The most conscientious leaders are often the quickest to ask: what am I doing wrong?
It is one of the things we admire most in the leaders we work with.
It is also the thing that sometimes gets in the way.
Self-awareness is a powerful leadership tool. But when it becomes the only tool, something important gets missed.
Every confidence wobble becomes an internal belief to work through. Every difficult relationship becomes a question of personal communication style. Every team that isn't performing becomes a question of the leader's own capability.
And the harder you work on yourself, the more invisible the other explanations become.
Sometimes the pressure isn't coming from inside you.
Sometimes it is operational : a structure creating confusion, a team under-resourced for what is being asked of it.
Sometimes it is commercial : a model that worked at one scale and doesn't work at another.
Sometimes it is strategic : a question the business hasn't answered, being felt by the people trying to lead within it.
Each of these requires a different response. None of them will be solved by working harder on yourself.
There is also a version of people development that inadvertently teaches people to tolerate things they should not tolerate. To adapt more gracefully to a situation that is not acceptable. To become more resilient in the face of something that should instead be challenged or changed.
Seeing that clearly, knowing what is yours and what isn't , is one of the marks of genuinely senior leadership.
It takes courage to look within. It takes a different kind of courage to look elsewhere.
We've explored this in full in Quiet Courage including what accurate diagnosis actually looks like in practice, and why getting it right changes everything.