The Internal Leadership Series

Agency, One Choice at a Time

There is a point in almost every coaching conversation where understanding is no longer the thing that matters most.

The client can see the pattern. They understand why a particular situation affects them, recognise what they tend to do when it happens and can often describe exactly what they would like to do differently.

Then comes the question that matters.

What will you do with what you know?

Throughout this month I've been exploring the space between what happens to us and what we choose to do next. We've looked at our first reactions and why we don't need to judge ourselves for having them, the choices that remain available even when circumstances sit outside our control, and the fine line between taking responsibility and taking blame.

All of that creates awareness.

But awareness on its own doesn't change very much.

We can know that we need a boundary and still say yes. We can recognise that we're spending too much emotional energy on somebody else's behaviour and still continue replaying the conversation. We can understand that our first reaction doesn't have to determine what happens next and still find ourselves following it.

This isn't evidence that the awareness hasn't worked. It simply means we've reached the point where self-leadership asks something more of us.

We have to make a choice.

I think we sometimes make that sound much bigger than it needs to be. We imagine meaningful change beginning with a significant decision, a new approach or a commitment to behave differently from now on. Yet most of the changes I see people sustain begin much more quietly.

They pause before replying to the email.

They ask the question instead of offering the solution.

They notice themselves wanting to say yes but instead give themselves time to properly consider.

They stop rehearsing the conversation they wish they'd had and decide which conversation would be useful now.

None of those choices is particularly dramatic, but each one changes something important. Instead of waiting for the situation, another person or even themselves to become different, they begin working with what is available to them now.

That is what agency increasingly means to me.

It isn't a feeling of being in control. There will always be circumstances we cannot influence, people whose choices we cannot make and outcomes we cannot guarantee.

Agency is the practice of noticing where choice still exists and being willing to exercise it.

That distinction matters because we won't always feel powerful when we do it. Sometimes the choice available to us is uncomfortable. It might mean having a conversation we've been avoiding, accepting that somebody is disappointed with us, asking for help, admitting we got something wrong or allowing a situation to remain unresolved for a while.

The presence of choice doesn't make the choice easy.

It simply means recognising that, even within difficult circumstances, there are still choices that belong to us.

This is also why I don't believe self-leadership is about finding the right answer.

There often isn't one.

We can spend a huge amount of energy trying to work out the perfect thing to say, the correct decision to make or the response that will guarantee the outcome we want. Eventually, the search for certainty can become another way of avoiding choice.

A more useful approach is often to ask a question that brings us back to our agency.

What is happening?

What is mine to lead?

What will I do next?

Those questions don't promise certainty. They give us somewhere to begin.

They also allow us to practise agency with self-kindness. If every choice has to be the right one, we simply create another impossible expectation for ourselves. Self-leadership asks us to make the most intentional choice we can with what we know now, remain curious about the result and be willing to choose again because agency isn't something we prove once.

We may set a boundary and then need to hold it again. We may choose not to rescue someone and have to sit with the discomfort that follows. We may respond calmly in one conversation and find ourselves reacting badly in the next.

There is always another opportunity to notice what is happening and choose what we want to do with it.

That is why I think agency grows one choice at a time.

Not through controlling our first thoughts or removing difficult emotions. Not through taking responsibility for everything around us. And not through always knowing the right thing to do.

It grows through repeatedly bringing our attention back to what belongs to us and deciding how we want to lead it.

Leadership always happens twice, first internally and then externally.

The internal part is rarely visible. It happens in the pause before we respond, the question we choose to ask ourselves, the responsibility we decide to take and the action that follows.

Over time, those small choices become something much bigger. They become the way we lead ourselves.

Not perfectly.

Not forever.

Just with the next choice that is ours to make.