Adjusting the Leadership Lens

Adjusting the Leadership Lens A senior leader said something to me recently that stayed. “My role has grown faster than the way I think about decisions.” It wasn’t a lack of capability orambition. It was the quieter realisation that leadership scale demands a different lens. In my work with leaders stepping into broader organisational roles, I often hear this moment. One leader described it this way: “I used to solve problems. Now I spend most of my time shaping how others see them.” That shift changes everything. As roles expand, what matters shifts too. It becomes less about solving quickly,and more about where you place your attention. Less about expertise, and more about how your influence travels across the teams and stakeholders. At senior levels, growth is rarely about learning more skills. It’s about examining how you think. How to connect with AgileDad: - [website] ⁠https://www.agiledad.com/⁠ https://www.agiledad.com/ - [instagram] ⁠https://www.instagram.com/agile_coach/⁠ https://www.instagram.com/agile_coach/ - [facebook] ⁠https://www.facebook.com/RealAgileDad/⁠ https://www.facebook.com/RealAgileDad/ - [Linkedin] ⁠https://www.linkedin.com/in/leehenson/ https://www.linkedin.com/in/leehenson/

• 0:15Speaker 00

  I was recently asked to review a whole episode or a whole episode, a whole journey about leadership. And it's a leadership lens thing. And it started out like this, this is interesting. It says, "A senior leader said something to me recently. My role has grown faster than the way I think about making decisions. I don't think it was a lack of capability. It was the quieter realization that leadership scale demands a different lens. You've got to think differently in order to be able to do this differently. In my work with leaders, stepping into broader organizational roles, I often hear this moment happen. One leader has described it to me this way. I felt like I used to solve problems.

• 1:00Speaker 00

  Now I spend most of my time shaping how others see them and solve them. That shift changes everything. As roles expand, what matters shifts as well. It becomes less about solving quickly and more about where you are placing your attention. It becomes less about expertise and more about how your influence travels across the teams and the stakeholders. At senior levels, growth is rarely about learning, more about skills and techniques. It's about examining how you think and how you analyze problems. Because leadership doesn't scale through effort, it scales through open perspective. And that's the key, open perspective. That kind of shift rarely happens in the middle of busy weeks.

• 1:43Speaker 00

  It happens when leaders step back long enough to notice the assumptions guiding their decisions, the pattern shaping their influence, and the way they position themselves, their scope evolves. A simple reflection you can try before your next important decision. Ask yourself, "What assumption am I treating as a fact right now?" Oh, that's a good one. That question is often where a meaningful leadership shift begins. It's also what leads me to guide people towards my Agile Leadership Program, Agile Leadership Summits, because what I see is if leaders understand how AI impacts what they do, and if they understand how creative agile leadership can help them regain focus

• 2:28Speaker 00

  and become better at delegating things that they can delegate, and understanding things where they need to take action, it's going to help them see things through a new, more crisp lens. One of the things that I've done recently is I've had an opportunity to speak with PMBA, and I'm so grateful for Amy Riddell and her team. And I've done a workshop on communicating with the C-level suite and how to get their attention and keep their attention. And one of the things that I've taught is you need to shift your mindset quite a bit. It's a lot different than dealing with teams where they're desperately trying to understand the why behind the what. The leaders want to talk in terms of value and impact, and that's a different lens altogether.

• 3:10Speaker 00

  And I think that if we understand how leaders and leadership development and leadership coaching takes place, it will help us grow personally and professionally. And overall, honestly, it'll help us be better communicators. It'll make us all better communicators over time. So my mission, my challenge for you is to find a way to better understand and to become a better leader. Find a way to engage with your leaders better. Find a way to get that communication across. And if you need help, it's okay. You're not alone. In fact, most organizations I go to, especially recently, are focusing more on change management, and they've been reaching out to me regarding change management workshops, agile leadership workshops,

• 3:51Speaker 00

  studying how to create a new internal center of excellence to guide them through organizational change. And I feel like this is probably the way of the future. So instead of getting hyper-focused on process and hyper-focused on, you know, specific rules, guidelines, initiatives, et cetera, I think it's time for us just to take a step back and analyze and ask ourselves, are we seeing things through a proper leadership lens? And if not, what are we going to do about it? That's going to do it for this episode. I hope you enjoyed it. If you haven't... Topic you want us to discuss, learn more at agiledad.com. We would love to hear from you. And as always, we encourage you to stay healthy, stay well, and stay agile, my friends. Until next time, do take care. Bye now.