The Leadership Mindset: It's Not Just for When Things Go Wrong

I’ve been sitting with something lately.

In one of our leadership programs, I received some feedback that a small proportion of the cohort didn’t find parts of the content relevant. Now, I know I can’t control what’s happening for someone when they show up to a workshop. I can’t dictate what lands, what resonates, or what they take away. I can only control the space I create and what I choose to do with the feedback I receive.

And feedback, as I remind others, is a gift. So now it’s my turn to lean into that mindset myself.

What’s actually bothering me isn’t the comment itself it’s what’s underneath it. When someone says, “This isn’t relevant to me because I only have one direct report,” or “I don’t really need to set expectations unless something’s going wrong,” it points to something deeper.

It points to a leadership mindset that sees leadership as reactive, something we do only when things go wrong.

But here’s the truth: leadership isn’t conditional on problems. It’s not something we save for underperformance, team dysfunction, or moments of crisis. Leadership is an everyday act. It’s how we show up, how we model behaviours, how we create momentum, how we enable others to do their best work even if it’s just one person, or a peer we lead through influence, or a project team that doesn’t report to us directly.

It doesn't matter if you lead 50 people, 5, or 1. Leadership is not about hierarchy. It’s about ownership. It’s about creating clarity, building trust, and helping others move forward.

So yes setting expectations matters, even if everything is going well. Feedback matters, even if there’s no obvious issue. And being intentional about how we lead that matters always.

This is the mindset shift I’ve been reflecting on. It’s something I want to deepen in our programs. Because ultimately, if we want to build strong leaders, we need to help shift the story from “leadership as a fix” to “leadership as a practice.”