Most executives don’t realize there’s a difference.
Awareness without action is incomplete. It shows you what’s true, but not what’s possible.
Many leaders stop at insight. They see the pattern. They recognize their part. They understand the dynamic intellectually—but understanding isn’t the same as shifting it.
Because insight alone doesn’t change systems. Behavior does.
From Insight to Experiment
Once you’ve clarified your complaint and acknowledged your role, the next step isn’t to “get it right.” It’s an experiment.
This means testing your assumptions about what’s actually keeping the dynamic in place. It means generating new data—not by analyzing harder, but by acting differently.
That might look like:
- Initiating a conversation you’ve been avoiding
- Making an implicit expectation explicit
- Naming the dynamic out loud: “I sense we’re both frustrated with how things are going. I don’t have all the answers, and I want us to figure this out together. Here’s what I’m noticing…”
- Asking “What ideas do you have?” instead of “Here’s what I would do”
- Trying a new approach—not because it’s perfect, but because it’s different
This is action as learning, not proving. Action as curiosity, not control.
Change Is Discovered, Not Delivered
Real change rarely arrives fully formed. It’s discovered through iteration—through noticing what happens when you show up differently.
As one executive told me: “Once I stopped trying to fix them and started testing my own assumptions, I realized I’d been part of the very dynamic I was trying to change.”
That realization is what makes this kind of leadership rare. It replaces performing leadership with practicing leadership—one small experiment at a time.
Every Action Becomes Data
Every new action becomes a data point. Every conversation becomes a feedback loop.
Over time, those small experiments build trust, clarity, and alignment. When you lead this way, you’re not reacting to problems. You’re evolving the system.
Suppose you’re starting to see your patterns clearly but aren’t sure how to translate that insight into action. In that case, this is the work I help executives do: turning awareness into experiments that actually shift results.
A question to sit with: When you think about your current leadership challenge, what small experiment could you run this week to generate new data?
