Habits That Stick
The Quiet Leadership Practice That Changes Teams Over Time
Most experienced leaders don’t struggle with effort. They struggle with drift.
Over time, the pressure to deliver, scale, and respond pulls attention toward tasks, metrics, and timelines. None of that is wrong. But somewhere along the way, many leaders slowly trade a people-first habit for an efficiency-first posture, usually without noticing when it happened.
The result is subtle. Teams still deliver, meetings still happen, and one on ones still exist on the calendar. But the energy fades. Ownership thins. The impact of leadership plateaus.
That’s not a motivation problem…it’s a habit problem.
When “All Business” Feels Like the Safe Choice
Early in my leadership career, I genuinely enjoyed getting to know people. I’ve always believed everyone carries a story worth understanding. But when I first stepped into formal leadership, I kept things strictly professional. One on ones focused on delivery, responsibilities, and next steps. That felt appropriate, and appropriately disciplined.
Then, during my seven years as a QA Manager, our team was relocated for about two years into a tight office space, separated from the engineers we had previously been co-located with. Delivery pressure didn’t ease, and we naturally found that coordination became harder.
Something interesting happened during that period. Without planning it, the team started finding small ways to connect. We played board games during lunch. We had organically coordinated breaks. And we found ourselves having more informal conversations that had nothing to do with test plans or release dates.
As a group, we got tighter. Energy increased and people had each other’s backs. That sense of loyalty and shared responsibility carried through difficult work, and those bonds are still strong more than a decade later.
Only later did I recognize what had changed. We hadn’t added a program or lowered standards. We had simply treated each other more fully as people.
The Habit Wasn’t Big. It Was Consistent.
The habit that mattered most wasn’t the games or the lunches. It was what showed up repeatedly in day-to-day leadership interactions.
In one on ones, I started by asking about the person rather than focusing solely on the task. I listened to understand, not to respond. When someone needed space to unload, I made it clear that the time was theirs.
Accountability didn’t disappear and deadlines didn’t soften. But conversations about delivery came from a place of care, and people felt it. When leaders care, accountability feels different. It feels fair, it feels human, and it feels worth engaging with.
As Patrick Lencioni writes in The Five Dysfunctions of a Team, “Trust is knowing that when a team member does push you, they’re doing it because they care about the team.” That kind of trust doesn’t come from a quarterly initiative. It comes from habits practiced quietly, over time.
The Cost of Skipping This Habit
Leaders who stay purely task-focused often still get results. That’s what makes this mistake easy to justify. But the cost shows up elsewhere.
Engagement becomes transactional. Discretionary effort fades. Leaders advance more slowly because influence is thinner than it appears on paper. Teams do what’s required, not what’s possible.
Stephen M. R. Covey captured this dynamic in The Speed of Trust when he wrote, “When trust goes down, speed goes down and cost goes up.” The cost isn’t always budgetary. It’s energy, resilience, and leadership credibility.
This Isn’t About Doing More
One of the most common objections I hear from experienced managers is time. There’s a belief that personal connection requires long conversations or emotional labor that simply doesn’t fit.
In practice, this habit rarely adds time. Even one genuine question at the start of a one on one can change the tone of everything that follows. If something needs to drop from the end of the meeting, it’s usually less important than the trust built at the beginning.
James Collins wrote in Good to Great, “Great vision without great people is irrelevant.” The habit of seeing people clearly is how great people stay great under pressure.
The Leadership Drift to Watch For
For managers and directors especially, this habit tends to erode not because it’s unimportant, but because it feels optional when things get busy (and they’re more often busy than not).
The risk isn’t failure, it’s stagnation.
Leadership impact grows when small practices compound. Treating people as people is one of those practices. It doesn’t announce itself or show up on dashboards. But over time, it shapes culture, loyalty, and results in ways no process ever will.
If this challenge sounds familiar, I’m happy to have a private conversation. No pitch, just clarity.