The most powerful leadership skill isn’t working harder. It’s knowing when and how to hit the reset button.
Most leaders stay stuck on a hamster wheel—constantly reacting, rarely pausing to think strategically. Without deliberately resetting your course, you risk going in circles whilst everything around you changes.
The question isn’t whether you need a reset. It’s whether you’ll recognise the moment before exhaustion or chaos takes over.
The Three States of Leadership
Military training on river crossings reveals three essential states every leader experiences:
- Drowning: You’re overwhelmed, fixated on urgent needs, with a narrow view that causes you to sink under pressure.
- Treading Water: The crucial strategic pause. You’re alert, in control, scanning options. Not moving forward yet, but not sinking either.
- Swimming: Purposeful movement. Sustained progress towards a clear goal.
Most leaders swing between drowning and swimming without spending enough time treading water. That middle state—the strategic pause—is where real leadership thinking happens.
The Stop-Start-Continue Framework
Resetting your leadership requires three deliberate choices:
- Stop: What actions and beliefs are holding you back? Unnecessary meetings. The assumption that being busy equals productivity. The belief that you must have all the answers.
- Start: What valuable actions are missing? Focused check-ins with your team. Empowering beliefs like “vulnerability is strength.” Regular strategic thinking time.
- Continue: What’s already working? Celebrating wins. Embracing learning. Maintaining effective practices that create real value.
This framework works on two levels—actions you take and beliefs that drive those actions.
Observable leadership behaviours come from core beliefs. Running a belief audit helps challenge assumptions keeping you stuck, like the “Village Fisherman” mindset of being the always-on, sole problem-solver.
Steve Jobs’ strategic reset when returning to Apple demonstrated this power. He didn’t just change what Apple did. He challenged deeply held beliefs about what mattered, focusing sharply on impact and purpose.
The One-Thing Reset Challenge
Resetting leadership doesn’t require massive changes. Small, intentional micro-actions—1% improvements—compound over time into transformational results.
Identify one small reset you can make this week:
- Stop a draining habit
- Start a new valuable practice
- Double down on what works
Don’t wait for perfect timing. The smallest step forward is often the most powerful.
When to Tread Water
Leadership in today’s volatile, uncertain, complex, and ambiguous world demands knowing when to pause. Treading water isn’t weakness. It’s strategic discipline.
Before you drown in urgency or exhaust yourself swimming in the wrong direction, pause. Scan your options. Reset your course.
Then swim with purpose.
What one thing will you reset this week?
When you are ready to find out more, here are a few ways you can connect with me
- Tired of leadership advice that doesn’t work in the real world? → Get practical insights that actually work
- Stuck in the leadership weeds and can’t see a way out? → Book your 1:1 Strategic Breakthrough Session
- Ready to reclaim 6+ hours weekly and lead with confidence instead of firefighting in chaos? → Discover Amplify
- Exhausted from your team needing constant oversight and direction? → Transform them with WoW
- Burning out from leadership overwhelm? → Get the antidote (my book)
