For a long time, I thought leadership meant doing more.

It wasn’t my conscious goal.

What I thought was driving me, was something like:

“Lead a team to deliver excellent work, and enjoy doing it”

But underneath that sat a belief,

that to do that well, I had to do more.

Beliefs drive behaviour

This belief showed up as:

• Over-Servicing

• Over-Rescuing

• Overthinking

• Over-Preparing

• Over-Explaining

This pattern served me well as a researcher: work hard, be reliable.

But as leader, it started to affect my wellbeing and limit my growth.

The more uncertain I felt, the more I felt I had to do.

But leadership is all about being able to operate in uncertainty:

• deploying good judgement when you don’t have the full picture

• making decisions when things are ambiguous

• bringing clarity to a complex situation

It took taking 3 weeks off due to stress and consistent coaching to help me see my leadership goals could be accomplished by other means.

I’m on a mission

This experience has shaped not only my decision to coach new leaders, but also how I operate. I set up You Burn Bright to help researchers go from safe pair of hands to credible leader, one step at a time.

It’s not about changing everything about yourself. It’s about taking what already matters to you, and flexing that to suit your leadership context.

It’s not about waiting for confidence or permission. It’s about identifying one small thing you CAN do, doing it and noticing the impact of that.

3 questions to start breaking the effort trap

1/ In what one situation are you adding effort because it feels safer than doing less?

2/ What is one small thing you could try doing differently here, just as an experiment?

3/ If you did 10% less, what would you do with the excess?

It took me a long time to see that my pattern of working was holding me (and my team) back. Its arguments felt so convincing and the consequences of not operating in that way felt catastrophic. It took coaching to build the courage to start small, experiment with new approaches, notice the difference and build the new habits.

If you’re interested in taking your leadership to the next level and building the patterns that will help you get there, one step at a time, then I’d love to chat.

I am now recruiting for the September Burn Bright, Not Out Leadership Programme, priced at £950pp. Only 6 places available.

You Burn Bright,

Zoe

[email protected]