Leadership Presence: Why Getting Better Doesn't Fix What Changed

You're ready for more than where you're at. It might have arrived with a promotion, a birthday with a nought on the end, or the ordinary week you realised you'd outgrown the role you're in. What you do with that readiness is a leadership presence question, and almost everyone answers it the same way.

You do what's worked for your whole career. You get better. Another qualification, a bigger remit, the hours, the weekend you give back. Every one of those is real work and most of it pays off in some way, which is exactly why this runs for years without anyone calling it a problem.

I did it myself. I took on an MBA while working full time with two small children, and I fell pregnant with my third in the middle of the degree. I finished it, and I'd do it again for what it taught me. What it could not do was touch the thing that had moved, because that was never a knowledge question.

You'd spot this in an afternoon if it belonged to anyone else. When a number in your business unit moves the wrong way, your first response is not to pour more resource into the part that's already performing. You ask what changed. You find the difference and you start there.

Almost no one runs that question on themselves. Adding is easier to start on a Monday, and it comes with a reading list. Asking what's changed about you asks something harder, and there's no course for it.

The full article goes into the morning it became visible to me, the word I didn't have at the time, and the three questions I'd hand my younger self instead of a reading list. They take about five minutes.

Read the full article on Substack: https://sonyachoilarosa.substack.com/p/the-problem-you-solved-by-getting-better