For a long time, I could see the results of my work more clearly than I could explain how those results came about.
I knew what clients brought into our conversations: a decision they could not make, a team that was struggling, a future they wanted to create, or a pattern they could sense but could not yet name. I also knew that something often shifted as we worked together.
Leaders began to see choices where they had seen constraints, and teams entered conversations they had been avoiding. Problems that had seemed fixed became more workable. I could see the shift. What took longer was understanding what I believed was making it possible.
Creating the new Igniting Success website gave me a reason to step back and ask questions I had been returning to for years:
- What have more than three decades of working with leaders and teams taught me?
- What do I believe helps people create better results?
- What has this work taught me about being human, about how people experience themselves and one another?
- And what is my role in that process?
I do not think there is a formula for this work. Leadership and organizational life are too human for that. Over time, though, I have come to recognize several beliefs at the heart of how I work.
Results are shaped by what we can—and cannot—see
When a leader brings me a challenge, I take the problem seriously. But I do not assume that the first description tells us where the work needs to begin. We may start with an executive who is not performing and discover that no one has been clear about what the role requires or what authority comes with it. We may start with a team that does not trust one another and find commitments that were never made explicit or conversations everyone knows need to happen but no one has been willing to enter.
Over time, I have learned to listen for what sits underneath the problem as it is first presented. Not because that problem is unimportant, but because it may be where a deeper pattern has become visible. Until we can see that pattern, we are likely to keep addressing its effects and wondering why the same difficulty returns. Once we see it, we have another place to stand and another choice becomes possible.
Leaders do not need to have all the answers
I spent many years in the corporate world, and I remember the pressure “to always know.” People look to a leader for direction, often when the information is incomplete, and the path is anything but clear. It can feel as though uncertainty is something a leader should keep to themselves.
But I have also seen what happens when a leader believes they must provide every answer. The team begins to wait for it. People become less likely to offer what they see, particularly when it differs from what the leader has already said. A decision may get made more quickly, but the thinking around it becomes narrower.
Some of the strongest leaders I have worked with are willing to let other people see them thinking. They can say, “I do not know yet.” They can ask a question without already knowing the answer they want to hear. In those moments, leadership is not diminished. More becomes possible because the responsibility for thinking is no longer held by one person.
People frequently know more than they trust themselves to know
Again and again, I have watched a client become quiet and then say something they had known, in some form, before our conversation began. The insight did not come from me. It was already there. Sometimes, it surfaced in an observation they had dismissed or a question they had been reluctant to ask. Other times, it was a truth they had not yet been ready to say aloud.
When that happens, my role is not to replace their knowing with my own. I listen for what may be trying to emerge. I notice what has been said and what has not, and I ask the question that allows someone to look again. Sometimes, my role is simply to keep us in the conversation when an easy answer would let us leave it too soon.
I have come to believe that conversation can reveal something reflection alone cannot. We hear ourselves say what we have been thinking. Another person notices the thread we overlooked. A team begins to understand that its members have been holding different parts of the same picture.
This is one reason I resist the idea that people always need someone to tell them what to do. Often, they need the conditions that allow them to recognize and trust what they already know.
The conditions surrounding a challenge matter
We often begin with a goal: What result do we want? What problem must we solve? What needs to happen next? Those questions matter. But I have become just as interested in the conditions in which people are being asked to pursue it.
- Do people understand what they are responsible for and where decisions belong?
- Can they rely on one another to do what they said they would do?
- Can people tell the truth about what they see?
- Is there room to stop and think, or has urgency become the organization’s normal way of operating?
- Are people simply carrying out a future someone else designed, or do they have a hand in creating it?
- What are people learning about themselves—and one another—in the way they work together?
These are not questions I ask after the strategy has been set. They are part of understanding whether people can carry it out together. The answers show up in the culture and in the quality of coordination across the organization. A clear goal tells people where they are going. It does not, by itself, create the conditions that allow them to get there.
Performance and satisfaction do not have to compete
I have become increasingly uneasy with the way we separate performance from satisfaction. We speak as though strong results require pressure and sacrifice, while meaningful work, trust, and well-being are things we can attend to after the real work is finished. That distinction has never matched what I have seen.
Some of the strongest results I have witnessed came when people understood how their work contributed and trusted the commitments around them. They could address what was getting in their way instead of working around it. They had room to use more of what they knew and were capable of doing.
This does not mean that satisfying work is always easy. Meaningful work can be demanding. Change can be uncomfortable. Leadership requires difficult decisions and a willingness to remain in conversations we might prefer to leave. But difficulty and depletion are not the same thing.
I have seen people work hard without losing themselves, and teams hold high standards without creating fear. For me, satisfaction is not a softer alternative to performance. It is often part of what makes strong performance possible over time.
Better results begin with seeing differently
The leaders and teams I am privileged to work with want tangible results. They want to grow their organizations, make better decisions, navigate change, build trust, and create a future that does not yet exist. I do not lose sight of that. The work has to matter to what they are trying to accomplish.
What I have learned is that lasting change rarely begins with an answer alone. It begins with the questions we ask ourselves that allow us to see the pattern beneath the problem and the assumptions shaping our choices. It also asks us to see our own part in the results we want to change and to become more curious about what other people see that we do not.
Seeing differently also changes our relationship to the future. The future is not simply something we wait for or something handed to us by someone else. We shape it through the conversations we enter, the commitments we make, and the conditions we create together.
This is what I know about the work I do: I do not arrive with someone else’s answer. I listen. I notice. I ask questions. I help leaders and teams see what they could not see before and stay with what they discover long enough for a new possibility to take shape.
The work has changed over the years, and so has my understanding of it. But the intention has remained: to help people imagine what is possible, recognize their capacity to create it, and ignite the clarity, energy, and commitment to begin.
These ideas also became the foundation for my new website, which I’m excited to share today. It feels like a reflection of where Igniting Success is today and where we’re headed next. I’d love to know what resonates with you. Take a look, then come back and tell me in the comments: What caught your attention?
Subscribe to Before the Results on Substack for thoughtful reflections on leadership, growth, and the inner work that shapes what comes next. When you subscribe, you’ll also receive a complimentary Field Guide to Discover the Matrix—a downloadable companion designed to help you pause, reflect, and explore the ideas in the book more deeply.
Comments +