The Desire to Evolve Your Leadership Isn't Enough (And What You Actually Need)
- Brainz Magazine
- 3 hours ago
- 8 min read
Written by Jonathan Rozenblit, Leadership Development Coach
Jonathan Rozenblit is a Professional Certified Coach (ICF-PCC), author, and podcast host who specializes in helping corporate professionals discover and develop their unique practice of leadership. His focus is on the inner work of leadership, creating conditions for people to be, bring, and do their best.
When you recognize the need to evolve your leadership practice, whether that recognition comes from newfound awareness, feedback from others, or an internal drive for growth, success hinges on more than just knowing what to change. True, lasting change requires the alignment of three essential elements that work together to create sustainable shifts in how you lead. Understanding how these elements interact can mean the difference between surface-level adjustments that quickly fade and deep practice shifts that fundamentally reshape your leadership effectiveness.
You feel it. That pull to evolve your leadership practice. Maybe it emerged from a feedback conversation you recently had or from watching another leader create the kind of engagement you want. Perhaps you’ve realized that how you have been leading is no longer aligned with how you want to lead. So, you decide that it’s time to change. You try new approaches. You might even feel glimpses of change. But somehow, the evolution you seek remains just out of reach. The old patterns creep back. The evolution feels temporary. And you are left wondering why your genuine desire for growth is not translating into lasting change.
For most, desire alone, no matter how authentic or intense, cannot create sustainable change in a practice of leadership. Real change requires three distinct elements working in harmony. Once you understand these three elements and how they interact, you can diagnose exactly why certain changes haven’t stuck and know precisely where to focus your energy to create the change you seek.
Self-awareness: The foundation that makes change possible
Self-awareness is not binary. You do not simply have it or lack it. Instead, think of self-awareness as layers, each one complete yet revealing different depths of understanding about yourself and your practice.
At the surface, you might be aware of your behaviors, you notice when you interrupt in meetings or when you default to giving solutions rather than asking questions. Go deeper, and you discover the emotions driving those behaviors, perhaps impatience or a need to demonstrate value. Deeper still, you find the beliefs underneath, maybe that your worth as a leader comes from having answers. And at the deepest levels, you encounter identity itself, who you believe you are as a person and as a leader.
Each layer of awareness is complete and valid. But here is what matters for your evolution: the depth of your self-awareness determines what becomes available to change. With surface awareness, you can modify behaviors. With deeper awareness, you can shift beliefs and even identity. You cannot change what you are not yet aware of.
This is why some leadership changes feel impossible despite your best efforts. If you are only aware of the surface behavior and not the deeper beliefs driving it, you will find yourself constantly fighting against invisible forces. You might temporarily suppress the behavior through willpower, but it will return because its roots remain untouched.
Consider a leader struggling to delegate. On the surface, they see their behavior: holding onto tasks that others could handle. But without deeper awareness of the belief underneath, perhaps that their value comes from personal productivity, or that others will not meet their standards, they cannot create lasting change. The behavior is just a symptom. The belief is the source.
Desire: The energy that fuels your evolution
True desire generates energy. When you genuinely want to evolve some aspect of your leadership, the thought of it lights you up. You feel pulled toward the change rather than pushing yourself toward it. There is an easiness, even joy, in contemplating the possibility.
This is fundamentally different from thinking you should change. "Should" is exhausting. It comes from obligation, from external expectations, from not wanting to disappoint others or yourself. You might tell yourself you desire the change, yet every step toward it feels heavy. You go through the motions without genuine engagement. This is not desire, it is duty wearing desire's mask.
How do you know when desire is authentic? Pay attention to your energy. Genuine desire brings a sense of flow, an excitement that needs no explanation. You find yourself naturally thinking about the change, exploring possibilities, seeking resources. The work still requires effort, but the effort feels purposeful rather than forced.
Sometimes what feels like desire is actually fear in disguise. You might urgently want to become a better listener, but if that urgency comes from fear of losing your team's respect rather than genuine excitement about deeper connections, the energy is different. Fear-based motivation can create real desire for change, but until you convert that running-from energy into moving-toward energy, the change will be reactive rather than generative.
The distinction matters because desire provides the fuel for your evolution. Without it, you are trying to drive change on an empty tank, relying on willpower alone. And willpower, as you have likely discovered, is a limited resource that eventually depletes.
Willingness: The commitment that sustains the journey
Willingness is where most leaders believe they are strong, yet it is where most change efforts actually fail. You say you are willing to evolve your leadership. You mean it when you say it. Then the real work begins, and you discover that willingness is more complex than you imagined.
True willingness means committing the time to do the work, not just when convenient, but consistently. It means seeking out or building the support systems you need, even when that requires vulnerability. It means facing the discomfort of change with an open mind rather than resistance. And perhaps most importantly, it means maintaining the belief that change is possible even when progress feels invisible.
The test of willingness comes at the edges. When the new approach feels awkward. When your team seems confused by your different behavior. When reverting to old patterns would be so much easier. These edges are where you discover whether your willingness is complete or conditional.
Most people think they are willing until they hit these edges. Then every excuse emerges: not enough time, too much else going on, the approach is not working, maybe the old way was not so bad. In those moments, true willingness is changing your thinking from "I can’t" to "How can I?" Instead of finding reasons to stop, true willingness is finding ways to continue.
Here is what makes willingness especially challenging: it must be recursive. You need the willingness to maintain willingness, especially as you discover parts of yourself that want to resist the change. Surface willingness says, "I will do this." Deep willingness says, "I will work through whatever resistance emerges, including my own."
Lasting change is not about pushing through with brute force. It is about committing to exploring and working through the edges when you meet them, knowing that what lies beneath the surface only reveals itself through the actual doing.
Why all three must align
Awareness, desire, and willingness create a natural cascade when they align. Awareness opens the door to what is possible to change. Desire provides the energy to walk through that door.
Willingness sustains you through the entire journey. Each element feeds and strengthens the others.
The more deeply you become aware of something, how it affects you, how it impacts others, how it misaligns with your values, the more genuine desire for change naturally emerges. When that desire is authentic and joy-based rather than fear-driven, it generates the energy that makes willingness feel less like sacrifice and more like investment. And as you exercise willingness, working through edges and resistance, you often uncover deeper layers of awareness that further clarify your desire.
This is how sustainable change happens. Not through force, but through alignment.
Consider the leader navigating the shift from traditional authority-based leadership to modern collaborative leadership. When all three elements align, the journey unfolds naturally. They become aware not just that collaboration might work better, but of the deeper beliefs about control and value that make letting go difficult. They feel genuine desire, not just to avoid criticism, but excitement about what becomes possible when others contribute fully. And they bring complete willingness, not just to try new behaviors, but to work through the identity challenges that emerge when they no longer have all the answers.
When these three elements work together, change feels less like wrestling yourself into a new shape and more like growing into who you are becoming. The evolution still requires effort, but the effort has direction, energy, and sustainability.
When one element is missing
Change efforts fail in predictable patterns when one of these three elements is absent. Understanding these patterns helps you diagnose why certain changes remain elusive despite your best efforts.
Awareness and desire without willingness: You clearly see what needs to change. You genuinely want the evolution. But when the actual work begins, when you need to have that difficult conversation, admit you were wrong, or ask for help, you find reasons to delay. You perfect the plan instead of executing it. You wait for the "right time" that never comes. The change lives in your intentions but never in your practice.
Awareness and willingness without genuine desire: You know what should change. You commit time and resources to making it happen. You go through all the motions. But it feels performative because your heart is not in it. You are changing because you think you should, not because you truly want to. The result is mechanical compliance rather than authentic evolution. The behavior might shift temporarily, but without the desire's energy, it cannot be sustained.
Desire and willingness without awareness: You desperately want to be a better leader. You are ready to do whatever it takes. But without a clear awareness of what specifically needs to change and why, your efforts scatter. You try everything and nothing. You change the wrong things. Or you work on surface symptoms while the real issues remain hidden. All that energy and commitment spins without traction.
Forcing change without all three elements creates temporary adjustments at best, exhaustion and frustration at worst. The missing element is not a nice-to-have, it is essential. Before attempting change, build awareness through reflection and feedback, cultivate genuine desire by connecting to your deeper why, and develop willingness by creating the structures and support you need.
The evolution you seek is not a mystery
The evolution you seek in your leadership practice is not a mystery. It is not about working harder or wanting it more. It is about aligning three essential elements that, together, create the conditions for lasting change.
Think about a change you successfully made in your leadership, one that truly stuck. Perhaps you learned to listen before solving, or learned to share decision-making with your team. If you examine that success closely, you will likely find all three elements were present. You had clear awareness of what needed to change and why. You felt a genuine desire that energized rather than depleted you. And you brought complete willingness to work through whatever challenge emerged.
Now think about a change you have been struggling to make. A change you keep starting and stopping, or where progress feels impossibly slow. Which element is missing or is weak? Are you trying to change something you do not fully understand? Perhaps your desire is an obligation in disguise? Or are you saying you are willing, while finding every reason not to do the work?
The invitation here is not to judge yourself for what is missing, but to recognize where to focus your attention. If awareness is shallow, go deeper, explore beliefs and identity underneath the surface. If desire feels forced, reconnect with what genuinely lights you up about the possibility. If willingness wavers at the edges, build the support structures that help you sustain commitment when resistance emerges.
Your leadership practice evolves not through force of will alone, but through the thoughtful cultivation of awareness, desire, and willingness working in harmony. When all three align, the change you seek transforms from struggle to growth, still requiring effort, but effort with purpose, energy, and direction.
Read more from Jonathan Rozenblit
Jonathan Rozenblit, Leadership Development Coach
Jonathan Rozenblit guides corporate professionals through their journey of discovering and developing their unique practice of leadership so that they can create conditions for themselves and others to be, bring, and do their best at work. Jonathan holds Professional Certified Coach credentials from the International Coaching Federation, is the co-creator of the Leadership Practitioner program, a program that equips individuals with practical tools to inspire trust and cultivate collaborative cultures where people can bring their best selves to work every day, co-host of the Leadership Practitioner podcast, and co-author of 'The Essential Leadership Practitioner: A Framework for Building a Meaningful Practice of Leadership'.
