The Leader You Are Isn't Always the Leader They Need
I think there's a meaningful difference between changing your leadership philosophy and changing the way you apply it.
Leading People · Empathy & Accountability · Feedback · Humanity of Management
Keep your leadership philosophy, change how you apply it
YouTubeThis article is inspired by real workplace and leadership experiences. I do not use real names, company names or identifying details. Roles, teams, organisational structures, projects and business context may be removed, generalised or combined to protect the people and organisations involved while preserving the underlying leadership reflection. Where conversations are referenced, wording may be edited for clarity and anonymity.
I've come to a conclusion about my leadership that feels both reassuring and slightly uncomfortable.
I'm confident in the kind of leader I want to be.
I'm also increasingly aware that the kind of leader I want to be isn't necessarily the kind of leader everyone needs from me at a particular moment.
Those two things can be true at the same time.
My natural instinct is to create momentum. I enjoy working in ambiguity, figuring things out as we go and helping people believe that something difficult is achievable. Give me a complicated problem, a team that's willing to experiment and a direction worth pursuing, and I'm generally quite comfortable getting started before every question has been answered.
That doesn't mean I don't believe in planning. It means I believe planning should have a purpose and, importantly, a limit.
Let's discuss the risks. Let's understand the dependencies. Let's challenge the assumptions. But let's also agree on how long we're going to spend doing that before we make a decision and start moving.
I don't particularly enjoy spending weeks discussing every hypothetical scenario when we could learn more by actually doing something.
For some teams, that approach is energising.
For others, it can be exhausting.
And I think that's where leaders can get themselves into trouble.
We often talk about authenticity as though it means showing up exactly the same way in every situation. Be yourself. Lead naturally. Don't change who you are to please other people.
There's value in that advice. But taken too literally, it becomes an excuse not to adapt.
Imagine joining a team that has experienced months of uncertainty, changing priorities or inconsistent leadership. You arrive enthusiastic about the future, ready to challenge assumptions and encourage everyone to take ownership.
You think you're creating empowerment.
They might be thinking, could someone please just tell us what we're supposed to do?
That doesn't make your philosophy wrong. It means your approach might not be meeting the needs of the people in front of you.
And the difficult part is that they might not tell you.
I've been in meetings where I've shared a direction, explained why I'm excited about it and walked away feeling that we'd made real progress.
People nodded. Nobody objected. There was even some positive feedback.
Then, later, something felt off.
The energy wasn't there. The follow-through didn't match the apparent agreement. The team seemed hesitant in ways that weren't obvious during the conversation.
It's tempting to interpret that as resistance. Perhaps people aren't committed. Perhaps they don't understand the vision. Perhaps they need another motivational conversation.
But what if the problem is me?
What if I've mistaken politeness for agreement? What if people need more time to process? What if my enthusiasm has made it harder for someone to say they're uncomfortable?
What if I've provided direction without providing reassurance?
That's a harder question to ask because it requires acknowledging that good intentions don't guarantee a good experience for the people we're leading.
Sometimes the right response is to slow down. Sometimes it's to have individual conversations. Sometimes it's to stop asking for immediate agreement and give people permission to come back with questions.
And sometimes, quite simply, it's to be more directive.
Not forever. Not because you've abandoned your belief in autonomy. But because a team that needs stability might benefit more from clarity than from another invitation to explore possibilities.
I think there's a meaningful difference between changing your leadership philosophy and changing the way you apply it.
I can still believe in developing people while recognising that someone needs immediate direction today. I can still value curiosity while accepting that a particular decision needs to be made. I can still encourage experimentation while providing stronger boundaries around what is and isn't negotiable.
The underlying beliefs remain. The expression changes.
And that requires observation.
Not just formal feedback surveys or performance conversations, although those matter. It means paying attention to what happens after a meeting. Noticing who speaks and who doesn't. Recognising when someone is agreeing because they genuinely believe in the direction and when they're agreeing because challenging it feels uncomfortable.
It also means accepting that you'll miss the signals sometimes.
You might push when you should have listened. You might give autonomy when someone needed support. You might spend too long building consensus when the team was waiting for you to make a decision.
The objective isn't to become a leader who gets every interaction right. I don't think that person exists.
It's to become a leader who notices when something isn't landing and is willing to adjust before turning a misunderstanding into a bigger problem.
There's something else I've had to accept.
People will form opinions about your leadership based on the version of you they experience.
If someone meets you during a period when you're being particularly directive, they might conclude that you're controlling. If they meet you when you're encouraging experimentation, they might think you lack structure. If they see your enthusiasm before they understand your reasoning, they might mistake optimism for a lack of seriousness.
You can't control every interpretation.
But you can take responsibility for understanding the conditions that produce them.
Over time, I hope people experience enough of my leadership to recognise the consistency beneath those different approaches.
That the person who pushes for execution is the same person who believes in empathy. That the person who makes a difficult decision is the same person who wants others to develop the confidence to make their own.
And that adapting to what a team needs doesn't mean abandoning who I am.
It means becoming more deliberate about how I lead.
I don't want to be a different leader for every team. I want to become better at recognising which parts of my leadership each team needs, and when.
