Dragon or Driver? Impacts of a leadership Development Program on Your Life Formation

Leading re-actively saps your power.

Yesterday, I was having a conversation with one of my leadership formation clients. We weren’t sitting across a table from one another at a cozy coffee shop or meeting over Zoom. Instead, we were in the weight room. She was getting after a monster leg workout.

In between sets of Bulgarian Split Squats and Dead-lifts we were discussing her process of training for her upcoming 100 mile gravel bike race in June. Not only is my client the CEO of an organization with a global reach, but she’s also an avid cyclist. I’m serving her whole life formation process in personal growth, leadership, fitness, and cycling through our proprietary leadership development program.

The misery of the Bulgarians inspired her to share just how strong she was feeling this Spring— both on and off the bike. Her watts and endurance have increased, but so has her personal resilience, sense of confidence as a leader, and trust in the incredible gifts and wisdom she brings to her role.

We started working as she stepped into what she thought was a temporary leadership role. She soon found herself encountering both the daily and deep leadership challenges she had inherited.

Most of the challenges appeared to her not as strategic choices for her to exercise leadership, but as consequences of choices already made by others. She was in the position of managing effects and navigating through their impact on her organization rather than leading the cause itself.

At the time, she felt reactive rather than proactive. She felt driven by urgency of the anxious moment rather than by a measured response governed by strategic stability.

In her words she felt like she was, “…at the tail end of a dragon.”

She was in the position of managing effects rather than leading the cause itself.

This Spring is different.

• She has learned to shift her focus from the urgency of daily leadership in order to lead proactively through a strategic deep leadership perspective.

• More importantly, she has learned how to identify and regulate her own internal anxiety so she can lead as a differentiated non-anxious presence and stabilizing force for her team and organization.

• Most importantly, she has learned how to prioritize her own personal formation, emotional & mental wellness, physical fitness, enjoyment of treasured relationships, and to find more purpose and delight in life.

Her ongoing personal transformation is translating to her team and filtering into the institution she’s guiding.

After reflecting on all of this, while stabilizing her balance and catching her breath after a set of Dead-lifts, she said to me:

“Last year, I felt like I was leading at the tail end of a dragon. But, this year, I am the driver.”

“I am the driver.” Not just an action, nor a mere role, but a powerful identity.

To lead your institution well you need to learn to lead yourself well, and to form the character that goes deeper than a mere title. Consider how you’re investing in that formation process today.  

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Daniel Herron is the founder of Strive Performance, an Indianapolis-based consulting and coaching firm specializing in leadership formation, organizational culture, team wellness, and whole-life integrated wellness coaching. To learn more about Strive Performance's assessment and coaching process, get in touch. We’d love to listen.