Owning Your Agency: The Heart of Transformational Leadership
- Cory McGowan
- a few seconds ago
- 3 min read
He sat back in his chair and let out a long exhale.
“I just don’t get it,” he said. “Some colleagues light up when I share my work. Others don’t even look at it. I can’t figure out what their problem is.”
We stayed with that moment—the mix of frustration, confusion, and a quiet sense of defeat. He had spent weeks trying to decode why certain leaders weren’t engaging. He had built elaborate explanations in his mind, each one more draining than the last.
And yet, in all of that effort, one simple action hadn’t occurred to him: talk to them directly. To ask what they needed. To check what might be getting in the way. To use his agency instead of giving it away to speculation.
This is where so much leadership struggle lives—not in lack of capability, but in forgetting that we (and everyone around us) have choice.
When We Forget We Have Agency
Most leaders know the feeling:
Something isn’t working.
Someone is upset.
A dynamic is off.
Instead of choosing ownership, the mind launches into its two favorite escape routes:
Self-blame
“This is all on me. I should have done better.”
Blame of others
“They’re impossible. They’re the reason this failed.”
Neither path leads to clarity or movement.
Both collapse agency.
What my client realized was that he’d tried everything except the one action fully available to him: initiating simple, direct conversations.
He wasn’t lacking strategy.
He was lacking permission—from himself—to choose.
Owning Your Agency Matters. Their Agency Matters, Too.
Here’s the often-missing piece in leadership conversations:
Agency is not just yours to reclaim. Others have it, too.
When a leader is being blamed—by a peer, a direct report, or even a whole team—it’s easy to collapse into:
“This is all my fault.”
or
“I won’t take responsibility for any of this.”
But most conflict is not a single-thread story.
It’s two (or more) people making choices—conscious or unconscious—that lead to a breakdown.
When leaders remember this, something powerful happens:
・They can take responsibility for their part without self-attack.
・They can name what is true without collapsing into guilt.
・They can stay grounded, because they’re not carrying the weight of everyone’s choices.
・They can hold others as capable adults instead of problems to fix.
This is what mature leadership looks like: Owning what’s yours, honoring what’s theirs, and not confusing the two.
It creates dignity.
It creates clarity.
It creates possibility.
And crucially—it prevents a leader from trying to manage or control people into behaving a certain way.
You don’t have to shape other people’s reactions.
You don’t have to take on their disappointment or frustration as proof that you failed.
You can respect their agency as much as your own.
A Practice: Notice the Blame → Ownership Shift
Here’s a simple way to bring this into your day-to-day leadership:
Think of a situation that feels stuck or emotionally charged.
A conflict.
A dropped ball.
A colleague who seems resistant or upset.
Notice the flavor of blame.
Are you blaming yourself?
Are you blaming them?
Are you blaming circumstances?
Just notice.
Ask two separate questions:
“What part is mine to own?”
Look for the smallest piece of truth.
Not moral fault—just your part in the moment.
“What part belongs to them?”
Where did they have choices?
Where did they contribute to the dynamic?
This keeps you grounded in what you can move
and clear about what you cannot control.
Choose one action from agency, not blame.
A conversation.
A request.
A boundary.
A clarification.
A check-in.
Not to fix anyone.
Not to be right.
Just to lead.
Closing Reflection
Where in your leadership are you holding yourself responsible for someone else’s choices?
Where are you giving away your agency by trying to interpret or manage other people’s behavior?
And what becomes possible when you honor both truths at once—
your freedom to choose and theirs as well?
If you want support exploring this shift in your own leadership, you’re welcome to book a 90-minute Spark Session—a focused conversation designed to help you see what’s really happening beneath the surface and what choices are available to you now.
You can schedule it here:
No pressure, no commitment—just a place to pause, look honestly, and choose your next step with intention.
