Creating change as a leader starts with how you show up

The shift didn’t start with a crisis. It started with a creeping feeling that I was no longer steering the company—I was steering around things. Around economic uncertainty, around investor pressure, around internal politics that no one had the nerve to name. We kept adjusting and adapting, saying the right words: “We’re agile,” “We’re managing the shift,” “We’re responsive to the market.” But behind the scenes, the energy was something else entirely. We were tired. And more importantly, we were always waiting—waiting to see what would happen, waiting to respond, waiting for the next change so we could manage it.

It came to a head during a product sprint review when one of our strongest leads said, “We’ve gotten really good at reacting. But when’s the last time we made the market react to us?” She didn’t say it with judgment. She said it with fatigue. That sentence landed in my gut like a stone. Because I knew the answer. It had been too long. We were not creating change. We were waiting for change to arrive, then figuring out how to survive it.

It’s a subtle kind of failure. One that doesn’t show up in headlines or dashboards. There’s no crisis. Revenue might still be growing. You’re still getting mentions on podcasts, still getting invited to speak. But underneath all that noise, your team can feel it. You’ve stopped leading. You’re managing. And they start managing too. Ideas become safer. Experiments shrink. Vision decks gather dust, while operational decks balloon. Everyone’s working hard, but no one’s working forward.

I had to admit something I didn’t want to admit: I was leading from fear. Fear of breaking what we had. Fear of wasting scarce resources. Fear of being seen as too bold, too early, too off-trend. And because of that fear, I unconsciously trained my team to wait for cues from the outside instead of pushing something original from the inside. We were optimizing for relevance, not resonance.

This wasn’t how I used to operate. When we started, we didn’t wait for market signals—we created them. We launched before we were ready, pitched ideas no one else dared to try, built rituals that didn’t exist in our category yet. That kind of audacity is how we got traction. But somewhere along the way, the responsibility got heavier. The board got bigger. The numbers mattered more. And slowly, that boldness turned into restraint. That restraint turned into caution. And that caution turned into a company that knew how to weather a storm—but not how to change the weather.

The turning point wasn’t a big investor blow-up or a viral PR crisis. It was something much quieter. During a leadership offsite, I asked my exec team to name one bold move they wanted to make this year. The room went silent. Not one person offered something that wasn’t reactive. Every idea was framed in response to something external—a competitor move, a macro shift, a tech trend. That’s when I realized we had lost our internal compass. We had become a team that was waiting for permission from the market to act.

From that moment on, I made it a mission to shift our posture. I didn’t want a company that was admired for surviving. I wanted one that was feared for what it might decide to do next. And that meant rebuilding from conviction. Creating change as a leader isn’t about charisma. It isn’t about visionary slogans. It’s about having the clarity to define what you believe should happen—and the stamina to act on it before others agree.

The first shift was how I showed up. I stopped anchoring our planning cycles to investor pressure or industry noise. Instead, we started asking: if this was a blank canvas, what would we do now to create the kind of market we want to exist? It wasn’t about ignoring external trends. It was about refusing to let them set the terms of our ambition. I started modeling what that posture looked like in every decision. When the market cooled, we launched anyway. When competitors leaned into AI gimmicks, we doubled down on UX fundamentals. When hiring slowed across the sector, we poached someone our industry didn’t think we could attract—because we knew what future we were building toward, even if others couldn’t see it yet.

This shift also changed the rhythm of how we talked about work internally. I banned the phrase “in response to” from our strategy meetings. I asked every team to submit one initiative per quarter that started with “We believe…” not “We noticed…” It was clunky at first. People were hesitant. But once the muscle got exercised, the energy changed. Ownership grew. People started proposing ideas again that scared them a little. And that’s when I knew we were finally leading.

Let me be honest—it wasn’t all smooth. Not everyone made it through the shift. Some of the best people on paper were the ones most uncomfortable with the new posture. They’d been trained in environments where leadership meant optimization, not initiation. Where success was defined by how cleanly you could execute against market demands—not whether you dared to question them. One senior operator told me privately, “I just need more certainty before I can go all in on this.” I said, “Then this is probably not the place for you anymore.” And I meant it. Because creating change doesn’t start with certainty. It starts with belief.

The second wave of resistance came from within myself. Even as we pushed the company to lead again, I had moments where I second-guessed everything. What if we’re too early? What if the market punishes us? What if we waste a quarter on a bet that flops? But I reminded myself that inaction has a cost too. Waiting is expensive. Following is expensive. And managing change that someone else caused is often the most costly posture of all—because you’re never in control of what you’re solving for.

What helped me stay anchored wasn’t bravado. It was clarity. I started each week with one sentence: What is the change I’m trying to cause this week—and what am I doing to lead it? That question kept me honest. It cut through the noise. And it reminded me that leadership isn’t about control. It’s about initiation. It’s about being willing to act without applause, without guarantee, and sometimes, without agreement.

Over time, our culture started to reflect this. We became faster, not just in execution, but in belief formation. Teams didn’t wait for full validation before moving. They asked sharper questions. They made decisions rooted in conviction, not consensus. We didn’t just ship faster—we shipped braver. We became a company that made others adjust to us again. And that’s when I knew the shift had taken root.

If I could offer anything to a founder or operator who feels stuck in reaction mode, it would be this: you do not need more information. You need more courage. You already know what needs to change. You’re just waiting for someone else to say it first. Stop waiting. Say it. Do it. And don’t apologize for being early.

Creating change as a leader isn’t a moment—it’s a posture. It’s not about betting big. It’s about betting first. It’s about building a company that others look to not because you’re always right, but because you move before the noise confirms your logic. You don’t have to be reckless. But you do have to be unreasonable. That’s what creation demands.

And if you’re afraid that your team won’t follow you into that kind of leadership, ask yourself this: are you giving them anything bold enough to follow? Or are you just keeping them comfortable enough to stay?

The world doesn’t need more leaders who manage change. It needs more who cause it. More who show up and say, “We’re not waiting for the shift. We are the shift.” That starts with you. How you speak. How you frame. How you decide. It doesn’t require a new title. Just a new posture. Choose it. Because the only thing more exhausting than change—is never creating any of your own.