There was a moment, years ago, when my supervisor pulled me aside and asked if I’d consider stepping into a team lead role. I remember my exact response. “Okay, what does that entail?” Not “yes, absolutely,” not “I’ve been waiting for this.” Just me, shocked, trying to figure out what I was even saying yes to.
That was my first real introduction to leadership, and self-leadership specifically, and it happened the way it happens for a lot of us. Not because I planned it. Not because I had a five year vision board with “leader” written across the top. I was a therapist at a mental health clinic, doing work I loved, surrounded by people I respected, and then suddenly I was managing schedules, handling client crises, and supporting my colleagues through their hardest days. I said yes before I understood what I was agreeing to, and then I spent the next several years figuring it out in real time.
What I didn’t realize then is that I was leading reactively. I was responding to whatever came across my desk, putting out fires, doing the next right thing without asking myself what kind of leader I actually wanted to be. There’s nothing wrong with that as a starting point. Most of us start there. But at some point, if you stay in it long enough, you start to notice the gap between filling a role and leading with intention.
This post actually grew out of an episode of the Brown Heart Wellness Podcast, where I talk through this exact season in a lot more detail. You can listen right here.
What Self-Leadership Actually Looks Like
Self-leadership is the part nobody tells you about when you get promoted. It’s not on the job description. It’s the practice of leading yourself, your thoughts, your habits, your mindset, before you ever try to lead someone else. And here’s the part that surprised me most. I didn’t learn it by leading more. I learned it by pausing.
I want to be honest about how that pause showed up in my own life, because it wasn’t graceful.
Reflect: Noticing How I Was Actually Showing Up
As I grew into the role, I started watching the leaders around me more closely. The way they delivered hard news. The way they advocated for their teams. The way they made space for people without losing themselves in the process. I noticed gaps, moments where I thought, I would have handled that differently. That noticing was the beginning of reflection. Not judgment, just honest observation of what leadership looked like in front of me, and what it didn’t yet look like in me.
Open: Letting Go of “Just Get It Done”
For a long time, my version of leadership was reactive. Get through the day, handle what’s in front of you, keep moving. Opening up meant asking a harder question. What do I actually value, and is the way I’m operating right now lined up with that? It meant being willing to consider that I could lead differently, even if I didn’t have a clear picture yet of what that looked like.
Overcome: The Invoices I Forgot and the Mindset I Had to Face
Here’s the part of the story I don’t usually tell. I had already cut back my private practice caseload to focus on growing into this new chapter of leadership, but I kept holding onto a handful of clients. Partly because I loved the work. Mostly, if I’m honest, because that income felt like a safety net for a scarcity mindset I hadn’t fully looked at yet.
One day I realized I hadn’t processed invoices in almost two months. I hadn’t gotten paid in two months and hadn’t even noticed. I had to call my clients, admit my mistake, and ask how they wanted to handle it. I felt sick about it. But it cracked something open. Holding on to that “something on the side” wasn’t serving my clients, and it definitely wasn’t serving the kind of leader I said I wanted to become.
That’s the part of self-leadership that’s easy to skip past. It’s not just about mindset shifts and journal prompts, although those matter. It’s about being willing to look at the places where fear is dressed up as responsibility, or where scarcity is dressed up as practicality, and choosing to overcome that, even when it costs you something in the short term. If you’re noticing your own version of that gap right now, that’s exactly the kind of pattern we work through together in therapy and coaching, because awareness alone rarely changes the pattern. It takes practice, support, and usually a little bit of bravery.
Thrive: Leading Myself Before I Lead Anyone Else
Pausing my private practice wasn’t an easy choice. It meant giving up a financial cushion and a part of my identity I’d built over years. But I had to lead myself through that decision before I could lead anyone else through anything. I had to trust that stepping back was actually a form of moving forward, not a retreat from it.
Self-leadership, at its core, is choosing to lead yourself with the same intention you’d want to give to people who report to you, follow you, or trust you. It’s noticing your patterns, getting honest about what’s actually driving your decisions, and being willing to make a change even when it’s inconvenient. It’s a quieter kind of leadership than the one we usually see celebrated, but it’s the one everything else is built on.
Brown Heart Mindful Moment
Take a breath in, slow and full. Let it out even slower. Wherever you’re leading right now, at work, at home, in your own head, you don’t have to have it figured out to be honest about where you actually are.
Where in your life are you leading reactively instead of intentionally, and what would it look like to pause long enough to notice?
If this resonated and you’re ready to take one brave step, I’d love to connect. You can book a free consultation at samanthaedu.com/contact-us.
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