I Was Already Navigating (I Just Didn’t Know It)

That night in the parking lot didn’t change anything overnight.  I drove home.  I took my son to his concert.  I went back the next morning and did what I always did.

But something had shifted.  I just didn’t know what to do with it yet.

What followed was roughly eight more years of leading the only way I knew how.  By feel.

At the time, I didn't know that was what was happening. I only knew that something felt off from time to time. Looking back on certain decisions or interactions, I felt a quiet tension I couldn’t quite explain.

Not a catastrophic failure. Just the sense that I hadn't quite shown up the way I should have.

Then there were other moments when everything clicked.

A difficult conversation would go well.

A team would rally around a plan.

A problem that seemed impossible would suddenly begin to move.

Those moments felt different. Clearer. Calmer. Almost effortless.

At the time I chalked it up to experience. Maybe I was getting better at the job. Maybe the team was stronger. Maybe the moment was simply easier.

But the pattern kept repeating.

There were times when leadership felt natural and effective. And there were other times when it felt heavier, harder, and less certain.

What I didn't understand then was that I was cycling between two very different states.

Alignment and drift.

I didn't have language for either one. I only knew the difference in how it felt.

When I was aligned, decisions came faster and with more clarity. The room felt different. Trust was easier. People spoke openly, offered ideas, and took ownership of problems.

When I drifted, things became more complicated. Conversations got cautious. Information started to move more slowly. Decisions felt heavier.

Nothing catastrophic had changed. But something in my orientation had.

The hardest part was that the drift was rarely dramatic. It was subtle.

More often than not, I wouldn't recognize it until a few minutes later.

I remember more than a few moments walking down a hallway after a meeting, when something about the conversation wouldn't sit quite right. Nothing had gone wrong on the surface. The meeting had ended. People had nodded. The discussion had moved on.

But halfway back to my office I would realize what had happened.

My ego had crept into the conversation.

Or I had defended a position instead of truly listening.

Or I had avoided a harder truth that should have been addressed.

The moment I saw it, the fix usually became obvious. There was rarely much drama in those moments. Just a quiet resolve to fix it and move forward. Sometimes I walked right back down the hallway and reopened the conversation. Other times I made a note to approach the issue differently the next time it appeared.

What I didn’t know then was that those course corrections were costing me more than they should have.

No language means no early warning.  You can’t name what’s happening until you’re already in it.  So, the drift went further than it needed to.  The correction came later than it should have.

I wasn’t failing.  But I was working harder than necessary to find my way back.  Every time.

At the time I didn't recognize those moments for what they were.

They weren't random reflections.

They were course corrections.

What I didn't understand yet was that those instincts weren't random. I wasn't inventing a leadership philosophy during those years. I was uncovering one that had already been quietly shaping the moments when leadership worked.

I didn't have a framework. I didn't have language for it. All I had were instincts and the occasional realization that something had gone right. Or wrong.

They were signals.

I had already been navigating by something.

If that sounds familiar - the walk back down the hallway, the meeting that ended but didn’t settle, the moment you said the right thing and still felt slightly off - pay attention to that.  

That’s not random.  

That’s not experience, or instinct, or luck.

That’s a signal. And signals mean something is already navigating.

You just don’t have a name for it yet.