The Leadership Development You Didn’t Schedule
Growth you didn't schedule still counts — but it shouldn't be left to chance
Not all leadership development shows up as a program with a name.
Some of the biggest growth this year probably happened in the moments you didn't schedule — the hard conversation you didn't avoid, the decision you made without a script, the mistake you actually learned from instead of just surviving. That takes something. Choosing to go there, in real time, without a facilitator or a framework to lean on, is its own kind of hard work — and it's worth naming as real development, not just something that happened to you.
That's real. And it depended on the you of the moment.
Whether you had the time. Whether you were willing to go there. Whether you even saw the value in the moment it was happening. Some days you had it in you. Some days you didn't, and the work either happened or it didn't, almost by chance.
But what’s at risk if our development is dependent on our moment-to-moment decisions alone?
We lose the opportunity to connect to a bigger picture:
How we want to be known as leaders
The impact we want to have for others, beyond the bottom line
What we’re counted on and called on for
This kind of clarity and leadership development is worth scheduling.
So: How do you most want to be known? Not this quarter. Not for this one project. As a leader, over time.
Then work backward.
Based on how you want to be known (and what you actually want to accomplish) what's essential to get right for yourself, for your own development, next year? Not everything. Just the two or three things that actually move you closer.
You don't have to figure that out alone.
That's exactly the kind of question a thinking partner is useful for — someone to help you separate what's essential from what's just loud, and build a plan for next year that doesn't rely on catching yourself in the right mood at the right moment.
If that's the kind of intentionality you want heading into next year, I'd love to help you think it through. Let's find time to connect.
To building it on purpose, not by chance,
Claire
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P.S.S. Want a way to get started thinking about this topic? Check out Harvard Business Review's Define Your Personal Leadership Brand in Five Steps. HBR makes the case that your leadership brand isn't just what you're good at — it's the value others can count on you for, consistently, on purpose. And we’re all building one whether we've thought about it or not.
