Leadership Doesn’t Begin with the Goal – It Begins with You

We live in language like fish in water: born into it, moving through it – and that’s why we barely notice it.

I experienced this firsthand. For years I commuted between Germany and Singapore – until I finally moved. Physically I was there; emotionally I stayed in Germany. My inner dialogue was dominated by judgments: right/wrong, good/bad. Everything that didn’t match my expectations met resistance, which I located “out there.” That made it nearly impossible for me to be happy in Singapore.

It was only through my wife’s support and effective coaching that something began to shift. Not because the circumstances “out there” changed, but because I started seeing myself as part of the problem – and therefore as part of the solution. The resistance wasn’t in Singapore. It was in me: in my narratives, my judgments, my language. I wasn’t free to respond in a way the situation called for.

That’s where effective leadership begins: not as a technique, but as an invitation to encounter yourself – in the middle of the game, not from the stands.

The Inner Game

In 1974, Timothy Gallwey captured something in The Inner Game of Tennis that reaches far beyond sport: performance rarely fails for lack of ability. It fails for lack of inner freedom – automatic judgments and the urge to control yourself instead of being present. 

You know this. The presentation where you’re more concerned with how you’re coming across than with what you’re saying. The conversation where you’re already forming your response before the other person has finished speaking. The relationship where “being right” has replaced “being connected.” You’re running on autopilot and calling it “that’s just who I am.”

Under pressure, when inner tension rises, we contract. Old self-images, familiar moods, well-worn reactions take the wheel. Not because we lack knowledge, but because in that moment we’re not free to respond effectively.

Know Thyself

Above the temple at Delphi was an inscription: Gnothi seauton – know thyself. Not a piece of friendly advice, but a radical demand. Socrates made it the core of his method: don’t instruct; ask. Don’t provide answers; uncover assumptions. 

Effectiveness begins where you’re willing to see yourself as part of what’s happening – not merely as an observer of circumstances. In The Matrix, it’s about the choice between the blue pill and the red pill. The red pill isn’t a solution – it’s the willingness to recognize your own involvement. Only then can action be more than reaction.

The Underrated Key Competency

Bill George and Peter Sims identify self-awareness as one of the most important leadership capabilities.¹ The Korn Ferry Institute points to data linking self-awareness to company performance.²

Yet many development programs still focus primarily on knowledge transfer – as though change happens because people “know more.” But the bottleneck is rarely knowledge. It’s context: the invisible background from which we think, feel, and act. The smartest people in the room are often the ones most certain that their problem lies “out there.” And that very certainty is the blind spot.

When Real Change Begins

Chris Argyris and Donald Schön distinguish two kinds of learning. In single-loop learning you correct actions: fix errors, adjust processes. In double-loop learning you question your context – the assumptions that generate your actions in the first place. Why do I think this way? What rule is driving me here? What am I holding as true without examining it?

In practice this is uncomfortable, because defenses surface immediately. Argyris describes how people frequently respond to such questions in counterproductive ways.³ We see the patterns with crystal clarity in others – and miss them in ourselves.

I did this for a long time myself. During a phase when setbacks were piling up, I was convinced the circumstances were the problem. A turning point came when my coach asked me: “What are your results showing you about your context?”

Marcus Marsden puts it this way:

“In fact, context can only be identified through results. Context generates results, and content in turn reveals context.”⁴

The question didn’t change my circumstances. It shifted my perception – and with it, my room to act. As long as you’re convinced the problem lies “out there,” you’re defending – mostly unconsciously – the very context that keeps producing similar results.

Inner Freedom as Foundation

Martin Heidegger described in Being and Time what is at stake here. We are “thrown” into a world already filled with interpretations, habits, and taken-for-granted assumptions. These assumptions act like an invisible stage: they determine what we consider possible. Heidegger called this unconscious absorption in everyday life das Man – we do what “one” does, think what “one” thinks, and take it for our own choice.

He contrasted this with the concept of Eigentlichkeit – authenticity in the deepest sense: the possibility of stepping out of this unconscious drift and consciously taking hold of one’s own existence. Not as a one-time act, but as an ongoing movement – again and again, anew in every situation.

This is what I mean by inner freedom. Not freedom from something, but freedom for something: for what the situation needs right now. Heidegger also emphasized that every interpretation is accompanied by a mood – and moods are “dispositions for action.” Under pressure our moods narrow, and with them our room to act. Development here means: gaining access to what would be possible for you if you were truly present.

Humberto Maturana supported this from a biological perspective: we don’t respond to “the world” directly, but always through our internal structure. The same situation produces entirely different reactions in different people – not because of the situation, but because of their inner wiring. And that wiring is changeable.

Lisa Feldman Barrett confirms this from a neuroscientific angle: emotions are not hardwired reactions but actively constructed by the brain. Imagine your proposal gets rejected in a meeting. Your heart beats faster. If you interpret that through the frame “I’m not being taken seriously,” shame arises. If you interpret it through the frame “The team needs more context,” curiosity arises. The same bodily sensation – but entirely different realities. The difference lies in the language through which you frame the situation.

Heidegger later wrote:

“Language is the house of being. In its home human beings dwell.”⁵

Language doesn’t simply describe what is. It shapes what becomes possible. Fernando Flores took up this insight in his doctoral work at UC Berkeley, connecting it with Maturana’s structural determinism and John Searle’s speech act theory – a central contribution to an understanding of leadership that starts not with behavior, but with being. 

Leadership as Natural Self-Expression

When you understand leadership this way, it is neither a position nor a toolkit. It is a relationship. A relationship with yourself, with others, with the situation. And the quality of that relationship depends on how free you can be within it.

People rarely fail in leadership situations because they lack knowledge. They fail because in the moment they are not free to respond. Under pressure, patterns, moods, and old self-images take over. You become constricted, reactive, defensive – and lead from a context you haven’t consciously chosen.

Inner freedom means: having access at any moment to what the situation needs. From that, effectiveness arises; leadership becomes natural self-expression.

This kind of leadership doesn’t first ask “What should I do?” but “Who am I in this situation – and am I free enough to truly be here?” It doesn’t need rigid plans, but presence. Not control, but clarity. Not a role, but being genuine.

What It Comes Down To

I began this article with the image of a fish in water. The image goes further than it first appears. We are born into language. Language is all around us. Development begins when we can step back and look at the language – and the stories – we live in, so we can work more consciously with this creative force that shapes our existence.

As Bill George and his co-authors describe it:

“It is your story that matters – not the mere facts of your life. Our life stories are like continuous tapes playing inside our heads.”⁶

We are not human beings. We are human becomings – in a never-ending dance of learning, growing, and becoming. We have largely authored the stories and beliefs we live in. And because we have forgotten that we are the authors, we have also forgotten that we can change them, transcend them, or let them go.

Notice. Take responsibility. Choose consciously.

Time for You

Where in your life are you currently running on autopilot – and calling it “that’s just who I am”? And what would be possible if in that moment you were truly free to respond?

¹ Cf. Bill W. George and Peter E. Sims: True North – Discover Your Authentic Leadership, Jossey-Bass Inc., 2007, p. 69.

² Korn Ferry Institute, 2015, Newsroom

³ Cf. Chris Argyris: Reasoning, Learning, and Action. Individual and Organizational, San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 1982.

⁴ Marcus Marsden, Start with Who: Reveal the Hidden Power of Identity to Create a Purposeful Life, Candid Creation Publishing LLP, 2022, p. 59.

⁵ Martin Heidegger, Letter on Humanism (1949), in: Pathmarks, Cambridge University Press, 1998, p. 239.

⁶ Bill W. George and Peter E. Sims: True North – Discover Your Authentic Leadership, Jossey-Bass Inc., 2007, p. 15.