We’ve just wrapped up a leadership development programme for a group of technical experts stepping into management.
It struck me again how rarely this is done well.
Most organisations promote brilliant people into leadership roles and hope they figure it out. This client did something different. They treated it as a transition, not just a title. They created space for people to build self-awareness, understand others, and reflect on how they show up.
The engagement across the group was strong. Honest. Curious. At times uncomfortable.
One line stayed on the screen during one of the sessions:
We are what we repeatedly do.
Simple. But it landed.
The productive habits we repeat shape us. The unhelpful ones too.
Recently, I was in a coaching conversation with a Partner who had just come through an intense few months.
Busy would be an understatement.
She described feeling stretched, reactive, not quite herself in key moments. When she tried to reflect on it, she struggled to be objective. Her head was full of “I should have…” and “I need to be…”
No space. Just noise.
And this is where busyness becomes something else. Not just full days. A full head.
When that happens, we don’t just lose time. We lose perspective.
If we take that quote seriously, it cuts both ways.
When we’re stretched and reactive, we repeat patterns that reinforce that state. Thoughts, behaviour, evidence. Round and round. You see it clearly in cognitive behavioural work.
Breaking the cycle isn’t about trying harder. It’s about interrupting it.
But you can’t interrupt anything when you’re running on empty. When you’re tired and under pressure you don’t step back and redesign your habits. You just keep going. Which is exactly what keeps the cycle going.
Her conclusion, not mine, was simple: start with space. Not “when things quieten down” because they won’t. But intentionally protecting time to step back, reflect, and choose.
A few things came out of that conversation worth sharing.
- Resource yourself properly. Rest isn’t a reward, it’s a requirement.
- Create small experiments. Something as simple as not reaching for your phone first thing and stepping straight into other people’s agendas. That one habit alone can decide whether you spend your day reacting or leading.
- And when you see a bit of traction, commit. Not perfectly. Consistently.
So a simple question for you this week:
What are you repeatedly doing at the moment? And is it taking you where you actually want to go?