Audacious Habits of Intentional Leaders (Against the Status Quo)
Everyone wants to be a leader—until it’s time to actually do hard leadership stuff.
There’s a boldā€•and honestly, rather inappropriateā€•saying that circulates in popular culture that, in not-so socially correct or polite terms, goes something like this: everyone wants to be a gangster until it’s time to do gangster sh--. I would argue that leadership is no different. We admire decisive, respected, and trusted leaders. We quote them, study them, and aspire to be seen as one of them. But when leadership demands discomfort, sacrifice, or deviation from the status quo, many quietly retreat to what is safe, familiar, and socially acceptable.
Intentional leadership, however, resists autopilot. It requires choosing behaviors on purpose, even when those behaviors are inconvenient, countercultural, or quietly costly. It asks us to lead differently, not for attention or acclaim, but because people and organizations deserve better than default leadership. They deserve better than the comfortable, compliant status quo because “that’s how it’s always been done around here.”
This is a challenge.
Not a call to be extreme or unrealistic. Not an invitation to grind yourself into the ground or perform leadership theatrics. Rather, it is an invitation to experiment with a handful of audacious habits—practices that are simple, reasonable, and accessible, yet uncommon enough that they will immediately set you apart as an intentional leader.
These habits are not about being seen as “the best leader in the room.” They are not performative or self-serving. They are acts of stewardship. We pursue them because leadership carries responsibility, and responsibility demands care, courage, and clarity.
If practiced thoughtfully and consistently, habits like these do something powerful: they bring order to chaos, make work more humane, deepen trust, and tangibly improve people’s daily experience of work.
The question is not whether these habits work. Rather, the question is whether you are willing to enact real leadership when it costs you something.
Why Audacious Habits Matter
Most leadership failures are not the result of malice or incompetence. They are the result of drift.
Drift toward busyness instead of presence.
Drift toward telling instead of listening.
Drift toward efficiency instead of development.
Drift toward comfort instead of courage.
Over time, drift becomes the norm, norm becomes culture, and culture becomes expectation. Expectation defines the status quo and, like stated earlier, the acceptance of the terrible notion that “this is how it’s always been done around here.”
Intentional leaders interrupt this drift.
They do so not with grand gestures, but with disciplined habits that quietly signal: hey, we do things differently here. These habits challenge norms that have become accepted but remain unhealthy—norms like distracted meetings, transactional relationships, performative communication, and outsourced responsibility for people’s growth.
Audacity, in this sense, is not about scaling up and out. It is about contrast and diving down and in.
It is audacious to be fully present when distraction is normalized. It is audacious to invest personal time in others though not directly rewarded. It is audacious to ask more questions than you give answers in environments that equate leadership with titled authority.
What follows is a short list of such habits. You do not need to adopt all of them at once or even at all. In fact, you can pick one, practice it for a season, reflect on its impact, and then decide what to take on next. Or you can simply use these offered habits as inspiration for you to craft your own habits of leadership intentionality.
Leadership, after all, is not a hack. It is a craft. And there certainly is not one singular “right” approach.
Seven Audacious Habits to Challenge the Status Quo
1. Be Fully Present—Every Time
No phone. No laptop. No divided attention.
In meetings, conversations, briefings, and one-on-ones, intentional leaders choose presence as a discipline. They look at people when they speak. They take notes by hand. They engage with questions. They resist the urge to multitask, even when the topic feels familiar or the meeting feels inefficient.
This habit feels small. It is not.
Presence communicates value. Absence—even subtle, partial absence—communicates disinterest. When a leader scrolls, types, or glances away while someone is speaking, the message received on the other end is not one of understanding, but: this is not important or you are not important.
Being fully present costs you efficiency and perceived productivity. It requires you to trust that the moment in front of you deserves your full attention. That is precisely why it is audacious.
2. Write Gratitude Instead of Assuming It’s Known
Most leaders feel appreciation. Few express it well. Fewer still express it consistently.
An audacious habit is to write it down.
A short handwritten note. A thoughtful email. A specific message that names what someone did, why it mattered, and how it contributed to something larger. Not performative praise. Not generic affirmation. Real recognition.
This takes time. It cannot be automated. It cannot be delegated. That is why it matters.
Leaders often underestimate how long people carry words of genuine recognition with them. A few minutes of your effort can echo for weeks—or years—in someone else’s motivation, confidence, and sense of belonging.
3. Personally Invest in Someone’s Development
Do not outsource all development.
Courses, coaches, and programs matter. But audacious leaders personally invest in the growth of their people. They teach. They mentor. They walk alongside others through stretch experiences. They share what they have learned—sometimes imperfectly, but always sincerely.
This habit requires preparation and vulnerability. You cannot hide behind a slide deck or a third-party facilitator. You must show up as yourself, with your experience, your perspective, and your care.
Development done with people, not merely for them, changes the relational dynamic of leadership. It communicates commitment, not compliance or convenience.
4. Ask Twice as Many Questions as You Make Statements
This habit is deceptively difficult.
Most leaders are rewarded for answers. For decisiveness. For clarity. Asking questions can feel inefficient or risky, especially when time is short or expectations are high.
Yet intentional leaders understand that questions do more than gather information. They develop judgment, build ownership, and surface assumptions. They invite people to participate and take responsibility.
An audacious practice is to track yourself for a week. Notice how often you default to telling, correcting, or directing. Then intentionally shift toward curiosity.
“What do you think?”
“What options do you see?”
“What would success look like here?”
This habit slows you down and grows everyone else up.
5. Coach Instead of Directing in the Moment
When someone brings you a problem, your instinct may be to solve it. It’s quick, efficient, and knocks down an easy obstacle.
Resist that instinct.
Audacious leaders coach instead of direct, especially in public settings. They help people think rather than think for them. They create space for others to articulate plans, weigh trade-offs, and make decisions.
This can feel uncomfortable. Silence stretches. Outcomes feel uncertain. Progress appears slower.
But over time, this habit builds something far more valuable than speed: people’s capability.
6. Hold Regular, Two-Way Feedback Conversations
Most feedback is episodic, reactive, or one-directional. Simply consider the standard annual performance review. How much feedback are you getting (or giving) and how thorough is it if done annually?
Intentional leaders normalize feedbackā€•both quality and consistency.
An audacious habit is to schedule monthly feedback sessions that are explicitly two-way. Both leader and team member reflect. Both come prepared. Both give input. Both listen.
This requires humility and structure. It also requires courage—because feedback invites messy truth, not controlled silence or politeness.
When done well, these conversations prevent drift, surface misalignment early, and model the kind of openness that healthy cultures require.
7. Protect Attention as a Leadership Resource
Attention is finite. Where leaders spend it signals what matters.
Audacious leaders protect their attention—and the attention of their teams—by setting clear boundaries around priorities, meetings, and interruptions. They are intentional about what deserves energy and what does not.
This habit often runs counter to organizational norms that reward constant availability and responsiveness. But clarity is more valuable than busyness, and focus is more powerful than frenzy.
What does that look like, though? Protecting attention is not abstract; it is decisional. It shows up in how leaders choose, name, and defend priorities. Intentional leaders clearly articulate a small number of what-matters-most priorities and consistently return to them in meetings, communication, and decisions, eliminating guesswork about where effort should go.
They are also willing to explicitly name what is not a priority—pausing initiatives, closing loops, and making trade-offs visible to protect teams from overload and erosion of trust. They actively manage where attention flows to ensure that time on the calendar earns its place and serves a clear purpose.
Leaders also model focus themselves, resisting constant urgency and reactive behavior, demonstrating that thoughtful prioritization matters more than perpetual responsiveness. Protecting attention in this way is an act of leadership care, creating space for meaningful work and enabling people to invest fully in what truly matters.
This Is Not About You
It bears repeating: this work is not about reputation or image.
These habits are not a personal brand strategy. They are not a path to being admired. In fact, some of them may make you less popular in the short term. Presence can feel inconvenient. Questions can feel threatening. Feedback can feel uncomfortable.
But leadership is not a popularity contest let alone a title. It is a responsibility.
We pursue audacious habits because people spend a significant portion of their lives at work—and leadership shapes whether that time is draining or developmental, confusing or clear, transactional or meaningful.
When leaders change their habits, they can change cultures and lives.
A Call to Action
Do not try all seven. Choose one.
Commit to it for the next 30 days. Tell someone what you are trying. Reflect weekly on what you notice about yourself, about others, about the environment you are shaping.
Then ask a simple question: What is different because I tried to lead more intentionally?
Or, create your own habit and try it out. Again, there is no right answer.
Leadership does not become meaningful when it is simply admired. It becomes meaningful when it is thoughtfully and consistently practiced, especially when practice costs you something.
Be willing to do leadership when it is hard. That is where intentional leaders are made.
