The instinct that got you here (Upgrade not included!)
The instincts that made you successful as a manager will quietly limit you as an executive.
There’s no upgrade when you step into a senior role. No new operating system. No reset button (not yet anyway!).
If you’re still running the same patterns- solving, fixing, stepping in - at an executive level, those instincts start to create the very problems you’re trying to solve.
One day you're managing a team, solving problems, making things work, and the next you're expected to think differently about everything. The trouble is, the operational instincts that got you here are strong, deeply embedded, and honestly, quite satisfying to act on. Letting go of them is harder than anyone tells you.
From fixing to designing
Most senior leaders in the for-purpose sector didn't start their careers in the boardroom. Many started on the frontline - in a community setting, a client's home, a crisis centre. They built their careers by being responsive, capable, and solutions focused. Every promotion rewarded those instincts.
The skills that earned each promotion gradually become the very instincts that hold senior leaders back.
Systems thinking shifts attention from individual problems to patterns, from outputs to conditions, from doing to designing. Instead of asking what's broken and how do we fix it, it asks why does this keep breaking, and what would need to change so it didn't?
This transition rarely happens in a moment of clarity, and most executives carry both modes simultaneously, moving between them depending on the day, the pressure, and honestly, how satisfying it feels to just solve something.
In my first month as a CEO, I remember co-facilitating a drama session, mid-activity, genuinely having a great time - and then catching myself. On my desk, untouched, was a draft recruitment strategy. The very document that might have prevented the staffing shortage that had me delivering the session in the first place.
Solving problems quickly often prevents you from solving the right ones.
I had to finish the session. Safe ratios don't negotiate! Before locking up, I stuck a post-it on my screen: review recruitment strategy!! It wasn’t a grand moment of transformation. Just a small act of accountability to my actual job.
An important distinction worth noting is this:
Getting involved to support is different from getting involved to control.
The first is leadership. The second is a sign that something in the system needs attention.
When I stepped into my CEO role, the culture was fractured. Walking the floor and rolling up my sleeves wasn't a lapse; I was getting involved to support. It cost me time in the short term while it built relationships that saved me far more later on.
But getting involved to control was quieter and more corrosive: thinking it would be quicker or better to do it myself, not wanting to add to a stretched team. These slowed succession planning and quietly consumed the headspace that systems thinking requires.
Building the systems thinking muscle
Like any shift in thinking, this takes deliberate practice. A few approaches that help:
Choose your mode.
Ask yourself regularly: Am I operating at the right level right now? Naming it helps you choose consciously rather than drift.
Follow the pattern, not the incident.
When a problem lands on your desk, resist the urge to immediately solve it. Ask first: Is this a one-off or a symptom? If a team member raises the same concern three times, is it the person or the system?
Protect thinking time.
Systems thinking requires space that operational urgency will always crowd out. A weekly hour of unstructured reflection is more strategic than most things in your calendar.
Ask your team better questions.
Instead of asking what happened and what did you do try what does this tell us about how the organisation is working?
From Frontline Worker to CEO
My career path, from Disability Field Supervisor through every level to CEO, means I understand the work from the inside out. But it comes with a shadow side. I love a 'to-do' list. The pull to add something operational, something concrete and completable, is persistent. Building the systems thinking muscle has been deliberate work.
What I’m reading
Adam Grant's Think Again (2021) is the book I keep returning to on this topic. His central argument is simple: the ability to unlearn may matter more than the ability to learn. The instincts and mental models that made us effective at one level of leadership can become the very thing that holds us back at the next. If the shift to systems thinking feels harder than it should, this book explains why - and gives you practical ways through it. Well worth a read or a re-read.
Here’s the practice
The shift from operational to systems thinking is an ongoing practice of noticing which mode you're in and choosing deliberately. Most of us slip up. The goal isn't perfection; it's awareness and building the muscle.
As a coach, my job is the opposite of what got me here. I'm not here to fix things. I'm here to notice patterns, ask better questions, and think about the whole system.
Where do you feel the pull back into operations most strongly? Is it hiring decisions, operational crises, performance issues, or something else entirely?