Leadership from the Inside Out
- Chad Ransom
- 3 days ago
- 4 min read
“You have to know yourself before you can lead yourself, and you have to lead yourself before you can lead others.” — Jim Kouzes
Leadership development doesn’t begin with strategy or systems. It begins with self-awareness.
When I coach leaders, I always look at their practices - how they use time, how they make decisions, how they lead change. But I also look at something less visible:
Do they reflect on themselves?
Why?
Because effective leadership isn’t just about doing the right things. It’s about understanding why we lead the way we do.
Self-awareness allows leaders to not only identify areas of growth but to see their tendencies: the habits and assumptions that influence their decisions. Some of those tendencies serve us well. Others need to be adjusted or strategically planned around.
As I shared in the last post, the path to leadership capacity isn’t just about skill-building. It’s about developing the cognitive and personal resources that support high-impact leadership. And self-awareness is where that work starts.
Personal Experience
When I was a new principal, I believed deeply in the people I worked with. I cared about their growth, and I knew my leadership played a role in helping them thrive.
But I didn’t realize I had a blind spot.
I’ve never needed much praise in my own work. I’d rather someone help me improve than tell me I’m doing a good job. Because of that, I assumed others felt the same way.
I was a positive leader. I encouraged people, created a supportive culture, and believed in the team. But when it came to leaving positive feedback, I wasn’t consistent. Not because I didn’t appreciate them, but because my natural tendency was to focus on improvement.
I had to create a system of reminders for myself: to send a quick email, write a note, or simply stop by with a kind word. It felt small, but it made a huge difference.
That was a pivotal moment for me: realizing that my leadership wasn’t just about what I believed or intended. Rather, it was shaped by how well I understood myself.
Knowing myself helped me lead others more effectively.
The Hidden Side of Leadership
In the previous post, we explored the foundational capacities that drive leadership practice:
Cognitive skills like problem-solving and systems thinking
Beliefs like self-efficacy
And the leader’s perception of their environment
But underneath all of those is a core question: How well do I understand myself?
Leadership behaviors don’t happen in a vacuum. They are filtered through our personality, experiences, assumptions, and emotional responses. If we don’t understand those filters, we may be unintentionally reinforcing habits that limit our impact.
As Green (2010) notes in his framework for standards-based leadership, effective leadership depends on more than strategy—it requires a deep understanding of one's beliefs, values, and internal frameworks. That means we can’t separate who we are from how we lead.
The Emotional Side of Self-Awareness
Self-awareness isn’t just cognitive. It’s deeply emotional.
High-performing school leaders demonstrate emotional intelligence in how they respond to pressure, engage with staff, and build trust. It shows up in:
Emotional self-regulation during conflict
Empathy when navigating staff struggles
Adaptability when the unexpected hits
Relationship management every single day
In fact, 90% of top performers across industries score high in emotional intelligence, and EQ consistently outperforms IQ as a predictor of leadership success.
That’s why reflection and coaching that focus on emotional patterns (like defensiveness, anxiety, or frustration) can create powerful shifts in leadership behavior.
When leaders become aware of how their emotional tendencies influence their actions, they can begin to lead with more intention and less reaction.
Knowing Yourself as a Leader (or Coach)
Whether you're leading a school or coaching a leader, self-awareness is where the work begins.
You can’t help someone develop their theory of action (the way they approach problems, respond to pressure, and lead change) if they haven’t reflected on it themselves.
This is where coaching gets powerful: by helping leaders reflect on how their internal drivers influence their visible behaviors.
Practical Reflection Tools
Here are a few tools I use in coaching sessions and in my own leadership practice:
Strengths + Struggles Mapping
What tasks energize you? Which ones exhaust you?
Are there leadership responsibilities you tend to avoid?
Decision-Making Audit
Reflect on three recent high-stakes decisions. Were they driven by data, emotion, urgency—or fear?
Context Perception Check
What do you believe your district values in a leader?
How does that belief influence what you prioritize?
Self-Efficacy Snapshot
Do you believe you can lead meaningful change in your context?
If not, why not?
Build Your Theory of Action
Reflect on your personal mental model of leadership.
What do you believe is the core function of your role?
What strategies or behaviors do you rely on most?
Where did those beliefs come from—past experiences, mentors, expectations?
This “theory of action” becomes the lens through which you view problems and solutions. By examining it, you can begin to shift unhelpful patterns and strengthen your leadership intentionality.
What’s Coming Next
In the final post of this series, we’ll zoom in on specific leadership competencies that show up every day. These simple things, like time management, decision-making, and communication, are where tendencies become actions, and actions shape school culture. We’ll explore how to strengthen those core practices through intentional coaching and leadership development.
What kind of leader do you want to be, and how do your current beliefs, habits, and emotional tendencies support or interfere with that vision?
What might need to shift for you to lead more intentionally?
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