E142: When Doing More Stops Working

Speaker A: You don't need to be the smartest person in the room. Leaders don't need to do less across the board. They just need to act more selectively from clarity rather than that gung ho, let's go, it's me, I'm going to save the day type of mentality. You're not here for the same old, same old. You're not here for just tips. You're here because something in you knows it's time to change. Not just how you lead, but how you live. I'm Janet Aioli, and this is the Inner Inner Edge, a podcast about leadership, self mastery, resilience and reinvention for a new world era. Real life, whole self. Let's go there. Welcome to the Inner Edge. Welcome back to the Inner Edge. There's a point many successful leaders reach that they rarely expect and almost never talk about openly. For years, as people progress up their careers, doing more things worked, stepping in and taking responsibility and working harder and showing people how smart and bright you are, these behaviors weren't just effective, they were rewarded. That's how you got promoted in the first place. They helped build your credibility and they helped build momentum in your career, and they helped you build trust with the leaders above you. And then at some point, leaders find themselves doing all the same things that they did at some point in their career when they get to a certain phase, sometimes even better than before, and have more authority. And yet leadership feels different. It doesn't feel as effective, not because they've lost capability, but because the role, the role they're in, the level of the role has scaled and has changed. Today I want to talk about that moment when doing more stops being the answer or doing better or being the best. And more importantly, how leaders can work with it instead of fighting it. What to do early in a career, leadership effectiveness is very visible. You produce results. It's tangible. You can see, I did this, I did this project. You solve problems, you move things forward. You're in charge of the execution of something, and the value you add is tangible and immediate. As you get higher and higher in the organization, though, leadership becomes less about your own execution of you doing things and more about your judgment because others are doing the things others are executing. So it's less about activity and more about how you look at a situation, about your perspective, the wisdom that you offer to the situation, and how you bring people together. It really is less about what you do personally and more about what you choose to focus on, elevate, let go of, and how you choose to bring people together. I see this over and over again. This is where many leaders feel friction and they can't name it. They feel like they're still capable, they're still committed, they're still responsible, but it's not working the same way. People are complaining that they're, that they're micromanaging, and they keep trying to do things and it, uh, just doesn't move forward. And then their personnel issues, et cetera, because people aren't motivated because you're trying to do their jobs. The instinct when this happens, I tell you, I see this daily. I've seen this for years. Working with leaders, moving to the next levels. The instinct is to double down, look for a better strategy, to push harder, to try and take a more disciplined approach and just move forward or maybe even just get rid of everybody because they're not inspired and they're not motivated. But that doesn't always work. It actually usually doesn't work. The real shift that needs to happen isn't external, it's internal. In your own mindset. Uh, I'll give you an example. I often see this show up in meetings. A leader notices something doesn't quite sit right. Maybe they're having a conversation and a decision is being rushed, or a conversation is drifting in a direction that they, uh, that's not the direction we should go in. Early in their career, they would have stepped in, immediately redirect it. Hey, I got it. I've got the sword. Let's clarify and let's move now. The effective leaders I see at the highest levels pause not because they don't know what to say, because they're trying to understand and sense the broader context, the dynamics in the room, the impact of them speaking will have on the rest of the group. And they're also trying to say, you know, is this the right time for me to say this here in public in front of everyone? And so the pause feels uncomfortable at first. When you're used to gung ho, being in charge, say what you think, move it on. And some leaders, when they pause like that, interpret that as if I do that, then I'm hesitating or I'm, I've lost my edge. I'm not really leading. I'm just kind of facilitating in reality. Those pauses and those instincts of doing those things are really the beginning of leadership maturity. A, uh, move from reactive action to intentional response. And there's a big difference. So what actually helps when doing more and just putting yourself in there no longer works. The shift begins when Leaders stop asking, what should I do next? And start asking a different kind of question. And the question is, what is this situation asking of me right now? And then my famous question that I always say is, what is needed here? These questions change everything. They change where the attention goes. And instead of defaulting to effort, you start to think about context. What is needed here? What does this situation need from me? You start thinking about the people involved, the timing, the unintended consequences of you speaking up. And you also start paying attention to your own internal reactions. So what is needed here may not be exactly what you've always thought you should be doing or you should be saying M. Another helpful distinction here is noticing when action is driven by habit versus intention. Habitual action is urgent and automatic. It's what you've been conditioned to do to get the good response from the people above you that say, wow, yes, you're brilliant. It's really about you at that point. Intentional action is grounded even when it's decisive. So it's not. You don't make decisions anymore, but you don't need to be the smartest person in the room. Leaders don't need to do less across the board. They just need to act more selectively from clarity rather than that gung ho, let's go, it's me, I'm going to save the day type of mentality. This, and these shifts are how leadership presence begins to deepen. Leadership presence doesn't come from abandoning what made you successful. It comes from outgrowing, uh, the parts that no longer fit in this role that you're in. That really is an identity shift. Developing your inner edge means noticing when control has become your habit rather than intentional and choosing moment by moment how you want to respond and then how you want to lead others instead. When control becomes your choice, leadership becomes more grounded and often, and I see this all the time, much more effective. And always remember this, every truth you speak, every boundary you hold, um, every moment, you decide and act on what really matters at the core. That's your inner edge. See you next time.