Recently I was asked by an organisation to coach one of its senior leaders. A man who was consistently exceeding financial results, but whose team was suffering under the pressure and his unrelenting expectations.

Being invited into a stranger’s home to talk about a crime his son had committed and the harm caused, and to prepare his son to meet with the victim of his crime, was, in my world, an unusual thing to do.

Making a change that we know we want to make, but haven’t yet made, can be less about needing more information, and more about mustering the courage to apply what we’ve already learned.

It’s such an easy trap to fall into. Believing we are right, and it’s someone else who needs to change for things to work out. But if everyone is pointing the finger at everyone else, whose responsibility is it to go first?

Thinking back to those moments, and those people who we believe let us down, in spite of what happened, if they had owned it, offered an apology without justification and been genuinely remorseful, we might feel differently about them now, even about what happened.

Anxiousness at work can sound like aggression or look like disengagement, but it can feel to the one suffering like confusion, fear and desperation.

I find many busy leaders silently expect their people to operate in the same way they do, leaving them confused and underwhelmed when their expectations are consistently unmet.

No one wakes up intending to do poor quality work, trying to fail, or wanting to feel isolated. Everyone wants to make themselves proud…but that doesn’t mean we always do, or know how to.

With determination and focus, many rely on what comes naturally and feels comfortable. Often telling, directing, and asking the same questions, looking for different results.

A frustrating challenge for many leaders is believing they’ve communicated expectations clearly, only to discover later they haven’t been actioned or executed correctly.

One of the most common, day to day, bread and butter traps for leaders, is expecting people to perform, produce, prepare and prioritise the same way they do.

When people aren’t listening, the whole business is losing. We must train our leaders to listen beyond their experience and expertise, outside of their beliefs and reasons.

We must create a conscious relationship with our bodies. Without this, we are trying to enrich our lives with the same approach that caused the disconnect in the first place – our minds.

“I am enough” means, I can stop trying to control outcomes. “I am enough” means, I can let go of trying to project-manage things, and people, and experiences into predictable boxes.

“What do I need right now?” Asking myself that question has been a revelation. Listening to, and heeding, the answer has been life changing. Obligation can be a heavy word.

My experience coaching successful men over 40 in leadership is that underneath the Superman exterior there is often a broken spirit. Not acknowledged, not talked about, not given space to be.

Telling people not to gossip, putting values on the wall of honesty and integrity, expecting people to trust because you’ve told them to, are well intentioned, but they’re not enough to create and sustain high performance.

Turning a life of obligation, and striving to meet the expectations of others, into a life of self-trust, self-responsibility and self-care takes enormous courage, but is transformative.