In October 1903, the New York Times famously predicted it would take one million years for humans to fly. Just nine weeks later, the Wright brothers took flight. They did not break a law of physics. They broke a rule of the mind.
This phenomenon, the power of a single idea to rewrite what is possible, does not just happen in aviation. It happens in our offices, our boardrooms, and sometimes, most powerfully, at our kitchen tables.
The restaurant in the kitchen
A few nights ago, my home was transformed.
Inspired by a simple prompt from a teacher, my son and daughter turned our kitchen into a full scale restaurant. They did not just play house. They inhabited a new reality.
The table was dressed with meticulous care. There were reservation cards, candles, and flowers. Mocktails were being shaken and cakes were in the oven. My son was the waiter and my daughter was the host. They took their roles with a level of gravity that surpassed mere play.
When my wife returned from the office, the look of genuine surprise on her face was the only reward they needed. During the evening, I teased my son, testing his commitment to the bit. He looked at me, smiled, and said something almost inadvertently that stopped me in my tracks.
"It is okay. The rest will come."
In that moment, I understood the lesson.
The illusion of control
Most leaders spend their lives trying to control behaviour. They create KPIs, they monitor clock ins, and they push for specific actions. This is management by instruction, and it is exhausting. It requires constant supervision and generates zero intrinsic energy.
When you manage behaviour, you are fighting against the current. You are trying to force a result through sheer willpower.
But my son was not behaving like a waiter because he was told to. He was acting that way because his identity had shifted. A single sentence from a teacher had not given him a task. It had given him a meaning.
From action to identity
This is the non obvious truth of high stakes leadership. Great leaders do not push actions. They influence identity.
In cognitive science, there is a concept called the identity action loop. Most people believe that if you change your actions, you eventually change who you are. But the most effective leaders reverse this. They know that if you change the meaning of the work, the actions follow automatically.
When a team member sees themselves not as a coder but as an architect of the future, their output changes. When a salesperson stops hitting a target and starts solving a client's crisis, their energy shifts.
The executive lesson: shaping the narrative
One sentence from a teacher created an experience that travelled far beyond the classroom, into our home, and into a memory we will keep forever.
As a leader, your job is to be the architect of that meaning. You are not there to tell people what to do. You are there to help them understand who they are in the context of the mission.
The rest will come
My son’s comment revealed a profound patience. He was not worried about the individual steps because he was secure in the overall vision.
If you are struggling to get your team to perform, stop looking at their actions. Look at the meaning they attach to the work. Are you telling them to bake a cake? Or are you inviting them to create an experience for someone they care about?
Leadership is the art of influencing identity so that the behaviour becomes inevitable. Choose your words wisely. A single sentence can travel further than you ever imagined.
Former senior leader in a FTSE100 organisation, now executive coach specialising in leadership transformation through mindset, NLP, and hypnosis. I help leaders access clarity, confidence, and impact by mastering their state and energy. My role is not to give answers, but to unlock the resourcefulness already within you.
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