The reflex that answers before you do
The reflex that answers before you do
My neighbour Bruno turned up on Wednesday afternoon to ask if he could use our land for his vendemmia, the grape harvest. His vineyard backs onto our top field here in Piemonte, and helping wasn't part of my plan for the week. My first thought wasn't 'how lovely, let's help.' It was 'I shouldn't be doing this. I have too much to do. I should be working.'
That reaction is one I know well. I'm a leadership coach and mentor, and I work with women in professional and senior leadership. Over 25 years in senior leadership myself, including 12 years as a school Principal and CEO, I learned to recognise that reaction. It arrives before I've had a chance to think. I've come to call these patterns leadership reflexes, and understanding them is now a central part of the work I do.
What a leadership reflex actually is
Over a lifetime, we build patterns. Ways of responding that helped us stay safe, feel seen or become successful at some point. Mine has always been working hard. It helped me succeed academically and then move up through leadership faster than most of my peers at the time. It's still one of my strengths.
The difficulty comes when it stops being a choice and becomes the answer to everything. When it's the thing that speaks first under pressure, before you've properly thought about what the moment actually needs.
The day Bruno asked, I could have said no and stayed at my desk. Instead I spent the morning picking grapes with my neighbour, practising my Italian along the way. The reflex wanted me working. This time, I paused long enough to make a different choice.
How quickly the pattern comes back
I had a conversation recently with a client I've been working with for a while. She'd been in a really good place. She'd taken a proper break over the summer, and she could feel what that had done for her energy and for her relationships with the people closest to her.
Then she had a difficult meeting about a complaint. Within minutes she was back in the same old pattern: blaming herself, doubting herself. The inner voice saying - I shouldn't have taken that holiday. Something always goes wrong when I take a break. This is my fault. I should have done more, done it differently.
None of that was true. She had handled the situation well. The holiday hadn't caused the complaint. The reflex didn't know that. It just needed to say its piece.
This is part of why I offer my 1:1 clients support between our sessions. That reflex moves fast, and it doesn't always tell the truth. Sometimes it just needs someone to say, plainly, that's not what's actually happening here.
The forms these reflexes take
In my experience coaching working in leadership and coaching leaders, the same handful of patterns come up again and again. Working harder to prove we've earned our place. Doubting a decision we already know is right. Holding onto everything because trusting someone else with it feels like more of a risk. Stepping in to rescue people before they've had the chance to take responsibility themselves. Staying quiet because some part of us still wonders whether we belong in the room.
The three things leadership asks of us
Good leadership over the long term asks three things of us, and I build my whole approach around them: Strategy, Identity and Vitality.
Strategy is the skills to do the job, how to lead a team through change, how to communicate a vision clearly. This is the part most leadership development already covers well.
Identity is occupying the role fully, which means noticing the reflexes you default to under pressure and learning to catch them before they decide for you. This is the part most leadership development skips.
Vitality is the capacity to sustain it, protecting the energy, rest and time that let you keep leading well without running yourself into the ground.
The reflexes that quietly limit even capable, experienced leaders sit right in the middle of that, in Identity. It's the part that gets left out, and it's where a great deal of my work sits.
A few questions worth sitting with
What's the reflex that answers first for you, before you've had a chance to think it through?
Where do you think that reflex came from, and is it still serving you the way it used to?
What might you choose differently if that reflex didn't get to make the decision?
Noticing the reflex before it answers
If you want something practical to try, start here. Notice the moment something unexpected asks something of you: a favour, a request, a change of plan. Notice the first sentence that runs through your head before you've had time to think about it properly. Ask yourself whether it's actually true. Then decide, rather than let the reflex decide for you.
That small pause, repeated often enough, is where a reflex stops making your decisions for you and you start making them again.
Ways to work with me
I'm Johanna Urquhart, leadership coach, mentor and founder of Resta Forte. I work with women in professional and senior leadership through 1:1 coaching and group online programmes that hold Strategy, Identity and Vitality together. There are three main ways to work with me:
Lead with Inner Calm is a four-week self-study programme for leaders who want to understand what drives their patterns under pressure and begin to change them. It's the simplest place to start.
The Resta Forte Leadership Academy is my ten-month group programme for middle and senior leaders, developing Strategy, Identity and Vitality together across a full year of leading.
Expansive Leadership coaching is my most personal work, one-to-one sessions for senior leaders and CEOs who want confidential, direct support from someone who has held the role.
If you're not sure where to start, the simplest first step is a free introductory call. You can book a call with me here, or email me directly at [email protected].
About the author
Johanna Urquhart is a leadership coach, mentor and the founder of Resta Forte. With 25 years of senior leadership experience including 12 years as a CEO, she supports leaders to step fully into their leadership, expand their influence and make a meaningful impact, while continuing to nurture their health, relationships and sense of self. She is a Chartered Fellow of the Chartered Management Institute and works with leaders internationally from her base in Piemonte, Northern Italy.