If you want to go fast, go alone. If you want to go far, go together.

- African Proverb

Whoever penned this ancient proverb obviously never worked in Corporate America. Because here, everyone wants to go far and go fast! I know I do. I want it done yesterday and get frustrated when things take longer than I think they should. It’s one of the reasons that I’ve been successful in my career as an individual contributor because I was generally pretty fast completing my own tasks. It also did have a few negative affects on me specifically on my attention to detail and strategic thinking. Once I had a former executive at a company I was working for describe me as “running through the forest with my eyes closed.” Ouch. You would think that kind of description would have bothered me, but at that time, I remember thinking, “well at least I am running!” [facepalm]

Then I became a leader. Not only was I responsible for my individual tasks and goals, I also now had the weight of my teams goals. I couldn’t just run on my own anymore, I now needed my team to cross the finish line the same time I did. But it really slowed me down. And if I am honest, often I just wanted to leave them behind.

Do you feel that way sometimes?

If not, you are already a better leader than I was early on. My impatience would often get the better of me causing me to do one of two things:

1. Just do the job myself because I knew how to do it and could knock it out fast.

2. Tell the team exactly what to do.

Did that help get the job done faster? I know I thought it did. But I’ve come to realize that these were actually what was hindering my team from speeding up. I became the lid of my team’s potential, the anchor slowing them down. I was actually making my team slower by trying to help them speed up. Something needed to shift. But how do you go from the high octane approach of an individual achiever to a coach who slows down long enough to truly delegate and empower their team?

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The Mindset Shift

The pivot from thinking about yourself to focusing on your team truly starts with a mindset shift, and honestly, it’s a mild rewiring of your brain. I am not a scientist, but I’ve read enough to know that we are all creatures of habit. Our brains are drawn to habits because it’s lazy and gets to check out when we fall into known routines. Before we became leaders, we were rewarded for good work we did at school, at church, and definitely at our jobs. This constant habit of Do a Good Thing → Get a Reward became engrained in our minds. It developed pavlovian patterns of thinking drawing us to seek out gold stars to validate our performance.

And while these patterns may served you well as an individual contributor, they can be the very thing that hinders you from becoming a good leader. How? By creating the false belief that your team is merely a means to achieve your own success. They are pawns in your own personal chess game. When you think this way, either consciously or subconsciously, you are focused only on what they can do for you, and not what you are responsible to do for them.

To Lead is to Serve

So what are you responsible to your team for? The easiest way to answer this is to ask yourself, what do you expect from your leaders? The Golden Rule simply states that we are called to do unto others as we would have them do to us. If I asked you what you wished your leaders did for you, you would probably say:

1. Help me navigate my job.

2. Give me clarity on my role.

3. Praise/Reward me when I do good things.

4. Help me progress in my career.

5. Understand that I am a human and not a unit of production.

Those sound simple, but if you are only focused on yourself and getting your own gold stars, these are the last things that you will think of doing for your team. Our role as leaders is to serve our team. Not become a servant bending to their every demand, but being the kind of person that considers their goals and not just your own. Which means, sometimes you are going to have to slow down to help them grow. The funny thing is, when you serve your team in these areas, they will actually get faster. It seems counterintuitive, but you really have to slow do to go faster.

First you shift your thinking. Then you shift your actions.

My recent posts will also give you some additional guidance on key areas to slow down including delegate the right way and coaching your team.

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🪞 Self Reflection: Gold Stars or Team Wins?

Take a few moments and journal your responses to these questions.

• How often do I just ‘take care of it myself’ instead of teaching my team to execute?

• What gives me the most satisfaction: when I win or when the team wins?

• Do I have the right reward systems in place when the team succeeds?

• When things go wrong, do I take responsibility for the team, or do I place blame on individuals?

Wrapping Up…

Many managers lead their teams with an individual contributor mindset. Maybe that’s you. If it is, give yourself some grace because you were programmed to be that way. But that doesn’t mean you have to lead that way. You can shift the way you think. You can become the leader your team needs. And the first step is acknowledging where you need to shift. Take this free assessment to know where to start.

🗓️ Next week: From Talking to Listening.

Keep Leading. See you next week!

Kacy @ Drawn to Lead

But if you aren’t supposed to be helping pull the rope with the rest of the team, then you must be sitting on your throne barking orders right? Wrong, the life of a leader involves many things that are often invisible to the team. These things can appear like you aren’t really doing anything because there often isn’t something tangible in terms of output. But these leadership tasks are essential for the team’s growth. Things like planning for the future, clearing unforeseen roadblocks, establishing culture and planning for growth are key responsibilities as a leader. But if you are spending the majority of your day pulling on the rope with the team, where will you ever find time to work on them? When you realize that you need to both delegate and empower your team to own their tasks, only then will you find the time and headspace you need.

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⚓︎ Are you an Anchor for your team?

Collaboration can feel noble, even necessary, but for some leaders, it becomes a disguised form of control. They sit in every brainstorm, review every draft, and insist on being part of every decision under the banner of “collaboration.” But instead of creating alignment, this level of involvement becomes an anchor, slowing the team down, creating bottlenecks, and breeding dependency. When collaboration becomes a means of micromanagement, it’s not helpful, even if you are doing it with the best intentions.

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Empowerment, however, can be the engine for your team. It means trusting your team to think, act, and create without the need for constant oversight. It’s what propels progress. Empowered teams move faster, learn quicker, and grow stronger because they’re not waiting on permission, approvals, or endless input. The best leaders know when to pull up the anchor and let the engine run.

Micromanager? Me? Never!!

One of my first bosses was a major micromanager. Everything that I did had to be reviewed by her before I sent them to the team. She would forward me changes from our clients, and I input them into the system. She insisted on seeing every document, marking them up, and making me redo them. Sometimes, especially in the early days, it was necessary. I was new and had a lot to learn. But as the months went by, the changes became more personal preference than correcting errors. The constant critiques made me think that I was really terrible at my job. It wasn’t until I moved onto another team under another leader and was given a ton of autonomy that I began to thrive.

And so I promised I would never be that leader. I was going to empower my team members to stand on their own two feet. And I did…until I came into a meeting and was questioned by senior leadership about something someone on my team had done wrong. It was that moment that I realized my team’s work reflected on me. So I began to have all approvals go through me, and began making changes based on personal preference because I knew best. I became the micromanager. And it was all because of fear and lack of trust in my team. It’s taken me a while to realize this about myself and it’s still something I wrestle with, especially as a recovering achiever.

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Handing over the reigns blindly is not the answer either. If you have hired the right people, you need to begin the process of empowering them. In a previous post I shared the steps of delegation that will help you hand off tasks. But you have to actually actually step back once your team gets to stage 3 & 4. You have to trust your team can do it without you. Does this mean you will never need to step in again? Of course not, but doing this the right way will allow your team to step in and own their tasks without your well-intentioned micromanagement.

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🪞 Journal & Reflection Questions:

As you look for areas to step back, here are a few questions to think/journal through to identify places you should start empowering your team more:

• Am I making most of the decisions, or are my team members taking initiative?

• Do I feel the need to be present in every meeting and conversation?

• If I stepped away for a week, would my team continue to function effectively?

• Are my team members confident in taking ownership, or do they always look to me for approval?

Final Thought: Letting Go to Move Forward

A great leader isn’t the one doing all the work, they are the ones ensuring the work gets done at the highest level. By shifting from collaborating on everything to empowering your team, you free them to grow, innovate, and succeed on their own. And you free yourself up to tackle the things that only leaders can do. Remember, it’s a sliding scale. Figure out what is right for you right now, and start moving that slider to the right.

🗓️ Next week: From Focusing on Self to Focusing on the Team.

Keep Leading. See you next week!

Kacy @ Drawn to Lead

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The Star Player vs. The Head Coach

Picture yourself as a star player on a sports team, someone who dominates the game with skill, drive, and execution. Your value is measured by how well you perform, how many points you score, and how much you contribute directly to the game. You are running plays and getting the accolades when they succeed. You are good and leadership knows it. So they elevate you to head coach. Because if you know how to play the game as well as you do, surely you will be able to teach others how to do it. But you soon realize that coaching is very different than executing the plays. You are no longer simply evaluated on your performance, but also on the performance of your team. As a coach, you are responsible for showing people who don’t know the game as well as you do how to play. And that takes time. A lot more time than you think it should. And there are days when you watch your team run these plays and think ‘it would be so much easier if I did it.’ If you are honest, there is also a part of you that misses scoring the goals. Sometimes it makes you question why you took the head coaching role in the first place.

If that scenario rings true for you, you are in good company. If I am being honest, when I first became a leader, it was simply another thing for me to achieve. The next step on the ladder of growth I was on. I didn’t know how to coach and so when the team didn’t get it immediately, I would simply throw on the cape and save the day. I would just do it myself, like I always had when I was just a player. Which worked…kinda. I got the task done, but when that task came up again, I had to be the one to do it. Because I never took the time to delegate my tasks and then coach my team through it, they became reliant on me to keep actively fighting the fires of today for them. I became a crutch for my team, stifling their growth and my own.

“A leader is one who knows the way, goes the way, and shows the way.”

— John C. Maxwell

The Second Mountain

It took a while for me to realize that my need to achieve, was holding me back from being the coach I needed to be. One book that helped shift my perspective was The Second Mountain by David Brooks. Brooks presents an idea that there are two mountains that people climb in life. The first is the culturally accepted mountain of achievement. It’s what we are trained to do as kids. But when you get to the top of this mountain, you think ‘is that all?’ Then you realize there is another mountain. One of significance. Climbing that mountain focuses on impact and service to others. This is the mountain that true coaches choose to climb. And that’s the mountain I wanted to climb.

The Leadership Shift

Knowing I wanted to make an impact, I felt the weight of not actually knowing how to coach someone else. While I was good at playing the game, I realized that I was never taught how to coach. I began consuming books & podcasts about how to coach that helped me realize a pivotal point: coaching isn’t about knowing everything, it’s about knowing what questions to ask. You see, I thought coaching was giving step by step instructions on how to do things the way that I would do them, and then critiquing them until they did it right. But unless you are hiring clones who think exactly like you, this will always end in frustration and keep you in an endless circle of criticism.

The best coaches don’t just give instructions; they teach their team how to think strategically about their tasks. And the best way to do this: ask the right questions.

A Real Life Example:

I am currently leading a team so I am actively trying to put what I preach into practice. Recently I transitioned an email newsletter to a new team member who is relatively young in her career. We had an initial discussion and she took a first crack at putting it together. It was off. Way off. So we jumped in a conference room to talk through it. The Player in me wanted to just tell her what was wrong and have her make the necessary changes. But then I would have to do that on every newsletter going forward. Instead, I asked her some of these questions to help her think through what needed to change:

• Who are we sending this email to?

• What do they want to do to succeed in their role?

• What would need to be in this newsletter to help them do that?

As we talked through these questions, she began to learn the strategy without me having to lay it out on the whiteboard. Was the next version she brought back perfect? No, but it was much better and had less edits. My ultimate goal is to have her run with these newsletters without much of my involvement and I am slowing down up front to help her move through the stages of delegation the right way.

🪞 Reflection: Am I Coaching Enough?

Here are some questions that will help you think through where you fall on this leadership slider:

• Am I more focused on my personal accomplishments or those of my team?

• Do I feel like I need to personally handle the toughest tasks, or am I developing others to take on those challenges?

• Am I providing guidance, feedback, and mentorship to my team, or am I primarily focused on my own execution?

• How often do I just do the work because I know I will get it done faster (and probably) better?

Wrapping Up…

Coaching is a critical skill you need to develop as a new leader. The best leaders don’t just shine individually; they create an environment where their entire team thrives. Coaching isn’t easy and takes more time than just telling your team what to do. But if you figure out how to lean into this skill, you and your team, will thrive.

🗓️ Next week: From Collaborating to Empowering.

Keep Leading. See you next week!

Kacy @ Drawn to Lead

Additional Book & Sketchnote on Coaching

I’ve created a sketchnote for paid subscribers of the 7 key questions to ask that will turn your 1:1’s into a coaching session inspired by a great book all new leaders should read.

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Now that you have stepped into a leadership role, you have a number of new responsibilities, which means you need to hand off some of what you were doing to your team. So, you let your team know about the transition, explain their new tasks, and think ‘I’ve delegated.’ But you are wrong. You’ve handed over a set of keys to someone who doesn’t really know how to drive. And what often happens is the inexperienced driver ends up crashing the car, and you have to jump back in to clean up the mess. You spend more time fixing then if you would have just done it yourself in the first place. This cycle happens again and again, and you are never truly able to shift into your new role. You may think it’s your team member’s fault. And while sometimes that is true, often if how you delegated that set them up to fail in the first place. But how do you delegate the right way so you don’t have to keep stepping back in?

What is Delegating?

Delegating isn’t what you think. It’s not just giving a task to someone else. That’s an order. Delegating is entrusting a task or responsibility to someone that may or may not already have the expertise to do it. If you are doing delegation right they will be able to truly take ownership of the task. And for that to happen, there needs to be a time of transition.

Over my leadership career, this has been the toughest thing for me to do. As I have reflected on the times that something I delegated has failed, it’s often because I didn’t take the time to do it the right way. Like most things, to do it right, you have to slow down and take more time than you really want to. But this time up front will save you loads of time on the back end.

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🔑 Handing Off the Keys: The Delegation Stages

Think of delegation like teaching someone to drive. You never just give someone the keys after explaining them how a car works. You have to take the time to coach them through it. This is the same for delegation. These four stages set your team member up to confidently take the wheel of the new task, and will give you the peace of mind in the process.

• Stage 1: The Passenger (I do. You observe.)

  • This stage is where you are the driver and they are riding in the passenger seat. You are doing the driving, giving context, and teaching as you go. They are observing how you approach the task and learning what is necessary to complete it.

  • Focus on both the what of the task and the why. Show them how you think through the task, not just what you do to complete it.

• Stage 2: The Permit (You do. I observe.)

  • The passenger moves into the driver seat, but only when the leader is riding shotgun. The team member does the driving but is coached during and after each outing. They consult the leader in real time and begin to build muscle memory by physically completing the task.

  • Only grab the wheel if they are about to run off the road. Resist the urge to take over otherwise.

• Stage 3: The New Driver (You do and report back.)

  • They officially have a license and can drive the car on their own. They provide check-in’s to you after each drive and you are able to give guidance that can be applied to the next trip. You may also check-in on the trip in real time as needed.

  • Remember: Inspect what you expect. This is not the time to disappear. Make sure during 1:1’s that things are progressing and ask questions to make sure everything is on track.

• Stage 4: The Independent (You do. Check-in as needed.)

  • The team member is not only in their own car, they are on their own insurance. Check-in’s are no longer needed and not all drives are reported.

  • Guidance is still available as needed, but it is not required or expected.

Stage 2 is the most important stage. Why? Because that is where you learn if your team member can actually be delegated to. When you begin to observe them driving, you should see signs that they get it. That they will be able to drive. And you should see some improvement with each outing. But if you don’t, you don’t have a delegation problem on your hands, you have a team member problem. If a team member stays in Stage 2 for too long, you need to start looking to get them in another seat or with another company. If you don’t, you will never be able to delegate fully and be stuck doing their job and yours.

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“The best executive is the one who has sense enough to pick good people to do what he wants done, and self-restraint enough to keep from meddling while they do it.”

— Theodore Roosevelt

Reflection: Should I be delegating more?

Most leaders aren’t delegating enough. Think about everything on your plate right now and ask yourself these questions to see if you should be delegating more:

• What am I doing that someone else on my team could do 80% as well, or better, with the right context?

• What tasks drain my energy but don’t require my expertise?

• What am I holding onto because of habit, fear, or ego—not because it’s strategic?

I’ve also found it helpful to use the following matrix to determine what should be delegated fast, and what should take more time and consideration. If it falls in the green, delegate away and move on. If it falls into the red or yellow, slow down and use the 4 stages listed above.

Wrapping Up

The best leaders don’t just do great work, they create an environment where others can do great work. Delegation is one of the most important things new leaders must do to be able to create the bandwidth needed to lead the team. It’s time to move that slider to the right!

✍️ And don’t forget to use this self-assessment for all the sliders to see which one your need to shift next!

🗓️ Next week: From Being a Player to Becoming a Coach.

Keep Leading. See you next week!

Kacy @

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The Fire Extinguisher vs. The Binoculars

Imagine a firefighter. Their job is to tackle emergencies as they arise, putting out flames, rescuing people, and preventing further destruction. Every second counts, and quick action is necessary to prevent disaster. Now, contrast that with someone looking through binoculars from a mountaintop. They aren’t focused on immediate dangers but are scanning the horizon, looking for signs of what’s to come, anticipating risks, and charting a path forward.

As a new leader, your challenge is knowing when to act as a firefighter, handling the urgent issues of the day, and when to slow down long enough to see the bigger picture and plan for the future.

The Leadership Shift

One of the first struggles new leaders face is getting stuck in the day-to-day grind. As a leader, not only are you responsible for the things you were before, you are now also brought into all the issues plaguing your new team. (And sometimes those issues ARE the team.) Every fire that pops up seems urgent in the moment, requiring your immediate attention. And if you spend all your time putting out fires, you’ll never have time to prevent them from starting in the first place.

“Rowing harder doesn’t help if the boat is headed in the wrong direction.”

- Kenichi Ohmae

You are now the one who is responsible for knowing where your team is going. This is a big responsibility and probably something you weren’t taught how to do. So how do you do that? And even beyond that, how do you find the time to in the first place?

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⏰ How Do I Find Enough Time?

So, let’s tackle the time question first. Whenever you use the excuse that you ‘don’t have enough time for something,’ you are really saying that it is not a priority for you. Anything that is truly important in our lives, we magically find the time for. We find a way to make it happen. So, if you really want to find the time to create a vision for your team, you have to honestly believe that it is a priority. And the only way you will prioritize it, is if you truly believe that it is important. So answer for yourself, do you think this is important?

Once you’ve prioritized this in your mind, you need to schedule it. Put it on your calendar. Call it “Vision-Planning” and block off enough time to do some deep thinking. For me, that looks like a half-day. You may be thinking, “How are you able to take an entire half day to plan?” Because I know how important it is. I put this on my calendar months in advance, before other things are scheduled, and as the date nears, other meetings get placed around it and not over it. If one does, I tell them I can’t come because I have another commitment.

And the last part is that when you’ve made it a priority and it is on your calendar, when the day comes, you have to actually go. That sounds silly, but I’ve even found myself the day before thinking ‘is this really necessary?’ Go. It is.

🔭 How Do I Create a Vision for My Team?

Now that you have taken the time, how do you make the most of it? There are so many different frameworks that I have come across for creating a vision. And over the course of my career I have gotten hung up on trying to craft the perfect vision statement or trying to predict the future. At the end of the day, I have always come back to Simon Sinek’s framework of Start with Why. In this talk from 2009, he unpacks a simple approach:

WHY your team exists. (not making profit, that’s a result)

HOW you do it. (your unique value proposition)

WHAT your team does.

Per Sinek, most teams know WHAT they do, and a good number know HOW they do it, but when you ask them WHY, they don’t know. You need to get a clear picture of WHY your team exists first. When you do it becomes much easier to move to HOW & WHAT.

Here are some questions that you can use during your vision planning time to figure out your team’s WHY:

• Beyond just making money or meeting targets, why does our team exist in our organization?

• How can we positively affect the lives of our customers, colleagues, or community?

• When I look back on this role in the future, what would the impact we had look like?

After you answer these questions, try to capture your answers in a statement that starts with:

WE EXIST TO…

This statement will become the filter you use when planning your WHAT and your HOW. This WHY statement becomes your vision for the future.

Wrapping Up

Creating a vision for your team is not a nice to have, it’s a requirement. And it’s only going to happen if you prioritize it and take the time to do it. If you would be interested in booking some time with me to help prepare for your vision casting day or talk more about leadership, drop me a line.

🗓️ Next week: From Creating to Delegating the Work.

Keep Leading. See you next week.

Kacy @ Drawn to Lead

Additional Sketchnote on Creating a Vision

📖 Visioneering, by Andy Stanley. I read this book a few years ago and it gives a practical approach to creating a vision. He offers 20 building blocks to figuring out a vision for your team. Definitely worth a read if you are really interested in honing your skills here. You can use my visual sketchnote summary for paid subscribers below of the 20 building blocks as you read as well!

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Stepping into leadership for the first time can feel like entering an entirely new world. As an individual contributor, your success was measured by your ability to execute, how well you completed tasks, solved problems, and delivered results. You were responsible for your own work, and the formula for success was relatively straightforward: work hard, develop expertise, and prove your value through your contributions.

But as you move into a leadership role, everything changes. Your success is no longer just about what you accomplish, it’s about how well you enable others to succeed. The skills that made you a high performer as an individual contributor won’t necessarily make you a great leader. Instead, you have to shift the way you think and how you interact with your team.

POLL: How Did You Feel When You First Became A Leader

It’s a Sliding Scale, Not a Light Switch 🎚️

One of the most important things I have realized about leadership is that it’s not about flipping a switch, it’s about learning to adjust on a sliding scale. It feels like is should be a light switch because that’s how you became a leader. One day you weren’t one and then next day you were. But the skills needed to lead well don’t happen that quickly. Leadership requires balance, and different situations demand different approaches.

Imagine a scale where one end represents the mindset of an individual contributor, and the other represents the mindset of a leader. Throughout your leadership journey, you’ll need to move along this scale depending on the context, your team’s needs, and your organization’s goals.

Through my experience, I’ve identified six fundamental mindset shifts that a leader must make. Some seasons, you’ll feel yourself leaning toward one side, and on others, you’ll need to adjust to the opposite end. The key is recognizing when and how to shift so that you can lead effectively. The next 6 entries on Drawn to Lead will unpack each shift in more depth, but below is a high-level overview and an exercise for you to do today.

SHIFT 1: From Today to the Future 📆

As an individual contributor, your focus was on getting things done today, solving immediate problems, meeting deadlines, and handling urgent tasks. But as a leader, you have to start thinking beyond the present and set a clear vision for the future. You’re no longer just responsible for executing, you’re responsible for guiding your team toward long-term success.

SHIFT 2: From Creating to Delegating 🔓

You used to be hands-on, directly involved in every task and project. But leadership requires you to step back and trust your team to take ownership. If you try to do everything yourself, you’ll burn out and prevent your team from growing. Delegation isn’t about offloading work, it’s about empowering others to step up.

SHIFT 3: From Player to Coach 📋

As an individual contributor, success was about your own performance. But in leadership, your job is no longer to be the best player, it’s to develop and elevate others. Just like a coach doesn’t take the shots but prepares the team to win, a leader’s role is to mentor, guide, and build others into high performers.

SHIFT 4: From Self to Team 👨‍💻👩‍💻🧑‍💻

Early in your career, you were rewarded for your personal achievements. But as a leader, your wins are measured by how well your team performs. Great leaders shift their focus from individual success to creating an environment where the entire team can thrive.

SHIFT 5: From Collaborating to Empowering 🚧

Collaboration is essential, but there’s a difference between being involved in everything and empowering your team to work independently. Leaders must build teams that can operate effectively without constant oversight. This shift allows your team to grow and take ownership, while you focus on strategy and vision.

SHIFT 6: From Talking to Listening 👂🎧

As an individual contributor, you likely focused on making your voice heard, sharing ideas, contributing solutions, and speaking up. But leadership requires a shift toward active listening. Great leaders ask more questions, create space for discussion, and truly hear what their team has to say before making decisions.

Reflective Exercise: Where are you today?

To determine which of these you need to start sliding to the right first, you need to figure out where you are today. Get a piece of paper and draw the sliders or download the worksheet below. Then, think/journal through the following questions:

1. Where do I fall on each of these sliders?

2. Where do I need to shift more to the right for my current team?

Your first thought may be that you want to shift all of them, but choose one or two to focus on first.

Self Assessment Worksheet

1.49MB ∙ PDF file

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Download this free template to determine when you fall on the leadership sliders.

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Over the next series of posts, we’ll dive deeper into each of these six shifts, focusing on practical applications, challenges, and strategies to help you get started on these shifts effectively. I’m excited to walk with you on this journey. If you have any questions, feel free to message me directly.

- Kacy @

And if you’re like most new leaders, you probably didn’t get formal training on how to lead. Neither did I. Honestly, neither do most people. More than likely you were good at your job and you stayed at your company long enough. Which is great, until you realize you have no idea what you are doing.

Here’s the good news though, no one has it all figured out! Even the most seasoned leaders are still making things up as they go. The second thing? Leadership isn’t just an extra responsibility, it’s a lens through which you now see everything. It shapes how you interact with your team, make decisions, and solve problems. And while you won’t ever achieve perfect leadership, the daily choice to show up, learn, and grow will make leading feel more natural over time.

Start with this Thought Exercise 💭

So, where do you begin? A great first step is to clarify what success looks like. Have you stopped to consider what it would look like for someone to do this role in a world-class way? Imagine the best leader in your position—what would they be doing differently? How would they show up in meetings, handle challenges, or develop their team? Write down your answers to these questions to create a high-level vision of leadership. (Note: You won’t know every skill you will need so stick with broad strokes.)

Every leadership role requires a mix of communication, decision-making, emotional intelligence, and problem-solving, but there may be other skills unique to your role. What are the specific skills that will make you effective? Add these to the list.

Then, based on the list of skills/characteristics you have written down, assess which fall into your strengths and which fall into your weaknesses. Maybe you’re confident in your ability to strategize but struggle with delegation. Or perhaps you’re a great problem solver but find it difficult to have tough conversations. Taking an honest look at yourself early will help you understand where to lean in and where there are gaps you need to fill.

Here is an image from me doing this exact exercise before taking on a big project. 👇

It’s also a Mindset Shift 🧠 ➡️

Of course, stepping into leadership isn’t just about skills—it’s also about mindset. It’s natural to have concerns or fears about taking on this responsibility. What are the doubts creeping into your mind? Maybe you’re wondering if you’re really capable, if your team will respect you, or if you’ll make the wrong decisions. Instead of letting these worries fester, bring them to the surface. Once you acknowledge them, you can start finding ways to address them. For example, if you’re worried about making the wrong decisions, consider seeking input from trusted colleagues before making big calls. If you’re unsure about earning respect, focus on leading with authenticity and consistency rather than authority alone.

At the end of the day, leadership isn’t about having all the answers—it’s about asking the right questions, making thoughtful decisions, and committing to continuous growth. You will make mistakes. You will feel uncertain at times. But every great leader has been where you are now. The key is to keep showing up, learning from your experiences, and stepping into the leader you’re meant to be.

So, take a deep breath. You’ve got this.

Next Entry: Introducing the 6 Key Leadership Shifts!

Kacy @

On the other hand, the need to post at specific times, chase engagement metrics, and rapidly respond to comments just to appease the algorithm drained me. It felt like a hamster wheel, always trying to stay visible. The gap between genuine enjoyment and forced posting widened, and it got me thinking:

Who am I doing this for?

Initially, I just wanted to share creative insights. It’s why I created Sketchwell to start branding my sketches. I got positive feedback and found myself inadvertently gaining a reputation as “the LinkedIn sketchnote guy.” While that recognition opened some doors, it also created some new, perceived obligations. I felt the need to have post more and always have them receive strong engagement and even creating a bi-weekly newsletter. At times it became a chore. So, I took a break. I stopped posting for 30 days. And it felt good. I didn’t miss it as much as I thought. But I did lose some motivation to create. And that’s what I actually wanted back.

Working to Find My Purpose

When I started posting again after my hiatus, I wasn’t as excited to post things. My posting was irregular and all over the place. I wasn’t even really sure why I was doing it anymore. So, on my solitude trip this year, I journaled through a series of questions that were designed to either help me figure out my purpose or show me that I was ready to move on to something new.

As I reflected on my content, I started to see how my online presence often reflected the leader and thinker I aspired to be, rather than showing the full, messy reality of the person behind it. It wasn’t a conscious deception; it was simply how most of us present ourselves online: our highlights, minus our vulnerabilities.

One thought popped into my mind: What if I showed more of myself, my beliefs, my mistakes, my learning edges, and, in doing so, truly helped people level up? What if I stopped focusing on pithy leadership quotes and dug into the nuanced challenges, especially those faced by new leaders trying to find their footing?

Those questions began nudging me toward a “purpose-driven” approach. I realized I was never wanted to be an influencer. I’d rather be a person of influence, someone who offers real tools and conversations that help leaders (especially brand-new ones) navigate uncharted waters.

What you can expect from Drawn to Lead

Ok. Great. You’ve heard a little about my journey to get here, but what does that mean practically? Well, besides moving my newsletter from beehiiv to here on Substack, I’ve decided to also pivot my content in three meaningful ways:

1. ⭐️ Focus on New Leaders. Leadership, especially for those stepping into their very first roles, can feel overwhelming. I’m dedicating my energy to creating resources, short videos, visuals, blog posts, and maybe even group coaching sessions that help new leaders go from “What am I even doing?” to “I have a plan and the confidence to execute it.” While this will be focused on New Leaders, it will also be valuable for those who have been leading for a while but don’t have a solid foundation.

2. 💬 Create Authentic Discussions. It’s not just about LinkedIn likes. My hope is to create spaces through email or a possible Slack community where people can share real challenges and glean real insights from peers and mentors.

3. 🛠️ Offer Tangible Tools. From downloadable journals to coaching programs, I’m experimenting with ways to deliver structured guidance. (let me know if you want early access) Maybe that’s a low-cost digital workbook for leaders looking to map out their first 90 days, or a hands-on group coaching session where we troubleshoot leadership dilemmas in real time.

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So is Drawn to Lead for you?

I still plan to deliver my messages through a mix of simple visuals, written content, and videos. The difference now is that I’m seeking to do it with more intention. If you resonate with any of the following, this content might be for you:

• You’re a New or Aspiring Leader
  Maybe you’ve just been promoted, or you’re eyeing the next rung on the career ladder. You want grounded, practical tips beyond the typical “inspirational quotes” that flood your feed.

• You Want to Think for Yourself
  Instead of just doing what a ‘guru’ tells you to do, you want to be given frameworks and prompts that help you work through your situations on your own.

• You Value Depth Over Virality
  Viral posts are often generic enough to apply to everyone, but specifically not practical. Deeper more nuanced posts often get less interaction but for those that are in that situation, they are gold!

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Will you join me?

I don’t have it all figured out (and probably never will). Ultimately, it’s about community, creativity, and authentic growth. I’m leaning in, sometimes with excitement, sometimes with a bit of fear, but always with a desire to learn and serve. If that sounds like a journey you’d enjoy following, I’d love to have you along for the ride.

Ready to go? Start with Entry 1: Welcome to Leadership

— Kacy @ Drawn to Lead