Reframing Leadership (3 Min Read) | Vol. 152

May 23, 2025

“This feels hard because it is hard, not because you’re failing.” – Dr. Becky Kennedy

Reframing Leadership

One of the best leadership books I read last year was Good Inside by Dr. Becky Kennedy. Here’s the thing. It’s not a leadership manifesto or a management how-to. It’s a parenting guide. One of her core ideas is that two things can be true. You can have a good kid who is having a hard time. And you can be a good parent who is having a hard time. 

How is that different than leadership? Only the title. Change “parent” to “leader” and the rest remains true. It’s like finding leadership wisdom in a diaper bag. Unexpected, but surprisingly useful.

As leaders, the day-to-day can feel like an unrelenting grind. Your team disagrees with the call you made. You had a tough conversation that could have been handled better. You’re stretched like a frayed Bungee cord between the demands of work and home. You’re supposed to have all the answers, but you’re mostly questioning whether you’re cut out for this. Enter Dr. Becky. What if you’re just a good leader having a hard time?

Dr. Becky is a psychologist, and she’d point out that this is reframing the moment. This feels hard because it is hard, not because I’m failing. Even the best leaders struggle, and we’d be foolish to imagine life will give us a VIP pass to skip the hard parts.

Here are a handful of reframing questions to get you through the hard times:

• How will I feel about this in a year? 
• What lessons is this teaching me?
• What’s the smallest step I can take right now to improve things?
• What kind of leader do I want to be in this situation?
• What would [my respected mentor] say to me now?
• What if I’m a good leader having a hard time?

All these questions create space between us and our moments of doubt. They disconnect us from the crisis and reconnect us to our capacity. The goal isn’t to eliminate all doubt, but to prevent it from hijacking our agency. Leadership, like parenting, is inherently difficult.  We need tools to navigate self-doubt for both. 

Want to dive deeper? I was so inspired by the leadership parallels in Dr. Kennedy’s work that I created a special two-part series on The ONE Thing Podcast called “Seven Leadership Lessons from a Parenting Expert.”  Listen to part one and part two to discover how the struggles of parenting and leadership aren’t just similar – they’re practically siblings from the same difficult family.

One question to ponder in your thinking time: How would my leadership change if I approached challenges with curiosity instead of self-doubt?

Make an Impact!
Jay Papasan
Co-author of The ONE Thing & The Millionaire Real Estate Agent