WHY DO YOU REALLY WANT TO LEAD? 5 Uncomfortable Questions to Ask Yourself

By Leslie Rohonczy, IMC™, PCC

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

Ask someone why they want a bigger leadership role, and you'll usually hear the standard answers: "I want to make a difference" or "I want to help people grow." Both may be completely sincere; admirable even, and definitely plausible. Also, probably not the whole story.

Perhaps you really want greater influence, recognition, money, authority, or challenge. Perhaps the promotion would prove something to a former boss, a parent, a colleague, or yourself. There's no shame in any of these drivers, and they don't make you unfit to lead. They make you human.

The risk begins when we refuse to examine those motivations more deeply. An unacknowledged need doesn't disappear when the promotion is announced. It just gets a larger office, a bigger budget, and more people to influence.

YOUR AMBITION IS DATA

Leadership researchers Kim-Yin Chan and Fritz Drasgow introduced the term ‘motivation to lead’ in their research on the three sources of leadership motivation: we may be drawn to leadership because we enjoy it and see ourselves as leaders; because we feel a duty to step forward; or because we're willing to accept the costs and responsibilities involved. Their findings also showed that motivation to lead adds meaningful information when predicting leadership potential.

In other words, the motivation for why we lead deserves more attention than a common question during a promotion interview.

Most of us have a mix of motives, not just one. We can care deeply about helping others, enjoy being influential, and appreciate the salary increase. Self-awareness asks us to recognize what's driving us, so those motives don't take over when pressure rises.

The more useful question, then, isn't simply, “Do I want the job?” It’s, “Do I want the work the job will require of me?” That work comes with a few uncomfortable tests.

FIVE POWERFUL QUESTIONS

Here are five questions that can help you look beneath those standard polished reasons for wanting to lead and examine what may also be driving you. Whether you’re considering a leadership role or already in one, reflect on them with curiosity rather than trying to produce “right” answers. They can help you distinguish between wanting the title and wanting the work that comes with it. They can also help you anticipate where your motives could shape your behaviour, and make more deliberate choices about the kind of leader you want to be.

1. WOULD YOU STILL WANT TO LEAD WITHOUT THE RECOGNITION?

Imagine that your new title will impress no one. There's no spotlight, no special recognition, caché, or fancy office that comes with this promotion. And you'll still have to address poor performance, defend an unpopular decision, absorb pressure from above, and support people through uncertainty.

Does the work still interest you? Not the title, but the day-to-day work required. This simple question can help you separate attraction to the role from appetite for its actual, although less glamorous, responsibilities.

2. ARE YOU WILLING TO GIVE AWAY DECISIONS AND CREDIT?

Many people earn leadership roles because they're excellent operational problem-solvers. They're great at doing the work, and they often get fulfillment from it. Then they're promoted as a reward for doing it so well, only to discover that the promotion has taken them away from the very work that made them happy and successful.

Their value used to come from doing and solving problems exceptionally well. But on the other side of a promotion, their value as leaders must now come from building other people's judgment, coaching and guiding them for development and performance, and getting the work done through others.

That can be a tough pill to swallow for someone who loves the doing part. Suddenly, they're standing outside the fun stuff like a kid looking in a candy shop window. Solving the problem themselves would be faster. Rewriting the work would be easier. Making the decision would feel satisfying. Being in the action would be juicy. And without realizing it, they become the bottleneck.

Leadership asks us to let someone else wrestle with a problem, try new things, explore solutions, make a sound decision, implement it, and receive the credit. If your identity depends on being the person with the answers, leadership can expose that dependency pretty quickly.

3. CAN PEOPLE DISAGREE WITH YOU SAFELY?

Authority changes conversations. Even warm, approachable leaders underestimate how much people edit themselves around power. Gallup has reported that managers account for approximately 70% of the variance in employee engagement across business units. How a leader listens, responds, delegates, recognizes, and corrects has enormous consequences.

As your authority grows, people are less willing to risk candour. You can make it safer by receiving feedback openly while resisting the urge to explain it away. You can also reward people who surface risks, and allow disagreement to influence your thinking. If everyone agrees with you, it may be because your judgment is consistently sound, but it may also be because people don't feel safe challenging you. That possibility deserves investigation too.

4. DO YOU WANT TO GROW PEOPLE, EVEN WHEN IT SLOWS YOU DOWN?

“I want to develop others” sounds splendid until development becomes inconvenient. Real development requires time, clarity, stretch, experimentation, unintended consequences, feedback, and room to learn. Sometimes it means watching someone take the scenic route to a conclusion you reached ten minutes ago. Sometimes it means coaching a capable person who may eventually outgrow your team.

“Developing people” can't survive as a slogan. It has to appear in calendars, assignments, actions, conversations, and decisions about who gets opportunities, recognition, and visibility.

5. WHAT DO YOU EXPECT LEADERSHIP TO PROVE?

This may be the most revealing question of all. Complete these sentences from your own individual perspective, without answering on behalf of your organization, your team, or the interview panel:

• When I reach the next level, I'll feel...

• I'll finally know...

• Other people will see me as...

• I'll no longer have to...

• I'll have proved...

Read your answers with curiosity. Look for the emotional contract you may be trying to sign with the role or title. A promotion can give you more authority. It can't permanently settle whether you're intelligent, valuable, respected, or enough. When we ask a title to do that for us, we get unintended consequences: we may hoard decisions to feel essential, avoid feedback to preserve a feeling of certainty, or overwork to justify our place. Those patterns are costly, but they're coachable once we become aware of them.

THE QUESTION BEHIND THE QUESTION

Wanting to lead isn't evidence that you should. Some uncertainty about whether leadership is right for you may reflect a healthy respect for what the role will require of you.

Before pursuing the next title, we might ask a more demanding set of questions: Do I want to hold power, and how would I use it responsibly? Can I help others become less dependent on me? Am I willing to hear what authority makes harder for people to say? Can I remain curious about my impact when my intentions are good?

The strongest motivation for leadership may not be pure selflessness or naked ambition, but the willingness to keep examining both, while accepting responsibility for what our motives produce in other people.

YOUR COACHING CHALLENGE

Write down every reason you want your current leadership role, or the next one. Include the obvious reasons, and also include the private reasons you would choose to edit out of an interview answer. Then ask: When this motive is healthy, how does it strengthen my leadership? When it takes over, what might other people experience from me? You don't need perfectly selfless motives to lead well. You need to understand what is driving you, recognize how those motives shape your decisions and relationships, and take responsibility when they begin to lead you instead of serving the people you lead.

SOURCES

Chan, K. Y., and Drasgow, F. (2001). Toward a theory of individual differences and leadership: Understanding the motivation to lead. Journal of Applied Psychology, 86(3), 481 498. Gallup (2015). Managers Account for 70% of Variance in Employee Engagement.

IF AI SAVES TIME, WHO GETS THE TIME BACK? Leaders Decide If AI Builds Capacity or Creates More Work

By Leslie Rohonczy, IMC™, PCC

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

An employee figures out how to use AI to turn a two-hour daily task into a 20-minute one. On paper, the organization has just gained 100 minutes of capacity every week. In practice, that gain only matters if someone decides what the time is for.

Does it get allocated to deeper thinking, stronger relationships, harder problems? Does the organization reduce staffing? Does the employee just become responsible for producing more, faster? Or does it vanish into the hazy workplace swamp of meetings, messages, and overflowing inboxes?

LinkedIn is filthy with articles either fear-mongering or cheerleading about AI. So many leadership articles seem to focus on how much time AI can save. I'm interested in a different question: what will leaders decide to do with that time?

If every efficiency gain is immediately converted into more volume, we're not improving the system: we're standing in a sinking boat, bucket in hand, while a larger hose pours in work faster than we can bail.

I’m not an AI expert, and I don’t claim to be one. What I do have is a front-row seat to senior leaders trying to make sense of the expectations AI is creating inside their organizations. From that vantage point, recovered time looks less like a technology question and more like a leadership decision.

There's a second question tucked inside this one, and it may matter even more: if AI takes over more of the work people have traditionally used to learn their craft, how will they develop the judgment to know whether that work is any good?

RECOVERED TIME GETS CLAIMED, NOT KEPT

I read about a study done just last year that got me thinking. The Harvard Business School working paper studied 78 employees at IG Group, who were asked to use generative AI to produce online investment articles. Across participants, the average time spent coming up with the concepts for an article fell from about 63 minutes to 23. The writing phase fell from 87 minutes to 22.

Those are significant gains, but they tell us nothing about how the recovered time should be used. Workplace capacity rarely sits around waiting to be thoughtfully allocated. Those gains get claimed, or they evaporate.

In 2025, Microsoft analyzed billions of anonymized Microsoft 365 records and found that the average worker receives 117 emails and 153 Teams messages every weekday. It described an “infinite workday” stretching from early-morning email into late-night inbox checks. The warning leaders should sit with is this: AI can accelerate a broken system unless organizations also rethink the rhythm of work.

I've coached enough senior leaders to know that warning is right on the money. Adding a faster tool to an already-overflowing workday and inefficient systems doesn't create breathing room. It just teaches the broken system to run faster while pouring in just as much, if not more.

THE WORK ISN’T JUST OUTPUT, IT’S DEVELOPMENT

Imagine that you’re a junior analyst who spends hours reviewing data and preparing a first draft, only to notice that two numbers don't quite line up. Much of that labor might be ideal for AI assistance, but it’s not ideal for your development. You’re also learning which anomalies deserve attention, developing a feel for what "normal" looks like, encountering your own assumptions, making mistakes, and discovering why those mistakes matter. You’re building judgment because your apprenticeship is built into your everyday work.

According to a 2026 OECD review, generative AI can be a genuine boost to learning, offering personalized help and fast access to information. But it also flagged a real risk: people leaning on AI output without stopping to evaluate it. Whether that hurts critical thinking long term depends on how the technology gets used, whether it becomes a tutor and practice partner that sharpens our thinking, or something that steals the learning opportunity from us by supplying the answer before we've wrestled with the question. Most organizations haven't yet decided which one they're building toward.

A POLISHED ANSWER CAN HIDE AN EMPTY TOOLBOX

That same Harvard Business School research also compared three groups doing web-analyst work: 12 experienced web analysts, 26 marketing specialists with adjacent skills, and 40 technology specialists whose day-to-day work had little in common with writing investment articles. With AI assistance, all three groups scored about the same on conceptualization. Then came the writing, and the gap showed up: the technology specialists' articles scored roughly 13 percent lower on quality than the other two groups.

Put simply: AI can give you the map, but you still need experience to navigate the terrain. That matters for leaders because AI-assisted work can look impressively complete while hiding how little the person behind it actually understands.

We can no longer assume that a polished first draft reveals much about someone’s real capability. The risk appears when leaders mistake output for judgment. It usually shows up later: when circumstances change, when the AI gets something wrong, or when the employee has to defend the recommendation under pressure. The question is not just “can they produce it?” It is “can they explain it, challenge it, adapt it, and tell you when it should not be trusted?”

RECOVERED CAPACITY NEEDS AN OWNER AND A PURPOSE

Plenty of people have a legitimate claim on recovered capacity. The organization wants output. Employees need relief from unsustainable workloads. Teams need time for learning and collaboration. Customers benefit from more attention. Leaders finally get room for the strategic work that operational urgency keeps crowding out.

So who decides? Leave it undecided, and your existing habits will fill the vacuum for you. Here’s what I’ve noticed: in a volume-driven culture, the time becomes more volume. In a meeting-heavy culture, it becomes more meetings. In an understaffed team, it disappears into the backlog before anyone even notices it existed. "Saving time" isn't a full AI strategy on its own. We still have to decide what the recovered time is for, who benefits, and how we'll explain that decision to our people.

Part of that decision is knowing which friction to protect. Some is worth killing off (nobody needs the character-building experience of reformatting the same information into six different templates). But other effort is developmental, not wasteful. Struggling with a problem before you consult AI builds your reasoning and confidence. Drafting a first recommendation reveals the gaps in your own understanding. Reviewing the source material yourself exposes contradictions that a tidy AI summary would smooth over for readability. Remove the friction, and you create capacity. Remove the developmental effort, and you create dependency.

I'm not suggesting we ban AI from developmental work; that would kill off real learning too. What I am suggesting is designing the process on purpose: have the employee form their own view first, then compare it against the AI's output, identify where they diverge, verify the evidence, and explain the final recommendation in their own words. Sure, this will be slower than just taking the first polished answer, but it builds the judgment they'll actually need when the answer isn't obvious, when the context shifts, or when the technology gets it wrong.

PRODUCTIVITY NEEDS TWO SETS OF METRICS

Most organizations are already tracking the usual productivity measures: cycle time, tickets closed, drafts produced, cost per transaction, AI usage rates, error rates, and throughput per employee. And we can all agree these are important. But they don’t tell us whether AI is building a healthier system or merely helping a strained one move faster.

The missing column should track what actually happens to recovered capacity: hours reinvested in learning, manager coaching hours, rework and escalation rates, employee workload scores, after-hours activity, time spent on complex problem-solving, quality-review outcomes, protected learning time, and whether people can still explain, challenge, and defend the work AI helped produce.

Does the AI technology build up our human capability, or just erode the practice that builds it? If experienced employees developed their judgment by doing the reps, how will less-experienced employees develop theirs without them? Are workloads genuinely getting more sustainable, or just expanding to soak up every bit of gain that AI hands you?

If the only thing people can point to after AI adoption is "we process more work, faster," don't be surprised when employees conclude the reward for becoming more efficient is simply more work. That's not a recipe for enthusiastic adoption. It never has been.

YOUR COACHING CHALLENGE

Over the next two weeks, pick one area of your team's work where AI is already saving time, or soon will. Work through these questions:

1. What capacity could realistically be recovered, and how would we know?

2. If nobody makes an explicit decision, where is that time most likely to go by default?

3. Ideally, what portion should improve performance, and what portion should strengthen learning, relationships, innovation, or workload sustainability?

4. What judgment have experienced employees built by doing the work AI may now perform?

5. How will newer employees build that same judgment without the same reps?

6. Where should AI assist, and where should employees still be expected to think, attempt, question, wrestle with, and decide for themselves?

7. What would a fair, transparent conversation with employees about recovered capacity actually sound like?

The future of work will be shaped by what AI becomes capable of doing. It will be shaped just as much by what leaders choose to do with the capacity it creates, and by what they still ask human beings to practice, learn, and own.

If this is showing up in your organization after an AI rollout, a retention concern, a succession pipeline where judgment gaps are surfacing earlier than expected, or a reorg redefining what “senior” means, I’d be glad to help you explore it through an executive coaching lens. Reach out for a free exploratory conversation at www.leslierohonczy.com.

For readers who want to explore the research behind this article in more depth, here are the links:

• Harvard Business School Working Paper: https://www.hbs.edu/ris/download.aspx?name=26-011.pdf

• Microsoft 2025 Research: https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/worklab/work-trend-index/2025-the-year-the-frontier-firm-is-born

• 2026 OECD Review: https://www.oecd.org/en/publications/oecd-digital-education-outlook-2026_062a7394-en.html

WHAT’S YOUR ‘-NESS’? (And Are You Making the Most of It?)

Long before we acquired the title, built the résumé, learned the leadership language, and figured out which parts of ourselves were considered suitably professional, there was something distinctive about how each of us showed up in the world. A particular combination of gifts, instincts, values, passions, and quirks. Something people could feel in our presence, even if neither they nor we had a name for it. I call that our “-ness.”

I get to work with some pretty remarkable people, each with their own way of thinking, connecting, creating, and contributing. One leader brings order to situations that feel chaotic to everyone else. Another can walk into a tense room and help people exhale. Someone else asks the question that can cut through six weeks of circular discussion and gets everybody looking at the real issue.

These abilities may not appear in their job descriptions. They may never have been formally taught. Often, the person doesn’t even recognize them as unusual.

That’s the funny thing about our most natural gifts: because they come naturally to us, we assume they come naturally to everyone. They don’t.

WHAT EXACTLY IS OUR “-NESS”?

Our “-ness” is the distinctive combination of qualities we bring to the people and situations around us. It includes our strengths, values, talents, passions, instincts, emotional range, and ways of seeing. It’s less about what we do than about what becomes possible because we are there.

My own “Leslie-ness” is rooted in creativity, empathy, emotional intelligence, decisiveness, and an insatiable curiosity about why people do what they do. It helps me see patterns in people’s behaviour, understand their wiring, and find language or metaphors that allow them to see themselves differently.

My husband Imre’s “-ness” is different. He plans, anticipates, and takes care of details that help other people feel safe. He is naturally in service, often noticing what someone will need before they know they need it.

Neither combination is better. They create different kinds of value. When I ask a coaching client, “What is your Steve-ness?” or “What is your Diana -ness?”, the question often earns me a puzzled look followed by a laugh. That’s useful. Playfulness can sometimes get us past the polished leadership answer and into something more honest. Then the exploration begins:

• What do people consistently come to you for?

• What becomes easier when you’re involved?

• What do you notice that others often miss?

• When do you feel most fully yourself?What would be lost if you stopped bringing that part of yourself to your work?

Those questions take us somewhere a competency assessment can’t always reach.

OUR “-NESS” IS FOUND IN OUR IMPACT

Many of us initially describe our “-ness” with a collection of adjectives: creative, kind, analytical, courageous, funny, calm, strategic. That’s a useful beginning, but it doesn’t tell the whole story. To understand our “-ness,” we also need to understand its effect.

Consider the difference between these two descriptions: “I’m highly analytical” and “I help people find clarity inside complicated problems”. The first names a quality. The second reveals its impact.

In my own example, “I’m empathetic” becomes “People tell me things they haven’t been able to say anywhere else.” “I’m creative” becomes “I help people see possibilities they couldn’t see before.” “I’m decisive” becomes “I help groups stop circling and commit to a direction.”

Our “-ness” lives at the intersection of what comes naturally to us and what it makes possible for others.

There is research behind the value of bringing our natural strengths to work. A 2025 meta-analysis study examined character-strength use across workplace studies and found meaningful positive associations with both work performance and employee well-being. In plain language, possessing strengths matters, but having the opportunity to use them matters just as much. If we don’t, we risk knowing exactly who we are but still working in ways that leave our best qualities sitting unused in the parking lot.

HOW LEADERS LOSE TOUCH WITH THEIR “-NESS”

As leaders become more senior, they receive an astonishing amount of information about who they are supposed to be. They should be more strategic, more decisive, more diplomatic, more concise, more inspiring, more executive-like. Some of that feedback may be useful. Leadership requires range, and most of us need to develop capabilities that don’t come naturally.

The trouble begins when expanding our range turns into replacing ourselves. A warm, relational leader believes that ‘executive presence’ requires emotional distance. A thoughtful leader starts giving instant answers because everyone else at the table appears certain. A creative leader becomes so consumed by operational demands that she stops imagining or being curious. A naturally direct leader learns to soften every message until nobody knows what he actually thinks.

Eventually, these leaders can become highly skilled versions of someone they believe they are supposed to be. They may still perform well and may even be promoted, but leadership starts to feel more effortful, and the people around them often sense a lack of authenticity, like something has gone missing.

Development should give us more ways to be ourselves. It shouldn’t require us to become unrecognizable.

WHEN OUR “-NESS” BECOMES TOO MUCH OF A GOOD THING

There is another possible complication: a natural gift can become less helpful when we apply it unconsciously. Our strong empathy muscles can turn into absorbing everyone else’s emotions. Our decisiveness can become impatience and recklessness. Our creativity can keep producing possibilities when the team desperately needs a decision. Our need to be helpful can steal the development opportunities from others. Our calmness can look like detachment. Our desire to serve can lead us to carry work that belongs to other people.

Researchers studying character strengths have explored their underuse, overuse, and context-sensitive use. Our qualities are not innately good or bad, the real question is whether we are using the right strength, in the right amount, for the situation in front of us.  This doesn’t make the strength less authentic. It makes the leader more discerning.

Creativity is part of my “Leslie-ness”, but that doesn’t mean every executive coaching session needs twelve new ideas, a framework, and an elaborate metaphor involving an air-traffic control tower. Sometimes the most useful contribution I can make is to stop creating and help someone choose.

Our “-ness” always comes with a shadow side, and knowing the shadow allows us to use the gift with greater skill.

MAKING MORE OF WHAT IS ALREADY THERE

Once we have language for our “-ness,” we can become more intentional about where and how we use it. We can ask:

• Where am I currently making the best use of these qualities?

• Where have I been muting them to fit someone else’s image of leadership?

• Where might I be relying on them too heavily (an over-strength)?

• What situations bring out the clearest and most generous expression of them?

• What do I need to develop so that my natural gifts have even greater impact?

That last question is especially important because embracing our “-ness” doesn’t mean giving ourselves permanent permission to avoid what’s uncomfortable. “I’m a big-picture person” can’t become an excuse to ignore details that affect other people. And “I’m direct” doesn’t release us from considering how our message will land. “I’m highly relational” does not mean we can avoid a difficult performance conversation. Authenticity without self-awareness can become self-indulgence. Our work is to honour what is natural in us while developing the range to use it responsibly.

YOUR COACHING CHALLENGE

Set aside 30 minutes when you’re unlikely to be interrupted. Give yourself enough time to get beyond the first, polished answer and reflect on these questions:

1. What do people consistently experience or receive when I’m at my best?

2. What comes naturally to me that I may have underestimated because it seems ordinary?

3. Where am I currently suppressing part of my “-ness” to match someone else’s idea of leadership?

4. When does one of my natural gifts become too much of a good thing (an over-strength)?

5. What could become possible if I used my “-ness” more intentionally?

You might also ask three or four people who know you in different parts of your life:

“When I’m at my best, what is distinctively me?” Don’t ask only colleagues. A longtime friend, sibling, partner, former employee, or adult child may recognize something your professional world has never named. Listen for patterns, particularly in the impact people describe.

WHAT WOULD BE LOST WITHOUT YOUR “-NESS”?

Finding our “-ness” isn’t about manufacturing a personal brand or finding three marketable adjectives for our LinkedIn profile. It’s about understanding the particular contribution we are equipped to make.

And once you’ve done the deep work of identifying your -ness, know that it's likely to evolve as you do. There isn’t one permanent definition. We keep growing, and different parts of us will become more visible as our lives and leadership evolve. But there is often a recognizable thread running through all of it: the way we help, challenge, steady, connect, illuminate, seek clarity, create, or make things possible.

Ask yourself, “What is my ‘-ness’, and are the people I lead, my peers, and my leaders, getting enough of it?”

If you’d like support in deepening your self-awareness, understanding your distinctive leadership strengths, and expanding the impact you’re able to create, reach out for a free exploratory executive coaching conversation at www.leslierohonczy.com.

LEAVE IT WHERE IT LIES: The Leadership Habit That Creates More Friction Than Accountability

(LISTEN TO NARRATED AUDIOARTICLE VERSION)

Over almost twenty years, I've had the privilege of observing hundreds of one-on-one conversations between leaders and their employees. Some have been inspiring. Others have been uncomfortable. And some have definitely changed careers. Through all of those observations, one pattern keeps appearing, regardless of the leader's experience, industry, or personality wiring. By the time the conversation ends, only one person seems to be carrying the outcome, and surprisingly often, it's the leader.

A while ago, I was coaching a senior executive who told me he felt completely exhausted. His workload was heavy, to be sure, but not extraordinarily unmanageable; nothing had gone spectacularly wrong, and no crisis was unfolding around him. In fact, his team was capable, he described his own leader as very supportive. But he seemed to be carrying something a lot heavier than just his workload. When I asked what was weighing on him, he named one of his Directors, explained how frustrated he was with this person’s lack of accountability, and said, "I've tried everything!" As coaches, we've all learned to be curious whenever someone says they've tried everything, so we unpacked what "everything" meant.

He'd had several coaching conversations with this Director, had given him clear feedback, clarified expectations, asked thoughtful questions, and offered him support. He'd challenged when necessary and followed up on established commitments. By any reasonable standard, he was doing what good leaders do.

When he told me, "I just can't get him to take ownership", something shifted. It was such an off-handed comment that would’ve been easy to let pass. But it piqued my curiosity, so I asked him a question: "Can you actually make another adult take ownership?" He smiled almost immediately. "No." "So why are you carrying responsibility for whether he does?" He got reflective for a minute, processing this new a-ha.

It turned out he wasn't exhausted because his Director wasn't changing. He was exhausted because he'd given himself the responsibility for whether his Director changed. Those are two very different things.

I've come to believe this is one of the biggest hidden drivers of Leadership Friction. Leaders are unknowingly creating drag in their own leadership by carrying outcomes that don’t actually belong to them. And that in turn creates drag in the very systems they’re trying to streamline. Then they worry about whether feedback lands; they replay difficult conversations in the car on the way home, wondering whether someone was offended, whether the team bought into the decision, or if an employee will finally follow through this time. Every minute of attention invested there is attention unavailable for the work leaders actually own.

Most of the time, it happens for a very understandable reason: they care. In fact, I've noticed it's often the leaders who care the most who are most likely to fall into this leadership hole. They genuinely want people to succeed, and they want coaching conversations to make a difference. They want their employees to grow, and the team to thrive. Those are all signs of a leader who is deeply invested in other people.

Unfortunately, things start to go sideways when caring becomes carrying. Without realizing it, many leaders begin accepting assignments nobody ever gave them. They believe it's their responsibility to get their employee to embrace feedback, stay motivated, agree with a decision, change their behaviour, or repair a difficult relationship. Those may be the outcomes we hope for, but they're not outcomes that we can own.

There's an important distinction here that has fundamentally changed the way I think about leadership. As leaders, we are absolutely responsible for the quality of our leadership: for preparing well, communicating clearly, listening carefully, asking thoughtful questions, setting expectations, providing meaningful feedback, creating psychological safety, and removing unnecessary obstacles. We own all of that.

What we don't own is another person's decision. Once the conversation is over, another adult gets a vote. Actually, they get the only vote that matters: they decide whether they'll reflect on the feedback, and if they'll do anything with it to change their behaviour. They decide whether they'll honour the commitment they just made, and whether they'll grow. Every one of us retains the freedom to choose how we respond. As leaders, we can influence that choice, but we can't make it for someone else.

I sometimes use gardening as a metaphor for leadership. A gardener can prepare the soil, water consistently, remove weeds, and create excellent growing conditions. They can do almost everything possible to help a plant flourish. What they can't do is stand over the garden tugging on the stem because they're impatient for it to grow. Everyone understands that pulling harder doesn't accelerate growth. It damages the plant. Yet leaders often do exactly that. We explain again, send another article, schedule another follow-up, remind, rescue, and worry. Before long, we're investing more energy in another person's accountability than they are. That's not accountability. That's Leadership Friction. It's effort being invested where effort has very little ability to positively influence the result.

One of the most useful questions I ask my executive coaching clients is surprisingly simple: "What part of this actually belongs to you?" That question almost always changes the conversation because it redirects the leader's attention away from someone else's choices and back toward their own leadership. Sometimes the answer is that they haven't been clear enough. Sometimes they've avoided an uncomfortable conversation or softened feedback that needed to be direct. Occasionally, they realize they've genuinely done everything good leadership requires, and the next move belongs entirely to the other person.

That realization can feel strangely uncomfortable. Many leaders unconsciously equate carrying the outcome with caring about the person. But they're not the same thing. In fact, I've often found the opposite is true: when leaders stop rescuing people from responsibility, accountability becomes much easier to see. Employees begin carrying more of their own development because the leader has stopped carrying it for them.

That's often the moment leadership becomes more effective. The conversations become calmer, feedback becomes clearer, and the leader becomes more present because they're no longer trying to engineer the other person's reaction. They simply show up, lead well, and allow other adults to make their own adult decisions. Responsibility has finally been returned to its rightful owner.

And perhaps that's the real lesson. Leadership isn't about making other people change. It's about creating the best possible conditions for change, then respecting another person's freedom to decide what they'll do next.

That may feel like a lighter burden. In my experience, it's also a far more effective way to lead.

YOUR COACHING CHALLENGE

I'd like to invite you to experiment with a practice I often use with executive coaching clients. I call it Leave It Where It Lies.

For the next week, pay attention to the moments when you find yourself carrying the emotional weight of another person's choices, replaying a conversation, worrying about whether someone will change, or wondering if your feedback landed.

When you notice yourself doing it, don't try to solve the problem just yet. Pause instead. Then ask yourself: "What part of this situation genuinely belongs to me as the leader?" If the answer reveals something you've been avoiding, perhaps you need to have a clearer conversation, provide more direct feedback, set stronger expectations, or create better conditions for success. That's your work. Own it fully.

Then ask yourself a second question: "What part of this belongs to someone else?" If the answer is, their motivation... their behaviour... their commitment... their response... their decision..., simply say to yourself: "That's not mine." Then make a conscious decision to leave it where it lies.

If you worry that others may think you don’t care or have lowered your expectations, simply remind yourself that another adult deserves the dignity of carrying their own responsibility.

At the end of each day, reflect on where you successfully left responsibility where it belonged, and on where you found yourself picking it up again. What did you notice about your own energy, thinking, and the quality of your leadership when you carried only what was yours?

You may discover that leadership doesn't become lighter because you care less, but because you're finally carrying the things that are truly yours.

THE SIX ENGINES OF AMBITION: Do You Know Your Ambition Profile?

by Leslie Rohonczy, IMC, PCC, Executive Coach & Author

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If you're like most ambitious leaders, you probably know where you want to go. And also like many leaders, you may never have stopped to ask yourself what's pulling you there.

Promotion conversations usually revolve around readiness. Do you have the experience? Have you demonstrated executive presence? Can you think strategically? Are you ready to lead at the next level? These are important questions, and organizations should absolutely be asking them. They're just not the questions that intrigue me most.

When a client tells me they're hoping to become a Vice President, a C-suite executive, or even to make the move into their first leadership role, I'm curious about something else: "What is it about that role that's so appealing to you?"

At first, the answer is usually broad, and typically, "I want to make a difference." It's a perfectly reasonable answer. It just isn't the whole answer.

As we continue the conversation, something fascinating almost always emerges. Two leaders can be pursuing the same promotion for completely different reasons. One is captivated by the opportunity to shape the organization's future. Another lights up when talking about developing people. A third is excited by the challenge of operating at a completely different level. Someone else feels a responsibility to step forward because they know they can help. From the outside, they appear to be travelling the same road. Under the hood, though, they're powered by very different engines.

After seeing this pattern again and again over the years, I began sketching what eventually became the Six Engines of Ambition model. These engines represent the motivations that create the horsepower behind our ambition. We all have all six within us, but each contributes a different amount of power. That mix is unique to each person, and it often shifts as our careers evolve.

Before reading further, resist the temptation to decide which engine you are. That's a bit like asking which instrument matters most in an orchestra. Almost nobody is powered by a single engine. Instead, notice which descriptions resonate most strongly with you. You're not looking for one answer; you're discovering the mix of engines in your profile.

Calling is the engine of purpose. If this is one of your strongest engines, the organization's mission matters deeply to you. You're less attracted to leadership itself than to the opportunity to advance something you genuinely believe deserves your energy. Ask yourself what excites you most about the next promotion. If your answer begins with the organization's purpose rather than your own career, then your Calling Engine is probably doing a lot of the work. Its shadow appears when the mission becomes so intertwined with your identity that disagreement starts feeling personal.

Contribution is the engine of service. These leaders gain enormous satisfaction from making other people's lives better. They enjoy coaching, mentoring, removing obstacles, and creating environments where others can thrive. They're often the people who leave a meeting thinking less about how they performed and more about whether everyone else left feeling heard, supported, or inspired. Their shadow is over-functioning. Helping gradually becomes rescuing, and before long, they're carrying responsibilities that belong to someone else.

Vision is fueled by possibility. These leaders naturally look over the horizon. They become energized imagining what the organization could become three, five or ten years from now. They enjoy building, transforming, and creating. If you find yourself becoming impatient with conversations that never seem to move beyond today's operational issues, the Vision Engine may be one of your dominant drivers. Its shadow appears when tomorrow becomes so exciting that today starts feeling like an inconvenience.

Adventure is the engine of growth. Some people see uncertainty and instinctively think, that sounds interesting. New challenges, unfamiliar situations, and bigger problems energize them rather than intimidate them. Every promotion is another chance to discover what they're capable of. Their shadow appears when climbing becomes more rewarding than contributing, leaving them constantly searching for the next mountain before fully appreciating the one they're already standing on.

Obligation is fueled by responsibility. I've coached many leaders who never set out to become senior executives. They simply looked around, saw a need, and concluded that someone had to step forward. They care deeply about doing the right thing and are often the people organizations depend on during difficult times. If you've ever caught yourself thinking, If I don't do this, who will?, there's a good chance the Obligation Engine is one of your strongest drivers. Its shadow is becoming indispensable. Delegation becomes difficult because being the dependable one has become part of your identity.

Ego is the engine most people are reluctant to acknowledge. There is often a degree of shame attached to admitting it's one of our drivers because we associate ego with being egotistical or self-aggrandizing. I don't believe that's true. Recognition matters. Achievement matters. Titles matter. Human beings have always cared about status, and healthy ambition has fueled extraordinary careers. There's nothing inherently wrong with wanting to accomplish something significant or being proud when others recognize your contribution. The shadow appears only when the title becomes more important than the work, or when your sense of self becomes defined by the title on your business card.

One of the things I find most fascinating is that these engines rarely stay in the same proportions throughout a career. I coached a newly promoted manager early in my coaching career. About fifteen years later he called me again because he was trying to decide whether to pursue an executive role. On paper, it looked like the obvious next step. He had the experience, the credibility, and the support of his organization. Yet something just didn't feel quite right.

As we explored what was creating the hesitation, he said, "I don't actually want the title. I want the chance to shape where we're going." That moment changed the conversation. Until then, he believed he was pursuing a promotion. What he eventually discovered was that, unlike fifteen years earlier, he was now being driven by the Vision Engine. Once he understood that, he also realized there were several ways to influence the organization's future, only one of which involved the executive role he'd been focused on.

I've watched similar discoveries unfold many times. Leaders realize they've been driven primarily by the Contribution Engine without ever recognizing it. Others discover that their Obligation Engine has been making career decisions for years. Some come to appreciate their Ego Engine for giving them the confidence to pursue opportunities they might otherwise have avoided, while realizing it no longer needed to be their dominant engine. The engines themselves aren't the problem. The problem is allowing them to operate without ever noticing which one is doing most of the driving.

The goal isn't simply to identify your ambition engine; it's to understand your Ambition Profile. Once you do, career decisions become clearer, and you begin recognizing why certain opportunities immediately excite you while others, despite offering more money or prestige, leave you feeling meh. That's when you stop measuring your ambition against someone else's and begin making choices that are genuinely aligned with your own motivations.

Your next promotion may change your title. But understanding your Ambition Profile may change your career.

YOUR COACHING CHALLENGE

BUILD YOUR AMBITION PROFILE: Spend some time with the Six Ambition Engines definitions above, and estimate your current profile by assigning a percentage to each one. You may have a sense of your strongest, and your weakest engines – fill those in first. Don't answer based on who you aspire to become. Base your answers on the choices you've consistently made in your career. Your total should equal 100%.

• Calling: _____%

• Contribution: _____%

• Vision: _____%

• Adventure: _____%

• Obligation: _____%

• Ego: _____%

Now ask yourself three questions:

1. Which ambition engine has generated most of the horsepower that got me where I am today?

2. Which engine may be revving higher than it should be?

3. Over the next five years, which engine do I want fueling this next chapter?

Your answers may reinforce the career path you're already on, or they may point you in an entirely different direction. Either way, you'll gain insights into yourself that many ambitious leaders never stop to examine.

HOW OLD IS THE PERSON STEERING YOUR CAREER? Your Destination Was Chosen by Someone Who No Longer Exists

Leslie Rohonczy, IMC, PCC, Executive Coach & Author

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The first few years of my adult life were the striving years. Striving to make ends meet, striving to get noticed in my career, among a sea of other young professionals who always seemed to be better at standing out from the crowd than I was; striving for a promotion to the next level, without ever really asking myself why a title was my end game; striving to feel my own worth, when I didn’t feel at all worthy.

And when I finally got that hard-fought promotion, and found myself in that shitty little clapboard office in the middle of the advertising department at our local newspaper, I had a sphincter-shifting moment of clarity: “Was THIS what I had been working so long and hard for? This office with no window and no purpose? How could all of my striving, motivation, blood, sweat, and tears really have been about THIS?!”

That experience, and that question, changed my career. The promotion was exactly what I'd wanted, which was precisely the problem. I'd spent years chasing a destination chosen by a version of me who no longer existed.

At the time, I couldn't have explained what was happening. I just knew something felt profoundly off. Looking back now, I realize it was the first time I'd noticed that somewhere between the striving and the arriving, it was me that had changed, not the destination.

That experience isn't unique to me. I've heard versions of this experience in many of my executive coaching conversations. The offices are usually much nicer than mine was, and the titles on the business card are more impressive, but eventually the same uncomfortable question appears: Now what? Or sometimes: Is this really all there is?

Life reshapes us while we are busy building our careers. The destination we chose at twenty-eight no longer fits the person we've become at forty-eight, but we may not see it if we don't pause long enough to notice the mismatch.

A few weeks ago, I found myself watching a YouTube video of a single sculler crossing a perfectly calm lake. There was something mesmerizing about how the boat cut through the glassy water. Every stroke looked powerful yet effortless, as it glided across the water with absolute purpose.

I find rowing kind of a strange way to travel. The boat moves confidently forward while the rower faces the opposite direction. Rowers can clearly see where they've been. They can study the wake they've left behind, and can appreciate every kilometer they've already travelled. The one thing they can't actually see is where they're going.

Hey, that also describes many leadership careers! Early in our careers we choose a direction that makes complete sense at the time. We pursue promotions, bigger teams with more span of control, financial security, influence, recognition, and the opportunity to prove ourselves. We want to make our parents proud, build something meaningful, provide for our families, or finally settle that relentless inner voice insisting we're still not enough.

There is nothing wrong with any of those motivations. In fact, they often provide exactly the fuel we need during those demanding early years. But life has a habit of changing us while we're busy rowing.

Successes often turn out to be less satisfying than we imagined. We experience illness, burnout, unexpected opportunities, disappointments, and moments of clarity we never saw coming. And over time, our definition of success begins to evolve. Status starts giving way to significance. Recognition becomes less important than contribution. Freedom matters more than prestige.

The person holding the oars today isn't the same person who first climbed into the boat and set the direction. Yet many of us continue rowing toward the same destination simply because that's where we pointed the boat years ago.

One of my favourite coaching questions catches people completely off guard: How old is the person currently steering your career?

Sometimes it's the twenty-five-year-old you who's desperate to prove she belongs. Or the young father determined to build financial security for his new family. Sometimes it's the ambitious new executive convinced that one more promotion will finally deliver the satisfaction they've been chasing.

That younger version of ourselves deserves enormous respect. They worked hard, took risks, made sacrifices, and created opportunities that today's version of us benefits from every single day. But they couldn't possibly have known who we would become. They didn't know which experiences would shape us, what losses we would endure, what relationships would change us, or how dramatically our understanding of a meaningful life would evolve.

So why are they still deciding where we're headed?

I think this is where many can get stuck. It might feel like lost ambition after decades of investment and building up our expertise, relationships, credibility, and identity. Changing direction can begin to feel like admitting those investments were mistakes. They weren't. They just brought us to the place where we're finally experienced enough to ask a better question.

Instead of asking, “Can I get there?” the question becomes, “Do I still want 'there'?”

That may be one of the hardest career questions we'll ever ask ourselves because the answer often asks us to loosen our grip on a destination we've carried for years; one that feels like our encoded mission, because we've been chasing it so long.

One of the greatest gifts coaching has ever given me is permission to pause before pushing forward. We're conditioned to believe that success comes from rowing harder. Sometimes it does. But sometimes, the wisest thing a rower can do is lift the oars from the water, let the boat glide, and take some time to turn around and really study their trajectory.

Only then can you answer the question, "does this destination still belong to the person I am today?" I encourage leaders to ask themselves uncomfortable questions as part of the process. Questions like, "If you were choosing your career today, would you choose the same destination?" "Which ambitions genuinely belong to you, and which belong to a younger version of yourself?" "What are you continuing simply because you've already invested so much?" "What gives you energy today that barely mattered ten years ago?" "If nobody else's expectations mattered, where would you point the boat?"

Sometimes the answers are deeply reassuring. You discover you're exactly where you're meant to be, and you begin rowing again with conviction because your destination has been consciously chosen by the person you are today, and not inherited from someone you used to be.

Other times the answers lead somewhere entirely different: a new awareness, a different role, a revised definition of success, a shift in priorities, or a career that finally reflects the person you've become instead of the person you once were.

Neither outcome means your younger self got it wrong. That version of you did exactly what they were supposed to do: they got you this far. But at some point, every leader deserves to ask a simple question: Who is this person holding the oars now?

The younger version of you chose a destination with the wisdom they had at the time. You don't owe them blind obedience. You owe them gratitude.

Now it's your turn to decide where the boat goes next.

YOUR COACHING CHALLENGE

This week, spend ten uninterrupted minutes with a blank sheet of paper. Across the top, write this question: How old is the person currently steering my career?

Don't answer it too quickly. Think about the ambitions you're pursuing right now, the goals you're sacrificing for, the opportunities you're saying yes to, and the ones you're turning down.

Then ask yourself: If I were starting my career today, with everything I've learned about myself over the past twenty years, would I still choose this destination?

If the answer is yes, you've just reaffirmed that you're rowing with purpose. If the answer is no, don't panic. You don't have to change direction tomorrow. You simply need to acknowledge that the person holding the oars today deserves a voice in deciding where your boat goes next.

LEADERSHIP FRICTION: How Canadian Leaders Can Take the Parking Brake Off Productivity

by Leslie Rohonczy, IMC, PCC, Executive Coach & Author

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What if the biggest drag on organizational performance isn't effort or access, but the way leaders unintentionally slow things down? Canada has spent years trying to solve its productivity problem. I can't help but wonder whether we're diagnosing the wrong patient.

Governments debate productivity, economists analyze it, CEOs talk about it on earnings calls, and we hear about technology, innovation, regulation, investment, artificial intelligence, and labour shortages in the media and online. Those conversations matter because according to OECD's 2025 Economic Survey, Canada's productivity has been lagging its peers for many years.

But after spending almost two decades coaching leaders inside organizations, I've become convinced there's another part of the conversation that deserves more attention: Leadership. More specifically, how small leadership behaviours that seem completely harmless on their own can slow an organization to a crawl.

Imagine driving your car with the parking brake engaged on one click. You'd probably still get where you're going, but the engine would need to work a little harder, and you'd burn a bit more fuel. You might not even notice it at first.

Now imagine clicking that parking brake up another notch; then another; and another. Eventually, you'd be pressing the accelerator harder and harder, while wondering why the car feels sluggish.

That's what I see inside many organizations. One extra approval; one more meeting that "everyone should attend"; one leader stepping in to do because it's faster than explaining; one decision climbing another level because it feels safer to have the boss review it first." None of those things feels like a crisis, but collectively, it's like driving with the parking brake on.

Leaders who create the most friction are often the hardest-working people in the organization. They're dedicated, they care deeply, they're incredibly capable... and they're also exhausted. I've lost count of the number of leaders who've told me, "I'm involved in everything," with a touch of pride. When they offer this up as evidence of their commitment, I see it as a warning light on their leadership dashboard.

One senior executive I coached was frustrated that every important decision landed on her desk. She genuinely believed her leaders lacked confidence. I spent several weeks observing her leadership team meetings and one-on-one meetings. Whenever a difficult question surfaced, all eyes turned toward her. Experience had taught them that if they waited a few more seconds, the answers would arrive. From her perspective, she was simply being helpful. But before anyone else had a chance to wrestle with the issue (and learn from the experience), she'd offered a suggestion, answered the question, or made the decision herself.

As a leader, when you're capable, experienced, and genuinely committed to helping your people succeed, stepping in feels responsible, and the truth is that sometimes it is. But the challenge comes when that strong desire to help turns into over-functioning.

One of the practices I use to coach leaders is called 'Leave It Where It Lies'. It's super simple, and a great practice to experiment with. If someone else owns the work, the decision, or the problem, leave the ownership with them. Coach them, support them, challenge their thinking, and ask powerful questions designed to create greater awareness. Just don't slip the backpack onto your own shoulders because you think you can carry it more easily.

Unnecessary approvals send a message. Jumping in to rescue teaches a lesson, and decisions you reclaim make the next one more likely to find its way back to your desk. None of that shows up on your productivity dashboard, but it definitely slows the entire organization down, one click of the parking brake at a time.

What if, instead of focusing on becoming more personally productive, we focused on removing friction for everyone around us instead? Ask: "Where have I become a bottleneck? What am I holding that someone else is ready to carry? What would happen if I resisted the urge to help for just sixty more seconds?"

YOUR COACHING CHALLENGE

Over the next week, become a student of your own leadership friction. Don't try to change anything at first. Just notice the moments when you feel the urge to step in, approve something, answer a question, solve a problem, rescue someone who's struggling, or join a meeting because you're worried they might need you.

When you notice the impulse, pause and ask yourself:

• Does this really belong to me? If not, who does it belong to?

• What might happen if I leave ownership with the owner?

• How might I build capability, instead of dependency?

Then make a conscious choice. You may still decide to step in, and sometimes that's exactly what good leadership requires. The goal isn't to become less helpful. It's to become more intentional about when your help creates momentum, and when it just adds another click to the parking brake.

Canada's productivity challenge is real, and solving it will require action from everyone: governments, educators, investors, innovators, and business leaders alike. And inside our own organizations, every one of us can start making a contribution tomorrow morning.

Remember that the parking brake doesn't come off all at once; it comes off one click at a time. What if that's how organizations can become more productive, too?

 If you’d like to explore leadership productivity in your organization, reach out for a free exploratory executive coaching conversation at www.leslierohonczy.com.

SAVING YOUR DEVELOPMENT BUDGET FOR STRUGGLING EMPLOYEES? Invest in Your Strongest Performers for Real ROI

by Leslie Rohonczy, IMC, PCC, Executive Coach & Author

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Think about the strongest performer on your team. When was the last time you deliberately invested in their growth and development?

If it's been a hot minute, that's understandable. Our attention naturally gravitates toward the people who need us most: the employee who's struggling, the new hire who's still finding their feet, or the people navigating conflict, missing deadlines, and falling short of expectations. Those are the situations that feel urgent, and they deserve our attention.

Our highest performers are usually bright, dependable, consistent, and able to solve problems before they ever reach our desks. They deliver what we need when we need it, and they rarely ask for help. And that's exactly where the opportunity begins.

I've become convinced that one of leadership's greatest missed opportunities is failing to keep developing our strongest people. Every leader understands the cost of poor performance: missed deadlines, quality issues, customer complaints, conflict, and a hundred other visible problems that demand our attention every day.

The cost of under-investing in a high performer is much harder to see because it doesn't show up as an urgent crisis. If it does appear on your radar, it'll probably look like unrealized potential: future executives who plateau before anyone notices; high-performing individual contributors who continue troubleshooting instead of learning how to multiply their impact through others; teams that miss the opportunity to learn from people who could have become exceptional mentors, peer coaches, and role models; and organizations that continue benefiting from what these people already know how to do while investing very little in what they might become capable of next.

Most organizations invest significant time and money in courses, conferences, mentoring programs, leadership programs, executive coaching, stretch assignments, and succession planning. The intention is clearly there. But the challenge is knowing where to invest next.

When someone is struggling, the path usually feels obvious. You can see the gap, identify the missing skill, and work together to close it. High performers are different. They're already succeeding, producing excellent work, and they've earned trust. So, it's no surprise that many leaders find themselves wondering, "What exactly would I coach them on?"

I've heard versions of that question many times. "She's forgotten more about finance than I'll ever know." "He's the smartest engineer in the company." "What could I possibly teach someone who's already better than I am?" Those are common, honest questions that reveal one of the biggest misconceptions about leadership development.

There's often another concern sitting just beneath those questions. You may worry that developmental feedback could demotivate someone, especially a high performer who's already succeeding.

In my experience observing hundreds of one-on-one conversations between leaders and their employees over fifteen years, thoughtful developmental feedback is usually received as a meaningful investment in someone's growth. For many high performers, the message isn't, "I'm not good enough." It's, "My leader sees even more potential in me, and is willing to invest in helping me reach it."

Early in our careers, development is largely about building capability. We learn technical skills, improve our communication, strengthen our presentations, become better at delegation, and learn how to navigate conflict. Progress is easy to recognize because we're continually adding new tools to our toolkit.

As we become more experienced, development changes. The work becomes far more reflective. Instead of asking, "What do I need to learn?", the conversation shifts toward questions like:

• What strengths have contributed to my success?

• How do those strengths affect the people around me?

• Where might those strengths be overused?

• What assumptions have become so familiar that I no longer notice them?

• How will the next level of leadership ask something different of me?

Those are leadership conversations. Some of the greatest leadership growth I've seen has come from helping someone see a familiar strength through a completely different lens.

One CEO I worked with realized his decisiveness had gradually begun shutting down healthy debate on the executive team. He wasn't trying to dominate discussions. He was simply moving quickly because that's what had always made him successful. Once he saw the pattern, he began inviting opposing viewpoints before making important decisions. His team became far more engaged, and the quality of their decisions improved.

Another leader discovered she was solving too many problems herself. She genuinely believed she was helping her team. Instead, she was unintentionally preventing them from developing their own judgment. As she experimented with stepping back, her team stepped into greater accountability and performance.

A dependable director prided herself on being indispensable, until she came to realize that she had become the biggest barrier to developing her people. Her greatest contribution was no longer doing more. It was creating opportunities for others to grow. (And bonus, she had more capacity for the strategic work she wanted to do.)

None of these leaders needed fixing. Their strengths simply needed to evolve.

Leadership potential isn't a fixed quantity. Some people are already performing at a remarkably high level, and they still have enormous capacity to grow. They may become your future executives, trusted advisors, exceptional mentors, or the people who elevate the performance of everyone around them, simply because of how they show up.

Current performance tells only part of the story. The more interesting question is how much untapped potential still sits beyond what you're seeing today.

We may know our strongest people still have room to grow, but we aren't sure what to talk about in a one-on-one beyond project updates and performance. If that feels familiar, here are six coaching conversations worth having.

1. Shift the conversation from performance to perspective. Instead of asking, "How's the project going?", ask, "What are you noticing about yourself as a leader that surprised you recently?" or "Where do you think your strengths have the biggest impact on other people?" High performers rarely need help doing the work. They often benefit from understanding the impact they have while doing it.

2. Challenge how they think, not simply what they do. Invite them into conversations where there isn't an obvious answer. Ask them to weigh competing priorities, explore trade-offs, or think several years ahead. Stretching judgment often creates more growth than assigning another project.

3. Help them shift from individual excellence to multiplying others. Ask questions like, "Who else could do this?" or "How could this project become a development opportunity for someone on your team?" Future leaders create results through other people, not just through their own expertise.

4. Coach the impact they have on others. Ask, "What behaviours do you think your colleagues have started copying from you?" or "If everyone on the team approached work exactly the way you do, what would improve, and what challenges might emerge?" Those questions often reveal blind spots that performance reviews never touch.

5. Create room for experimentation. High performers often feel enormous pressure to keep getting everything right. Talk openly about where it's safe to test ideas, challenge assumptions, and learn through experience. Continued growth requires space to experiment, not just expectations to deliver.

6. 6.      Give honest, forward-looking feedback. High performers hear "great job" all the time. What they hear much less often is, "Here's what the next level of leadership will ask of you." Helping someone understand what tomorrow requires can reignite their development in ways praise never will.

If you begin having conversations like these, something important happens: your strongest people continue evolving, your future leaders begin emerging earlier, and your culture becomes stronger because excellence begins multiplying instead of simply performing. And that's an extraordinary return on investment.

Thinking about the recent FIFA World Cup, it strikes me that we don’t ever question why the best players in the world still have coaches. We understand that excellence doesn't maintain itself. It requires continual challenge, fresh perspective, honest feedback, and deliberate development. We see the same pattern in Olympic sport, elite music, aviation, medicine, and business. Brené Brown has spoken openly about the coaches and mentors who've helped her continue growing throughout her career.

Organizations have the same opportunity. Every year, they invest enormous effort closing performance gaps. Far fewer invest the same energy expanding excellence. One protects today's results, and the other builds tomorrow's leaders.

Your next exceptional executive may already be sitting right there on your team. Maybe the next culture influencer is already solving problems just three desks away. Or an extraordinary potential mentor may be excited about an opportunity to help others stretch and grow, too.

The question is no longer whether those people have more potential; it’s: how will you deliberately help them discover it?

YOUR COACHING CHALLENGE

Before your next one-on-one with your strongest performer, resist the temptation to spend the hour reviewing projects and priorities. Spend the conversation exploring who they're becoming instead.

Ask them:

• what they're learning about themselves as a leader

• which of their strengths they'll eventually need to redefine

• where they suspect their biggest blind spot might be

• what future leadership responsibilities will require them to do differently than what made them successful today

Then notice what happens. You may discover you've spent years managing someone's performance, when their greatest opportunity was developing their leadership.

If you're curious about unlocking the next level of leadership potential in your strongest people, I'd love to explore the opportunities with you. Reach out for a free Executive Coaching conversation with me at www.leslierohonczy.com.

LET'S STOP CALLING IT CHANGE RESISTANCE: Mistaking Confusion for Resistance is Solving the Wrong Problem

by Leslie Rohonczy, IMC, PCC, Executive Coach & Author

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"People just don't like change." I've heard that sentence hundreds of times over the years, usually from a frustrated leader trying to explain why an important initiative isn't gaining traction.

I don't buy it. People change all the time. We change jobs, get married, become parents, move across the country, learn new technologies, adapt to reorganizations, new bosses, new colleagues, and entirely new careers. If humans were naturally resistant to change, civilization would have ground to a halt somewhere around the invention of indoor plumbing.

So perhaps we've been diagnosing the wrong problem all along. In my experience, people aren't nearly as resistant to change as leaders imagine. But they ARE resistant to confusion, and that's a big difference.

Imagine you're standing in an airport waiting to board a flight. The departure board suddenly flashes "Gate Changed." No problem. You gather your things and head to the new gate. Now imagine the board starts changing every few minutes. Gate 18. Gate 26. Back to Gate 18. Flight delayed. Actually... on time. Please wait for further announcements. No explanation. No updates. No one seems to know what's happening.

You haven't become resistant to flying; you've become exhausted by trying to make sense of conflicting information. And that's what organizational change often feels like.

One executive I coached was convinced her leadership team was pushing back on a major transformation. "They just won't get on board," she told me. As we unpacked what was happening, a different picture emerged. Different executives were communicating different priorities. Success hadn't been clearly defined. As a result, some teams had already started changing their processes, while others had been told to wait. Timelines shifted weekly. Nobody knew which decisions had actually been made and which were still under discussion. Her team wasn't resisting the future, as she'd thought; they were just trying to survive the present. That distinction completely changes the leadership response.

If we assume people hate change, we tend to push harder. We communicate more frequently; another town hall with another corporate slide deck. We repeat the vision one more time, hoping it'll resonate, and that enthusiasm will eventually take over.

Sometimes the problem isn't a lack of communication. It's a lack of clarity.

Cognitive psychology and neuroscience researchers have long recognized that uncertainty increases cognitive load. When we can't confidently predict what's happening around us, our brains naturally direct more energy to monitoring for risk and filling in the gaps. That leaves us with less mental capacity for creativity, problem-solving, collaboration and learning.

When information is missing, we rarely leave the blanks empty. Our brains naturally want to connect all the bits and pieces of data we do have, by filling in the story with imagined information. It's a normal human response. And we rarely get it right. "I guess my role isn't important anymore." "They've probably already made the decision." "I'd better wait before I commit." "They're changing direction again."

As an executive coach, I spend a surprising amount of time helping leaders separate facts from the stories they've unconsciously constructed. Organizations do exactly the same thing. Confusion is a story factory. The irony is that leaders often perceive these behaviours as evidence that people are resistant or hesitant. People are asking lots of questions, waiting, and not taking initiative. From the leader's perspective, it looks like reluctance. But from the employee's perspective, it feels more like self-protection.

If we're striving to eliminate uncertainty, we're on a fool's errand. It just isn't possible. Markets shift, customers evolve, governments turn over, technology advances, and tactical plans evolve.

What if instead, we focused on eliminating unnecessary confusion. How? By making decisions visible, clearly explaining what is known, what remains uncertain, and when more information will be available, while carefully distinguishing between firm decisions and emerging possibilities. And by transparently acknowledging the ambiguity, rather than masking it with false certainty. And by recognizing that clarity is not achieved through a single announcement, but cultivated through an ongoing, intentional leadership practice.

In coaching conversations, when I hear a leader say, "My team is resisting change," I almost always become curious about something else. I wonder what the team might be confused about. And when I ask that question, it usually leads us somewhere much more useful. Because once confusion is reduced, something remarkable often happens: the resistance starts dissipating on its own.

Perhaps people were never resisting the change. Perhaps they were just trying to find stability as the ground moved under them, before taking the next step. And that is a very human thing to do.

YOUR COACHING CHALLENGE

Choose a current change your team is navigating and set aside 20 minutes to work through this exercise.

1. Write down the change in one clear sentence.

2. List the key areas where confusion might exist. For example: priorities, roles, timelines, decision-making, success measures.

3. For each area, ask yourself: What have I explicitly communicated? What might still be unclear or inconsistent? Where could people be filling in the gaps with their own assumptions?

4. Identify one or two specific actions you can take this week to reduce that confusion, such as clarifying a decision, aligning messaging with your leadership team peers, or naming what is still unknown.

5. Check in with your team and ask them directly: “What feels unclear right now?” Listen without correcting or defending.

6. Reflect on what shifted when you focused on increasing clarity.

If you're curious about creating greater clarity, alignment, and confidence in your leadership team, I'd love to explore it with you. Reach out for a free exploratory Executive Coaching conversation at www.leslierohonczy.com

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

(LISTEN TO NARRATED AUDIOARTICLE VERSION)

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.