Leadership Frame of Mind

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Listen to this week’s podcast episode, Ep.178: Leadership Frame of Mind: The Thinking Strategies of Amazing Leaders, with Kim Ades, using the player below, or click here.

Your Frame of Mind is Key to Your Leadership (Whether You Like It or Not)

When leaders hit a wall, most go hunting for a new strategy, tool, or tactic. They want a better CRM. A new framework. A book with a four-step method to fix their team. But Kim Ades says most of the time, the real issue is your mindset not your method.

She’s been coaching top-performing leaders for over 20 years and has seen the same thing again and again: the people who thrive aren’t the ones who work harder or follow every rule. They’re the ones who think clearly, ask better questions, and don’t believe every thought they have.

If you’re leading a team, starting a business, or just trying to be a better version of yourself, this week’s episode of Leading with Integrity could be the breath of fresh air you’re looking for. No jargon. No fluff. Just the reminder that your mindset shapes everything.

Stop Managing Behaviour, Start Understanding Thought

One of the most practical points Kim made is this: we’re far too focused on behaviour. Leaders get hung up on what their team is doing or not doing. They ask why someone missed a deadline, fumbled a presentation, or keeps avoiding the harder parts of their job.

But as Kim explained, all behaviour is driven by thought. If you want to understand why someone keeps avoiding conflict, don’t look at their calendar; look at their beliefs.

What are they telling themselves? What fears are in the background? What assumptions are guiding their actions?

Because, according to Kim, we don’t act against our beliefs. So if someone believes they’ll fail, or that no one listens to them, or that hard work goes unnoticed, they’ll act in a way that matches that belief. It’s not a motivation issue, it’s a thinking one.

This is just as applicable for you as a leader. When you find yourself avoiding feedback conversations, dragging your feet on a project, or micromanaging your team. Stop and ask yourself: What story am I running in my head right now?

You might be surprised how much of your leadership behaviour has nothing to do with your team and everything to do with your thinking.

Coaching as a Way of Leading (Not Just Something You Buy)

Many people hear the word “coaching” and think of something you outsource. You bring in a coach to help your team. You get coached when you’re stuck. But Kim flips that idea. Coaching is something leaders should learn to do, not just something they buy.

Great leaders are great coaches too.

Kim describes coaching as a kind of high-level listening, that cuts through surface-level problems and gets to the core. It’s not about cheer-leading or giving advice. It’s about helping people see their own patterns, challenge their own assumptions, and take ownership of their thinking.

If you lead people, and you don’t know how to coach well, you’re probably missing the best tool you have to build trust, grow people (and yourself!), while solving problems before they explode.

Kim coaches with full honesty and care, her style is direct, but never cold. That’s the tone she encourages leaders to take too - speak truth, but do it with real curiosity and care.

What Gets in the Way of Real Leadership? You Do

Kim shared four of the most common mental traps she sees in leaders:

1. Isolation: You start to think you can’t trust anyone with your doubts, so you hold them in. But that just adds pressure and blocks growth.

2. Chronic Dissatisfaction: You hit the goal, but it never feels like enough. That constant hunger becomes draining instead of energising.

3. Friction with Others: Resentments build up. Small annoyances turn into major issues because you’re not looking at your part in the pattern.

4. Personal ‘Slippage’: You start dropping the ball outside of work. Your health, sleep, or relationships start to suffer, but you keep telling yourself it’s just ‘part of the grind.’

Each of these patterns can be traced back to your thinking.

What you believe, what you fear, what you’re assuming.

Kim’s work helps leaders see how many of their problems aren’t external at all. They’re internal. And the good news is you have full control over that.

Burnout Isn’t Just a Workload Issue

A lot of leaders think burnout comes from having too much to do. And of course that’s part of it. But burnout also comes from how you think about what you’re doing.

If you carry beliefs like “If I don’t do it, no one else will,” or “I have to prove I’m worth the title,” or “Rest is lazy,” you’ll keep working yourself to the point of collapse. Not because anyone asked you to, but because that’s the script running in your head.

You can hire more people, build better systems, delegate like a pro. But if your mindset is stuck, you’ll still end up exhausted.

Kim’s view is real change comes when you start thinking differently not just working differently.

The Best Leaders Don’t Know Everything, But They Ask Better Questions

Kim said it plainly: Extraordinary leaders challenge their own assumptions.

They don’t assume they’re always right.

They don’t assume they know what people need.

They don’t assume that more effort is always the answer.

Instead, they get curious and ask better questions. They listen more, speak less, and notice what’s going on under the behaviour; they stop judging and start exploring.

That doesn’t mean they’re weak or indecisive. It means they’re clear, grounded, and responsive (not reactive).

Final Thought

Leadership doesn’t begin with strategy, it begins with thought.

If your team isn’t growing, your business feels stuck, or your leadership feels heavy, maybe it’s not about doing more… Maybe it’s about thinking in a way that supports what you’re trying to build instead of what you’re afraid might happen.

Kim Ades has spent decades showing leaders how to turn their thinking into their greatest tool. If you’ve been focused on fixing everyone else, now’s a good time to look in the mirror and ask: What beliefs am I carrying that no longer serve me?

That question alone might change more than any tool, book, or tactic ever could.

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Thanks for reading, be sure to catch the full conversation with Kim, here’s the link one more time: https://smartlink.ausha.co/leading-with-integrity/ep-178-leadership-frame-of-mind-the-thinking-strategies-of-amazing-leaders-with-kim-ades-leadership-podcasts

And I’ll be back next week discussing diversity, inclusion, and trust for the modern workplace with guest Delphia Howze.

See you there!

Be a Leader, Not a Boss.

- David

In case you don’t know me that well, I’m David Hatch and I’m here to help new managers and first-time founders with their leadership skills, so they can become leaders not bosses, lead with integrity, and build happier, higher performing teams, more effective organisations, and, ultimately: successful businesses.

If you’d like to join Integrity Leaders, my online leadership community (solopreneurs also welcome 😉) where you can participate in live member-only workshops & events, access an ever growing list of leadership resources including early access to podcast episodes, if you want to learn more about leadership and have a healthy love of sci-fi, then this is the community for you. Here’s the link:
Integrity Leaders: Community membership and learning, for new leaders or first-time founders.