Behaviour change is often framed as a matter of discipline.
You’re told, set the goal, create accountability, push through resistance and magic will happen. Yet for most of us, this approach doesn’t work.
The reality is that sustainable behaviour change doesn’t begin with effort. It begins with awareness, which needs to be cultivated intentionally and continuously. Only then you will start to see a transformation in your leadership presence, your decision making and the impact you have.
Why smart, successful women still feel stuck
Even if you are insightful, motivated and know what good leadership looks like, you might have behavioural patterns that you can’t seem to break.
For instance, do you
- Over-deliver instead of delegate
- Avoid challenging conversations despite your high competence
- Say yes, then resent the cost
- Lead from urgency instead of intention
These aren’t skill gaps; they are unexamined behavioural patterns. Without awareness, behaviour runs on autopilot, and it’s shaped by habit, identity, and long-standing expectations rather than conscious choice.
Awareness: the leadership skill that facilitates change
Awareness is often misunderstood as passive observation or self-reflection without action when actually it should be an active leadership capacity.
It is the ability to notice:
- What you’re doing
- Why you’re doing it
- What it costs you
- What alternatives are available
Awareness creates choice and when it increases, behaviour no longer needs to be forced. It begins to shift naturally.
The moment awareness interrupt autopilot
Think about this common leadership scenario. An executive woman is taking on one more project it will be faster or better if she does it herself.
She’s done this before – lots of times – and probably early on in her career it served her well. She repeats the behaviour model, because it’s easy and it works – until it doesn’t.
With awareness, something subtle but powerful happens:
- She notices the pattern in real time
- She recognizes the cost to her energy, mood, focus and her team’s development
- She sees how it is preventing her from progressing
That moment of recognition is not yet change, but noticing the behaviour, understanding why it happens and what needs to change, makes change possible.
From awareness to aligned action
Awareness on its own isn’t particularly helpful but once you can see your patterns and what’s driving them, you can start to define how you want to act.
This is when you start to feel the shift:
- Your decisions feel cleaner
- Your boundaries feel less defensive
- Your presence becomes steadier
- Your leadership feels less effortful
Not because you are doing more, but because you are doing what works naturally for you.
Awareness is a practice, not an event
Insight alone won’t transform your leadership, but consistent awareness will. These are a few things you can do to maintain the discipline:
- Reflect regularly after meetings
- Notice and listen to your emotional signals, don’t override them
- Track your behavioural patterns, not just isolated incidents
- Pause before you respond to give yourself time to make conscious choices and decisions
Over time as your awareness compounds, it will lead to behaviour change that is sustainable, credible, and deeply personal.