You are not the problem. But you may be the one carrying it.

These reflections are based on my work with leaders over time. They usually begin in the same place.

A leader describes a situation that has become difficult to handle — not in abstract terms, but through concrete examples: a decision that would not settle into place, a conflict that kept resurfacing, a process that lost direction somewhere along the way. The description is often precise, even detailed, and accompanied by a growing sense that something essential is not being handled as it should. What sits underneath is often a kind of frustration turned inward. A feeling of not quite being able to grasp what is happening. Of having done what one could reasonably expect, and still finding that the situation does not resolve, but returns in new forms. At that point, the question typically turns toward oneself.

In my work, I do not begin by answering that question directly. I begin by following what has been described. Not as an isolated situation, but as a sequence: what happened, in what order, who was involved, what shifted, where something lost its clarity, and what ultimately led to the outcome now being questioned. When these trajectories are examined carefully, they begin to show where there is real room to act and where there is not; where a decision actually sits and where it is only formally placed; and where responsibility is carried without the corresponding ability to influence what follows. This is rarely visible to the leader at the outset. What is visible is the situation itself: the tension it creates, the sense that something should have been done differently. The underlying pattern is not.

The work, therefore, consists in making that pattern visible. This does not happen through explanation alone. It happens in the movement of the conversation — in the way situations are revisited, in questions that shift attention slightly, and in the gradual accumulation of observations that begin to click into place. Over time, it becomes possible to see that what appeared as separate problems are, in fact, connected through a more consistent dynamic. Decisions that lose momentum in similar ways. Responsibility that accumulates without being anchored. Intentions that feel clear at the start, but dissolve as they move through the organisation. At that point, the situation begins to reorganise itself conceptually.

The work, therefore, consists in making that pattern visible.

It also becomes possible to distinguish more clearly between the leader's own behaviour and the conditions within which that behaviour has developed. This distinction is not always straightforward. Leaders adapt to the structures they are part of. They learn where they can press and where they cannot; where clarity is required and where ambiguity is tolerated; where responsibility can be taken and where it cannot be left unattended. Over time, these adaptations become part of the way they lead. Without a clear reading of organisational behaviour from a systems perspective rather than an individual one, it becomes difficult to see where these adaptations are necessary — and where they begin to reproduce the very dynamic they are trying to manage.

My role is to identify and translate what becomes visible into a language the leader can actually use in their own context. Not as a set of instructions, but as a way of interpreting what is happening. What holds and can grow is a shift in how cause and effect are understood in practice: how a situation is read as it unfolds, and how that reading informs what is done next. When that shift happens, behaviour changes without being prescribed.

When that shift happens, behaviour changes without being prescribed.

Metacognition is part of this, but not as an abstract concept. It is the ability to notice how you are making sense of a situation while you are in it — and to adjust accordingly. It becomes a practical capacity to observe one's own participation in what is happening; to register more precisely where influence exists and where it does not; and to act with a clearer sense of consequence. At the same time, the organisation itself becomes more legible. What previously appeared as isolated difficulties begins to make sense as expressions of a system functioning in a particular way — through its processes, its decision paths, its distribution of responsibility, and the incentives that quietly shape attention and action over time.

From there, the work changes character. Less energy is spent trying to fix individual situations as they arise. More attention turns to how these situations are created — and what would need to change for different outcomes to become possible. This does not simplify the reality the leader is in. But it changes the level at which that reality can be engaged.

What I consistently see is that the initial question — what is wrong with me — gradually loses its central importance. In its place comes a more precise reading of what is happening — and of how the leader is positioned within it. That shift does not remove complexity. But it makes it possible to work with it.