Trying To Get Better As A Leader

Trying to Get Better as a Leader: Why Imperfect Leaders Build the Strongest Teams

Here’s something most leadership content won’t say directly. The people writing it are imperfect too. They have reactions they’re not proud of. They have sensitivities that get in the way. They have moments where their impact on the people around them lands differently than they intended, even when they didn’t technically do anything wrong. The honest version of leadership development is not about eliminating those things. It is about naming them, owning the impact, and showing the people around you that you are genuinely trying to close the gap between who you are and who the role requires you to be.

That’s what this conversation is actually about. Not a framework for perfect leadership. A real account of what growth looks like when you’re inside it messy, uncomfortable, and more valuable to the people around you than any polished performance ever could be.

The Honest Starting Point

Jason Schroeder describes himself as a highly sensitive person someone who loathes criticism, can go cold when pushed, and sometimes makes the people around him uncomfortable through the sheer visibility of his emotional state even when no words have been said and nothing technically wrong has been done. He names it as something close to narcissism, then clarifies the distinction: not the dark version that weaponizes sensitivity against others, but the kind that makes criticism feel threatening and exclusion feel unbearable.

Most leaders have a version of this. Some are micromanagers who genuinely believe they are helping. Some are emotionally flat in ways that read as dismissive or cold when they are simply processing differently. Some have ADHD that makes focus in meetings hard, or brains that visually frown when thinking deeply, or standards so high that they project intensity in settings that call for patience. None of those things are character failures. They are the particular shape of a human being trying to lead other human beings, and every single one of them can do damage if the leader does not know it is there and refuses to own the impact.

The first honest step in getting better is the same step every strong recovery program starts with. Naming the thing. Not as a confession of worthlessness. As an accurate inventory of what you are working with, so you can work with it instead of against it.

Why “I Didn’t Do Anything Wrong” Is Not Enough

There is a specific trap that technically skilled leaders fall into regularly. Something goes sideways in a conversation. The leader reviews the replay in their head and confirms: no names were called, no inappropriate words were used, no formal breach of conduct occurred. And from that confirmation, they conclude they have nothing to address. The impact on the people in that room is treated as their problem to manage, not the leader’s responsibility to own.

That conclusion is wrong, and it is costly. Intent and impact are not the same thing. A leader who walks away from a tense conversation thinking “I didn’t do anything wrong” while the team walks away shaken, guarded, and less willing to surface problems has still done damage. The fact that the damage was unintended does not make the team’s experience less real. It does not rebuild the trust that eroded. And it does not create the conditions for the next honest conversation.

The more productive frame is simple: my impact was negative, and I am responsible for it regardless of my intent. That is not self-flagellation. It is accurate accounting. And it is the starting point for the kind of accountability that actually heals teams instead of just closing incidents.

What Owning the Impact Actually Looks Like

Jason describes his own practice clearly. After a moment where something went sideways emotionally, the response is not to make excuses, not to normalize it, not to wait for it to pass as if it did not happen. The response is to go back to the team and say it directly: I know I got upset there for a minute. I apologize for my impact. I’m working on this.

That approach does several things simultaneously. It acknowledges the reality of what the people in the room experienced without requiring them to name it themselves. It separates the leader’s intent from the team’s experience, validating both. It demonstrates the self-awareness that makes people willing to follow a leader through difficulty. And it models the accountability standard that the leader wants the entire team to operate from. You cannot ask your foremen and crew leaders to own their mistakes while pretending your own were not mistakes.

What Jason has observed and what holds true across every high-functioning team is that people are extraordinarily forgiving and gracious toward a leader who is visibly trying their best. Not a leader performing effort. A leader actually in the work of improving, stumbling in visible ways, and getting back up with honesty rather than defensiveness. That visibility is not weakness. It is the relational infrastructure that makes trust possible.

The Trap of “Never Let Them Figure You Out”

There is old-school leadership advice that says a leader should remain mysterious never let the team figure you out, because predictability breeds contempt and power depends on mystique. That advice produces exactly the wrong outcome on any team that needs to function as a cohesive unit rather than as a collection of people managing around someone’s moods.

When a leader is unpredictable by design, the team spends energy managing the uncertainty instead of doing the work. People stop bringing problems because they cannot predict the response. Foremen start filtering information before it travels upward. The morning worker huddle happens but nobody says what they actually think. The culture becomes one of careful performance rather than honest collaboration, and the production system underneath it reflects the gap.

When a leader is transparent about their tendencies and honest about their impact, the opposite happens. The team knows what they are working with. They can plan around it, support around it, and eventually help close the gap because they trust the leader’s commitment to closing it. That transparency does not undermine authority. It deepens it because the team knows the leader’s authority is not fragile and does not need to be protected by mystique.

What Nobody’s Leadership Growth Actually Looks Like

Here’s what the real version of trying to get better as a leader actually includes not the version that gets shared on conference stages, but the one that happens before anyone is watching:

• Catching the reaction before it lands and choosing differently than you did last time, even when it is hard and the instinct is strong.
• Going back to someone after a difficult conversation and naming your impact without requiring them to initiate it.
• Noticing the ways your particular brain, personality, or wiring affects the people around you, and taking responsibility for those effects without treating them as excuses.
• Asking for honest feedback from people who will actually give it, and sitting with the discomfort of hearing it instead of going cold.
• Being willing to say in front of the team that you got something wrong, that you are working on it, and that their patience with you is something you do not take for granted.

That list is not impressive from the outside. It does not look like bold leadership. It looks like a person doing the quiet, necessary work of becoming better than they were. And the people who watch it happen are the ones who will follow that leader anywhere.

Why This Is a Production Issue, Not Just a Personal One

Leadership character is not separate from project outcomes. It is one of the primary inputs that determine them. A leader whose emotional state is unpredictable creates a site where people manage upward instead of executing forward. A leader who cannot receive honest feedback creates an environment where problems stay hidden until they are crises. A leader who refuses to own their impact loses the moral authority to hold anyone else accountable for theirs.

On the flip side, a leader who is visibly trying who names their tendencies, owns their impact, and shows up the next day still committed to doing better creates the psychological safety that allows the production system to function. Teams with that kind of trust surface problems early. Foremen ask for help instead of covering up struggles. Workers participate in huddles as real stakeholders instead of as performance audiences. The culture of any organization is shaped by the worst behavior the leader is willing to tolerate and the most important behavior a leader tolerates or refuses to tolerate is their own.

If your project needs superintendent coaching, project support, or leadership development, Elevate Construction can help your field teams stabilize, schedule, and flow  including the leadership development that starts with the person in the seat before it reaches anyone on the team.

A Challenge for Builders

Think about the last time you had a negative impact on the people around you not the last time you technically did something wrong, but the last time someone in the room walked away carrying something you put there. Did you go back and name it? Did you own the impact without requiring them to raise it first? If not, it is not too late. That conversation is always available, and it almost always produces more trust than people expect. We are building people who build things. That starts with the willingness to be honest about the building that still needs to happen in ourselves.

As W. Edwards Deming said, “Learning is not compulsory. Neither is survival.”

On we go.

Frequently Asked Questions

Why does owning your impact matter even if you didn’t technically do anything wrong?

Because intent and impact are not the same thing. When a leader’s emotional state visible even without words leaves the team shaken or guarded, the damage is real regardless of intent. Owning that impact is what rebuilds trust and keeps the culture honest.

Does admitting flaws and mistakes undermine a leader’s authority?

The opposite is true. Visible effort and honest accountability deepen authority because they show the team the leader’s standards are not fragile and do not depend on performance. People follow leaders who are transparently trying far more reliably than leaders who project infallibility.

What is the most practical first step for a leader trying to get better?

Name the specific tendency sensitivity to criticism, emotional visibility, micromanagement, whatever the actual pattern is and start going back after difficult moments to own the impact directly. That one practice, repeated consistently, builds more trust than almost anything else a leader can do.