The habits that helped you succeed yesterday may be limiting you today

By Kevin Langkiet, PhD, MSN, RN

Healthcare leaders are constantly being tested by staffing shortages, new technology, financial pressure, quality expectations, regulatory requirements, workforce changes, and patient safety concerns. Because healthcare changes so rapidly, many leaders become very good at reacting. They adjust schedules, solve problems, answer questions, manage complaints, cover staffing gaps, and move from one operational issue to another.

That ability is important, but there is another leadership skill that is just as important and often much harder: recognizing when you need to change before circumstances force you to change.

Leaders naturally look outward when things are not working. We evaluate processes, assess staff performance, and look at communication, workflow, resources, technology, and organizational barriers. Sometimes, however, the most important question is much more personal: What if the thing that needs to change is not the environment, the team, or the process? What if it is how I am leading?

That is when leadership needs a reset.

What Is a Leadership Reset

A leadership reset is an intentional decision to stop, evaluate, and change a behavior, habit, process, or leadership approach that is no longer producing the result you need. A reset does not mean starting over, and it does not mean you have failed. It means recognizing that something that once worked may no longer fit where you are today.

An intentional reset differs from a forced change. Reactive change happens after something goes wrong. Performance declines, employees complain, turnover increases, a supervisor intervenes, or a problem escalates. At that point, change is no longer optional.

An intentional reset happens earlier. You recognize the warning signs, evaluate what is happening, and make a deliberate change before the situation creates larger consequences. Strong leaders do not wait until the organization tells them they have to change. They develop enough self-awareness to recognize when it is time to adjust their own leadership first.

Success Can Create Leadership Blind Spots

One of the hardest things for successful leaders to recognize is that a behavior that helped them succeed earlier in their career may eventually limit their effectiveness.

Think about how many nurse leaders begin their careers. They become known as the person who can solve problems. Something goes wrong, and they fix it. A staff member needs help, and they step in. A difficult situation develops, and they take control.

Those behaviors can make someone an excellent bedside nurse or charge nurse. They can even help a new manager establish credibility. But as leadership responsibility increases, those same behaviors can become barriers. The leader who solves every problem may unintentionally prevent others from developing. The leader who remains involved in every detail may never create time for strategic thinking. The leader who has always been the expert may struggle to delegate. The leader who built a reputation on always being available may eventually become overwhelmed because everyone depends on that availability.

The behavior was not necessarily wrong. It may simply no longer fit the role. That is one of the most important lessons in leadership development: sometimes growth requires letting go of a behavior that once made you successful.

Reset 1: Stop Solving Every Problem

Healthcare leaders are often promoted because they solve problems well. That strength can become a weakness if the leader keeps solving problems personally that others should be learning to solve.

Leadership maturity requires a progression:

• Early in a career: Solve the problem.
• As leadership responsibility grows: Coach someone through the problem.
• At a higher level of leadership: Build a team that can solve problems without you.

I learned this lesson during a hospital incident command event. I was serving as the Incident Commander when a junior leader encountered a significant problem. Several times, he asked me to take over. I did not. I stayed informed, asked questions, and provided guidance when necessary, but I kept him responsible for working through the problem.

Eventually, the situation was resolved. Afterward, we discussed why I had not stepped in. As Incident Commander, I was responsible for maintaining awareness of the entire event. If I had taken over that one problem, I would have narrowed my attention from the overall response to a single operational issue.

There was another reason: he needed the opportunity to lead. Earlier in my career, my instinct may have been to step in because I knew I could solve the problem. Experience taught me something different. Leadership isn't always about showing you can fix something. Sometimes leadership means creating the environment where someone else learns how to fix it.

A useful question for every leader is: Am I solving this problem because I need to, or because I know I can? Those are not the same thing.

Reset 2: Examine Where Your Time Is Going

A leader’s calendar can reveal a great deal about how that leader is functioning. Look at your typical week and ask how much time is spent leading versus reacting. How much time do you spend in meetings? How much time do you spend answering questions someone else could answer? How much time do you spend doing work simply because you have always been the person who does it?

Healthcare leaders can become extremely busy without necessarily becoming more effective. A leader may attend meetings from morning until afternoon, respond to email between meetings, handle staffing issues, approve routine requests, and answer employee questions throughout the day. At the end of twelve hours, that leader may be exhausted.

But exhaustion is not evidence of effectiveness. Sometimes it shows the leader has become too operational.

Consider a standing meeting that has existed for years. Everyone attends, everyone provides an update, the meeting lasts an hour, and very few decisions are made. The natural leadership response may be, “How can I make this meeting more efficient?” The better question may be, “Why are we still having this meeting?”

There is little value in making an unnecessary process more efficient. Before improving something, first determine whether it still needs to exist.

The same applies to your own responsibilities. Don't simply ask, "What am I doing?" Ask, Why am I the person doing it? That one question can reveal work that should be delegated, redesigned, automated, eliminated, or returned to the appropriate owner.

Reset 3: Address What You Have Been Tolerating

Not every leadership reset involves productivity. Sometimes the reset involves accountability.

Leaders frequently delay difficult conversations because the issue seems small or because addressing it feels uncomfortable. An employee arrives late several times. Someone consistently refuses to help coworkers. A team member communicates disrespectfully. Another employee produces inconsistent work. Nothing dramatic happens, so the behavior continues.

But other employees notice. When unwanted behavior repeats without a leadership response, people begin to interpret the lack of action as acceptance. Over time, tolerated behavior can become normalized behavior. At that point, the issue is no longer simply about one employee. It begins influencing the culture.

Imagine one employee consistently arriving ten minutes late. Initially, no one says anything. Other employees notice. Eventually, someone else begins doing the same thing. Then another employee asks why the attendance expectation seems to apply differently depending on the person. What started as one performance issue has now become a leadership credibility problem.

What leaders repeatedly tolerate eventually teaches the team what is acceptable.

Addressing performance early is not unnecessarily harsh. In many cases, it is far more respectful than letting someone continue until the situation becomes so serious that termination or formal discipline is the only remaining option. Employees deserve clarity around what is expected, what needs to change, what support is available, and what happens if the behavior continues.

Those conversations are part of leadership. Avoiding them does not eliminate the problem. It usually allows the problem to grow.

Reset 4: Stop Confusing Activity With Leadership

Healthcare often rewards activity. People who answer quickly are praised. The leader who is always available is considered dedicated. The manager who jumps into every situation is described as engaged. The director who attends every meeting is seen as involved.

Those behaviors are not automatically wrong, but leaders need to distinguish between being busy and being effective. There is a difference between being involved, being needed, being available, and actually leading.

Consider a department director who answers every text, approves every minor decision, attends nearly every meeting, and becomes personally involved in every staffing problem. The organization may describe that leader as highly involved. But ask a different question: What happens when that director is gone for a week?

If decisions stop, problems pile up, and employees can't function without the leader, the organization may lack strong leadership capacity. It may have leadership dependency.

A strong leader does not become indispensable by doing everything personally. A strong leader develops people, builds systems, establishes expectations, and creates enough capability within the team that the work continues even when the leader is not in the room. That requires trust, delegation, and a willingness to give up some control.

For many leaders, that is the reset.

Reset 5: Reevaluate How You Lead People

Leadership methods cannot become permanent simply because they worked before. Teams change. Organizations change. Expectations change. Generations enter and leave the workforce. Employee needs change. Leaders must keep adapting as well.

That does not mean changing your core values every time the environment changes. Your values should remain stable, while your methods remain flexible.

For example, accountability may be one of your core leadership values. But how you create accountability may vary by individual and circumstance. A highly experienced ICU nurse may need significant autonomy, while a newly licensed nurse may need structure, coaching, and frequent feedback. Treating both individuals exactly the same may look consistent, but it may not be effective leadership.

Consistency does not mean identical treatment. It means applying your values fairly while adapting your leadership approach to the situation's needs.

That requires leaders to occasionally ask: Is this approach working because it is appropriate, or am I using it simply because it is familiar? There is an important difference.

When the Reset Is Avoided

One reason leaders need to recognize the need for a reset early is that eventually the decision may no longer belong to them. Warning signs often appear first:

• Staff engagement declines
• Turnover increases
• Accountability weakens
• Conflict increases
• The leader becomes exhausted
• Operational problems become repetitive
• Employee survey results decline
• Performance goals are missed
• Complaints begin moving upward through the organization

Eventually, senior leadership or human resources becomes involved. At that point, the reset may still happen, but someone else directs it.

Imagine a leader who avoids addressing declining employee performance for months. Complaints increase, coworkers become frustrated, HR becomes involved, and the employee begins documenting inconsistent expectations. Senior leadership then begins asking why the problem was allowed to continue.

The original performance problem still exists, but now a second problem emerges. The leader’s failure to act has become part of the issue.

The longer a necessary reset is avoided, the more likely someone else will eventually decide what that reset looks like. That is why intentional change matters. An intentional reset preserves options. A forced reset usually comes with consequences.

How Do You Know When You Need a Leadership Reset

Leadership problems rarely announce themselves clearly. More often, they appear as patterns. The same employee issue keeps returning. The same meeting produces the same frustration. The same operational crisis happens every week. The same conflict repeatedly reaches your office. The same task continues consuming your time.

Patterns matter. One difficult meeting does not necessarily mean your leadership approach needs to change, but repeated frustration, recurring breakdowns, and predictable problems deserve attention.

Ask yourself:

• What am I doing today simply because I have always done it?
• Where has my team become too dependent on me?
• What difficult conversation have I been avoiding?
• What am I spending time on that someone else could own?
• What behavior am I tolerating that I would not want replicated across the entire team?
• What leadership habit worked earlier in my career but may not fit my role today?
• Where am I reacting instead of leading?
• What would stop functioning if I disappeared for two weeks?
• What feedback have I heard repeatedly but still have not acted on?

These questions aren't meant to make a leader question everything. They're meant to identify where leadership may have become automatic.

The moment we stop examining how we lead is often when our leadership begins to fall behind the needs of the organization and the people we serve.

The Three-Part Leadership Reset

A reset does not need to be complicated. It can begin with three questions.

Stop

Identify what is no longer working. Ask yourself, What do I need to stop doing? Maybe you need to stop solving every employee problem, stop attending a meeting that no longer creates value, or stop delaying a conversation that should have happened weeks ago.

Start

Identify the behavior that needs to replace it. Ask yourself, What do I need to start doing? Instead of giving employees the answer, begin asking, “What do you think we should do?” Instead of completing a routine task yourself, identify who else can own it. Instead of hoping a performance issue improves, establish a clear expectation and discuss it directly.

Sustain

A reset only matters if the new behavior continues. Ask yourself, what will I do to make this change stick? If your reset involves developing more independent decision-makers, do not immediately take problems back the first time someone struggles. Coach them, ask questions, allow appropriate mistakes, provide feedback, and then allow the employee to try again.

Otherwise, the reset becomes temporary, and the old leadership pattern quickly returns.

Sometimes the Leader Needs to Change First

Leaders are usually very good at identifying what needs to change around them. The staffing model needs to change. The workflow needs to change. Communication needs to improve. Employees need to become more accountable. The culture needs to change. The organization needs to change.

Sometimes all of those things may be true, but leadership growth requires us to ask one more question: What do I need to change first?

That may mean asking yourself whether you talk more than you listen, avoid difficult conversations, remain too involved in operations, solve problems your team should be learning to solve, or continue holding meetings because they have always been there. It may also mean asking whether you use the same leadership approach with everyone because it works, or simply because it is comfortable.

Perhaps the most revealing question is this: Have I built a strong team, or a team that depends on me?

Those questions require humility, but they also require confidence. Strong leaders are not afraid to examine their own effectiveness. They understand that changing a leadership behavior does not diminish everything they have accomplished. It demonstrates that they are still growing.

A leadership reset does not erase your experience. It uses that experience to recognize when it is time to lead differently.

The strongest leaders do not wait until declining performance, damaged relationships, employee turnover, or organizational pressure forces them to make a change. They recognize the warning signs earlier. They stop, evaluate, and reset.

The hardest leadership question is rarely, “What does my team need to change?” More often, the question worth asking is: “What do I need to stop doing, start doing, or do differently?”

Sometimes the most important change in an organization begins with the leader.