Latest / Lead With Clarity: Practical Insight for Senior Leaders / Every Vote Counts: Building the Leader You Intend to Be
Transcript
- Blake Holman: Welcome to Lead with Clarity. This is a space for leaders who want to grow without losing themselves in the process. Each episode is a short reflection on leadership, influence, and the inner work that shapes how we show up for others. It's not hype, it's not noise, just clear thinking for the journey of leading well. Today's episode is entitled Every Vote Counts Building the Leader You Intend to Be. Here we go. There's a question I often ask at some point and never gets an easy answer. The question is simple. Who are you becoming? Not who are you, not what's your title or what's your track record, but who are you in the process of becoming right now through the choices you're making? Most leaders haven't thought about it that way. They've thought about goals, outcomes, strategy, but identity as a living, evolving thing shaped by daily behavior? That one catches people off guard. Today's episode is about that. It's about the gap between the leader you intend to be and the leader you're actually building. One decision at a time. James Clear, author of the book Atomic Habits, wrote this. He said, Every action you take is a vote for the type of person you wish to become. James was writing about personal habits, about behavior change. But when I read that line, I don't think about the gym or a morning routine. I think about the boardroom. I think about the conversation you had on a Monday morning when you were tired and under pressure, and had to choose between candor and comfort. I think about that moment as a vote. So here's what I've observed. Leaders who are intentional about their identity make different decisions in the moments that don't seem to matter. The small meeting, the offhand comment, the email they could have left with more care but didn't. Those moments feel insignificant in isolation, but they're not. They're votes. And the votes accumulate. I worked with a senior executive once who was genuinely admired by most of his peers and genuinely feared by most of his direct reports. He couldn't understand the gap. From his perspective, he was decisive, clear, and results oriented. From theirs, he was dismissive and unpredictable. The data was consistent. His behavior in low stakes moments, the interruptions, the cutting remarks in casual settings were building a version of him he didn't intend. He had been voting without realizing it. The misread I see most often with this idea is that leaders hear it as a call for perfection. They think it means every decision has to be the right one. Or the whole ledger is corrupted. It's not what it means. James Clear isn't asking you to be perfect. He's asking you to be conscious. There's a big difference. The damage to a leader's character doesn't usually come from one bad call. It comes from a pattern of unconscious ones. It comes from months of voting without checking the ballot. So here's a reframe for you. Identity is not a destination you reach. It is not a thing you achieve and then maintain effortlessly. It is an ongoing construction project. And the raw material is ordinary moments. The late afternoon meeting you phone in, the feedback you softened when directness would have served better. The commitment you kept quietly when no one was checking. All but it's building something. So the real question isn't am I a good leader? The real question is what kind of leader am I building today? And more importantly, is that intentional? Before you close out your day today, take two minutes. Think back over the decisions you made. Not the big strategic ones. The small ones, the interpersonal ones, the ones that happened in the margin of your day. Ask yourself which decisions voted for the leader you're trying to build and which ones voted against it. You don't need to judge yourself harshly. You just need to see clearly. Clarity is where it starts. It's in the name of this podcast for a reason. Every action is a vote. That's what Clear said. And I think most of us know that intuitively. We feel it when we've made a call we're not proud of. We feel it when we've done something difficult. And right when the easier path was available. What I want you to take from today is that this isn't a philosophical exercise. It's a leadership discipline. Knowing who you're building, auditing whether your decisions are aligned with that, and course correcting without drama or self-punishment. That's the real work. Character isn't claimed, it's constructed. You're doing it right now, whether you're paying attention or not. The difference great leaders make is choosing to pay attention.