Five Practices to Lead Yourself First

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Turning a conversation with executive coach Elonda Johnson into things you can do this week

Leaders today are working inside what Angelina Darrisaw calls a permanent storm, where a global pandemic gave way to the disruption of artificial intelligence and the pace of change keeps climbing. In our latest C-Suite Coach Chat, ICF-credentialed executive coach Elonda Johnson made the case that the most reliable response to all of it begins with the leader's own behavior. Below are five practices drawn from her conversation.

An infographic displaying a five-step leadership development path, represented by a winding dark blue line on a light background. Each step is marked by a gold circle, a large gold number from 01 to 05, and a corresponding action item.

1. Replace your first judgment with a first question When someone on your team starts to look like a "problem employee," resist the urge to assign the label and act on it. Before your next difficult one-on-one, write down four questions and answer them yourself: What am I tolerating? What am I modeling? What have I been unclear about? What might I be avoiding that makes this person's behavior the logical response? Johnson points out that you cannot coach what you refuse to acknowledge or own, and these questions move you from judge to active participant. Try this with one specific person on your team this week and notice how the conversation changes once you arrive with curiosity already in hand.

2. Trade certainty for candor in your next debrief The most damaging unwritten rule Johnson sees on talented teams is that certainty feels safer than candor, and the moment people prize looking sure over speaking openly, the team loses the diverse perspectives that produce its best work. Build a short, recurring debrief into your team's rhythm where the standing questions are simple and direct: What went well? What stalled? What did we learn? Model it by owning a mistake of your own first. When you fail fast and say so out loud, you shrink the surprises and grow the trust, and you give everyone else permission to do the same.

3. Fix the handoffs before you question the accountability When a capable team keeps dropping the ball, the instinct is to wonder who lacks accountability. Johnson observes that accountability is usually the last thing to break. The earlier failures live in the gray areas of handoffs, in fuzzy expectations, and in assumptions about whose job a task really is. Skilled people rarely fumble the work itself. They stumble at the seams between roles. So map one project that has been underperforming, mark every point where work passes from one person to another, and write a shared agreement that puts those expectations outside of people's heads and onto the page where everyone can see them.

4. Gather real evidence about how you lead Roughly ninety percent of people believe they have high emotional intelligence, while something closer to ten or fifteen percent actually do, which makes self-awareness genuinely hard to build on your own. Pick one source of outside evidence this quarter, whether that is a 360-degree assessment, a set of structured interviews, or a careful re-reading of your last performance reviews. Ask colleagues a precise question: how do you experience my leadership, rather than how do you experience me. The patterns that surface, especially repeated friction with the same kinds of people, are exactly the material a coach helps you work through.

5. Build a pause into your pressure points Stress pulls leaders toward their wiring and emotional defaults, the patterns they formed long before they earned their current titles, so some reach for control under pressure while others withdraw or over-explain. Start by naming your own pattern, then prepare a single sentence you can use in the moment, such as "I need to take a moment, so let's come back to this shortly." That small pause lets you center the experience of the person across from you and protect a relationship that a rushed reaction might damage.

A note on vulnerability, and on the long game:

Johnson defines vulnerability as a form of transparency and honest directness delivered with kindness, and it stops well short of sharing every personal detail. It can sound like "this is not my strong suit, so I need support here." Those admissions build trust, and they work best inside environments that already feel safe, so treat any reluctance you feel as useful information about the room you are in. Keep in mind that none of this is a destination. As you move from manager to executive, the pressure points keep changing, so the goal is continuous improvement rather than a single finish line.

One thing to do this week

Pick a single practice from this list and commit to it before Friday. Leadership skills evolve when you decide to get intentional about the shift, so choose one and begin.

Want a thinking partner in your corner? C-Suite Coach connects leaders at every level with coaches who understand the landscape they are navigating. Follow Elonda Johnson on LinkedIn for more practical leadership insight, and reach out to the C-Suite Coach network to find your fit.

C-Suite Coach helps organizations develop exceptional leaders through targeted coaching and learning programs. To explore how we can support your team, schedule a consultation today.