, technical competence is rarely the hardest part of the job anymore. Most leaders I work with are smart and capable; they know their industry, their numbers, and how to make decisions under pressure. None of that is new territory.

But what many wish they had a playbook for is 'that people stuff', as one senior VP I worked with called it. While I find that phrase rash-inducing, too, it does capture what shows up when the org chart gets taller and the culture stakes get higher.

This is relational leadership work, and it’s not soft, optional, or incidental. It’s the work of leading humans, the ongoing responsibility of building trust, regulating yourself, repairing relationships, and creating the conditions for other people to do great work.

It's things like emotional heavy lifting, relational clean up, continuous self-regulation, and the cognitive load of making consequential decisions while absorbing other people’s anxiety. It's also about holding the dynamic role tension of staying calm, decisive, compassionate, and contained, often all at once, while steadying a room, staying grounded during conflict, and repairing trust after small but consequential cracks appear.

Somehow, we’ve decided to call all of this soft skills, as if they’re a collection of fluffy, nonessential, nice little extras that we can squeeze in after the real work is done. We can't. (Unless, of course, you’ve solved the space-time continuum itself, and if you have, please call me!)

In fact, this relational work doesn't sit alongside leadership. It is the leadership work.

THE PROBLEM WITH THE WORD “SOFT”

The word soft also suggests ease, or something that comes naturally, or implies that if this stuff feels difficult, you must be overthinking it.

That framing does real damage, because the skills required to lead people well are anything but easy. Not because the behaviours themselves require some elusive talent or mysterious art, but because of what they demand in the moment: the ongoing cognitive load, the emotional containment, the internal strain of holding competing expectations while still being watched, interpreted, and responded to in real time.

Some people have strong relational instincts; others don’t. Either way, the work of leadership still requires intention, experimentation, practice, and being able to apply it deliberately, especially when the pressure is on. It takes awareness, repetition, feedback, and a willingness to stay uncomfortable long enough to grow new muscle. If anything, these are strength skills, and while some organisations do track the relational side of leadership behaviours well, many still struggle to name, measure, and invest in them with the same rigour as technical performance. Think of this gap as an opportunity, not an excuse.

WHEN THE ROLE TURNS MORE HUMAN, AND HEAVIER

I hear versions of this in coaching sessions all the time: “I honestly thought this job would be about bigger decisions and clearer priorities. I didn’t realize how much of my day would be taken up by managing emotions, including my own.”

What they’re naming isn’t a gap in competence; it’s a gap in their approach to leadership. As scope increases, complexity follows, and decisions ripple farther. Conversations carry more weight. People pay attention not just to what you decide, but to how you show up while deciding it. The work shifts from doing the job yourself to creating the conditions for other people to do their best work.

GOING SOFT ON THE HARD STUFF IS COSTLY

Let me be very clear here: finding this side of leadership hard doesn’t make someone a weak leader. But avoiding it does.

Leaders who wave off relational work as “that people stuff,” or treat emotional regulation as secondary, are putting themselves and their teams at risk.

Minimizing this work comes at a real cost. Decades of research from organisations like Gallup consistently show that poor management and low trust drive disengagement, burnout, and turnover, all of which carry measurable performance and financial consequences. When leaders avoid or downgrade this part of the role, tension lingers longer, decisions slow down, and issues that could have been addressed early become far more expensive to fix later.

This is where the phrase soft leaders actually belongs, not as a moral judgment, but as a description of what happens when leaders neglect the hardest muscles to build. When authority, intellect, or expertise do all the heavy lifting and the human side stays underdeveloped, trust erodes, performance plateaus, top talent leaves, and the leader’s credibility is damaged. Strong leadership isn’t about being nice. It’s about being able to stay present, steady, and clear when things get messy, which they inevitably do.

Doing this work well means growing your ability to sit in discomfort without rushing to fix. It means giving feedback with clarity and compassion and without shaming. And it means noticing when a relationship needs attention and addressing it before it hardens into something that will need repairs down the road.

The leaders I've seen who do this well invest in developing their people not because it feels warm and fuzzy, but because it works. They understand that performance follows trust, and trust follows consistent, regulated leadership behaviour. There’s nothing soft about that. It’s disciplined, demanding work.

THE RELIEF MANY LEADERS NEED TO HEAR

If you find this relational side of leadership exhausting, demanding, or harder than you expected, nothing has gone wrong. You’re not deficient, and you’re not failing some invisible leadership test. You’ve simply uncovered muscles that this role now requires you to build.

What you do with that discovery can vary. Some lean into the work and start building those muscles deliberately. Some minimize its importance because it feels uncomfortable or inefficient, or they don't know where to start. Others resist it outright, often because it asks for capacities that feel foreign to their innate wiring. Each response says something important about how a leader understands the role, and what they believe leadership is actually for.

Although we're seeing some improvements in corporate leadership training, the fact is that most leaders were never trained on how to grow and use their relational leadership EQ superpowers. Leadership development still tends to prioritize strategy, execution, and frameworks, while expecting leaders to learn the relational work on the fly, often while feeling exposed and underprepared.

Naming this matters. It helps you shift from interpreting the struggle as a personal weakness to simply treating it as your next leadership skill set that deserves intentional investment.

YOUR COACHING CHALLENGE

Over the next week, run a simple self-observation experiment. No fixing. No improving. Just noticing.

STEP 1: TRACK WHERE THE ENERGY GOES

At the end of each day, jot down one or two moments where the people-facing demands of the role required real effort. This might be a conversation you delayed, a meeting that drained you more than expected, or a moment where you had to regulate yourself before responding.

STEP 2: NOTICE YOUR DEFAULT MOVE

For each moment you capture, note what you did next. Did you lean in, smooth it over, push it aside, delegate it, or tell yourself it could wait? There’s no right answer here. You’re simply building awareness of your default response.

STEP 3: NAME WHAT WAS AT STAKE

Ask yourself what really mattered in that moment. Trust? Clarity? Alignment? Psychological safety? Future performance? This step helps separate discomfort from consequence.

REFLECTION QUESTIONS (JOURNAL AFTER THE WEEK)

Once you’ve observed several moments, take 15–20 minutes to reflect in writing:

• Which situations consistently required the most self-regulation or emotional effort?

• When I avoided, minimized, or rushed through the relational work, what did those choices cost me, the team, or the work in the short term?

• What do my default responses to relational work suggest about how I currently define leadership?

• What strength am I being asked to build next as a leader?

This isn’t about judging yourself. It’s about making the invisible work of leadership visible, so you can choose how deliberately you want to engage with it going forward.

If you’d like support developing this side of your leadership, reach out for a free exploratory Executive Coaching conversation at www.leslierohonczy.com.

CONGRATS ON THE PROMOTION: Why Yesterday’s Leadership Tools Don’t Scale

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Congratulations on the big promotion! The kudos are rolling in, your calendar has exploded with meeting invitations, and you’re now attending meetings that used to feel slightly mysterious and intimidating. The scope has expanded, the mandate is bigger, and people are paying closer attention to what you say, and what you don’t.

And then you start to notice that something feels... off.

What used to get you noticed no longer carries the same weight at this level. It feels like familiar instincts are misfiring. The rooms feel different. Even the elevator rides feel awkward, heavier somehow, but you can’t quite put your finger on why.

This is a moment many newly promoted senior leaders don’t expect. Authority has arrived, but the internal shift is still catching up. Wouldn’t it be great if this promotion came with a briefing note explaining how approval works differently now, why growth often feels more like loss for a while, and how you’re expected to grow those elusive leadership characteristics called 'leadership presence' and 'strategic thinking'.

It’s a lot.

Consider this a working version of that briefing note, or at least some useful company for your next elevator ride.

WHEN APPROVAL STOPS WORKING

For most of your career, you look for specific signals to know that you were on the right track: approval, positive feedback, visible appreciation, recognition for being capable or collaborative.

Then you step into senior leadership and the usual signals stop working.

Approval becomes inconsistent, delayed, or occasionally, even nonexistent. Some of the most important decisions you now make will frustrate people you respect. It just comes with the territory. Praise drops off and ambiguity creeps in. Judgment, not agreement, becomes the real currency of the role.

This can be deeply unsettling, especially for leaders who’ve built their identity around being effective and well-regarded. It’s not that those qualities no longer matter. It’s that they can no longer carry the full load of this new role on their own.

At this level, leadership starts asking something different of you. Less reassurance. More internal steadiness. Better self-awareness. It’s not about picking up a new skill set. It’s about letting go of the version of leadership that got you here.

WHY GROWTH FEELS LIKE LOSS FIRST

Almost every leader I coach through this career transition talks about loss before they talk about growth. Loss of certainty. Loss of ease. Loss of the familiar rhythm of being unquestionably right or genuinely appreciated.

Leadership growth at this level starts with subtraction. You're going to need to let go of some behaviours that once kept you safe. You'll surrender approaches that helped you belong. You'll have to loosen your grip on proving your value through responsiveness, polish, or sheer effort.

At times, it can feel like you’re getting worse at your job. You’re not. This discomfort isn’t automatically a warning sign. It’s a normal part of your leadership evolution, as your nervous system, leadership identity, and expectations recalibrate around this larger role. Things feel unstable because they are, and that instability is part of the passage.

I see a familiar theme in my executive coaching work with clients: when leaders hit this phase, they instinctively reach for what’s always worked. That's a normal human reaction, of course. They get a bit tighter. More controlled. More certain on the surface. More performative. Not because they’re doing it wrong, but because those strengths and habits were what made them successful in the past. At this level, though, I see those same moves start to constrain them rather than help.

And this is an important distinction: I'm not saying that those familiar strengths must disappear. They’re still important tools in your leadership toolbelt. The difference is that this role calls for using them more selectively, not by default. As you rely on them a little less, it creates room to build new muscles and capabilities that this level actually demands; things like steadier presence, broader horizon awareness, more expansive judgment, and greater comfort holding complexity. The leaders I see navigate this most effectively are the ones who pause long enough to notice this shift, loosen their grip a little, experiment and adjust. They're also the ones who are willing to extend themselves more self-compassion as they learn their way into the role.

THE COST OF PERFORMING LEADERSHIP

One of the less obvious shifts I notice as leaders move into senior roles is how certainty starts to change shape.

Earlier in a career, sounding sure is often rewarded. It signals competence, keeps things moving, and reassures others that someone has a handle on the work. Those instincts don’t disappear with a promotion, and for good reason: they worked. At more senior levels, though, certainty can start to work against you.

In my coaching conversations, I often hear leaders describe a growing pressure they feel to have a clear point of view at all times, even when the situation is complex, politically charged, or genuinely unresolved. The performance of certainty can keep things tidy on the surface, but it also narrows the conversation. Fewer questions get asked. Fewer assumptions get tested. People start editing themselves in real time.

What’s tricky is that this doesn’t feel like overconfidence. It usually feels like responsibility. Leaders know decisions land with them, so they feel compelled to sound decisive, even when the best thinking is still emerging. Over time, that habit can limit both judgment and range. Certainty becomes something to maintain, rather than something to earn through sensemaking.

The leaders I see navigate this shift most effectively are the ones who notice when certainty has become reflexive rather than useful. They allow themselves to stay open a little longer, to think out loud, to name what isn’t clear yet. That doesn’t weaken their authority. In fact, in most cases, it strengthens it.

INHABITING AUTHORITY WITHOUT ARMOUR

Real authority is less dramatic than most people expect. It shows up as staying present and grounded when the room is tense. It shows up in decisions that carry long-term consequences, even when short-term clarity or approval is unlikely. It shows up when leaders allow others to have reactions without rushing in to manage them.

This kind of authority doesn’t come from the theatre of performing confidence. It comes from self-trust, emotional regulation, and the capacity to stand in ambiguity without rushing to tidy it up.

The leaders who navigate this transition well aren’t the ones who never doubt themselves. They’re the ones who stop using performance as a substitute for presence. They understand that leadership at this level is less about being seen a certain way, and more about being able to hold complexity without armour.

If you’ve recently stepped into a senior role and things feel harder rather than easier, that’s not a personal failure. It’s a predictable passage point. Authority changes the internal job description before it changes anything else.

Growth often arrives disguised as loss, so if you're feeling it, take heart. Depth tends to follow discomfort. Leadership becomes more sustainable, and even, dare I say, more enjoyable, when it stops being something you perform.

YOUR COACHING CHALLENGE

Over the next week, notice the moments when you reach for leadership behaviours that used to serve you well, but don’t seem to land the same way at this level.

Pay attention to situations where you reach for certainty too quickly, decisions where approval feels tempting but misaligned, and moments where you hold back to protect your image.

Don’t correct anything yet. Simply observe. Ask yourself what you’re being asked to let go of at this level, what familiar strengths you may be leaning on out of habit rather than choice, and where you might experiment with a steadier, less performative way of leading. Where does certainty feel reflexive rather than useful right now, and what might change if you stayed open a little longer?

If this transition feels heavier than you expected, you’re not alone. This is the terrain where executive coaching does its deepest work.

Reach out for a free exploratory Executive Coaching conversation at www.leslierohonczy.com.