Breaking Habits to Foster Engaged Leadership

This chapter explores some important issues related to the impact of habits on leadership effectiveness. It argues that engaged leaders should consciously adopt a learning stance in order to gain access to information about how their habits are resulting in desirable or undesirable consequences. We consider the challenges to taking on such a leadership stance and provide guidance for meeting those challenges. We use Duhigg’s habit loop (2012) as a model to explain how habits operate in the brain. We describe three counterproductive leadership habits--being too decisive, suppressing emotions, and treating everyone the same. Finally, we suggest three engaged leadership habits--pause, slow down, step back; learn from your emotions; pay attention to people’s social identities--as replacements for those counterproductive habits.