I remember being in my twenties, working as a sales manager for a consumer products company. The owner was a self-made multimillionaire who had earned his first million by age 25. By the time I went to work for him, he was 35 and had a remarkable ability to move people. He could motivate a room, inspire confidence and create belief in people that changed their performance almost instantly.
After I became one of the top salespeople in the company, he asked me to step into training. That opportunity changed everything. He became my mentor and he agreed to teach me how to become a national trainer for our fast-growing company.
I became fascinated with the way he used his words. It was not just what he said, but how he said it. He knew how to challenge people without discouraging them. He knew how to inspire action. He knew how to make people see more in themselves than they saw on their own.
As a young woman in my twenties, I wanted to learn how to do that.
So, I followed him around with a notebook.
I wrote down his key phrases. I studied how people responded. I paid attention to the pauses, the timing and the confidence behind every difficult conversation. I knew that if I practiced saying the words and made them feel like my own, they would eventually become natural. I was disciplined enough to keep at it until they did.
Small changes turn into small habits. Small habits turn into leadership instincts. Those instincts can change an entire career. That discipline changed mine and it changed the trajectory of what I was able to build, lead and become over the next several decades.
How Creating Small Habits Led to a Big Career
I was promoted from national trainer to leading the national recruiting team, and then to National VP of Sales. I led the growth of over 300% revenue increase in 18 months. Those opportunities and the success did not happen by accident. They came from making the deliberate decision to keep learning, keep improving and stay open to change.
If leaders are not cultivating new skills, they are standing still. In today's business climate, standing still is one of the fastest ways to limit your corporate influence and your team's growth.
The World Has Changed. Have You?
The world has changed. Customer expectations are different. Employees expect a different kind of leadership. Technology is moving faster than ever. AI is changing how work gets done. And yes, COVID changed everything. But continuing to use change as an excuse only keeps leaders trapped in outdated habits.
The business climate will keep evolving whether we like it or not. The question is whether we are willing to evolve with it.
If we cannot conquer our own fear of change, how can we expect our teams to trust us through change?
Leaders who pretend they are already great and no longer need to improve are robbing themselves of success. Worse, they are robbing their teams of the chance to feel successful under stronger leadership.
Growth requires humility. It requires awareness. And most of all, it requires discipline.
3 Ways to Lead Better
Here are three ways leaders can become more disciplined in learning new skills:
Study leadership in real-time. Notice how leaders communicate during conflict, how they motivate under pressure and how they influence without force. Spend 10 minutes reflecting on one interaction each day and ask what worked, what did not and what you could improve.
Build one micro-habit at a time. Choose one behavior to strengthen. Maybe it is pausing before reacting. Maybe it is asking better questions. Maybe it is becoming more intentional with your words. One small shift practiced daily becomes a habit, and habits are what shape leadership presence.
Stop hiding behind excuses. Too many leaders say, "These are tough times," or "COVID changed everything." Both may be true. But excuses do not build stronger leadership. The better question is: “What new skill do I need to lead this team in today's environment?”
Over the years, these small disciplines helped me turn around sales, customer service and technical support teams in less than 120 days, again and again. Revenue increased, CSAT scores improved and teams produced millions of dollars in measurable business impact.
None of that came from natural talent alone. It came from small habits practiced consistently over time. That is how careers change. That is how leaders grow. And that is how teams thrive in an ever-changing business climate.
The leaders who succeed tomorrow will be the ones disciplined enough to keep learning today.