Me – Leadership Spiral

What is a Leadership Compass exercise?

Please refer to this post: Four Rooms of Leadership
I recommend starting your use of the Leadership Spiral with the set of questions provided in that post…
… and return here once you are familiar with the Leadership Compass exercises of the Leadership Spiral.

Leadership Compass: “Developing Myself as a Leader“

Leadership is not a role you step into once and then master. It is a practice—one that evolves as context, responsibility, and expectations change. The Leadership Compass Exercise is designed to support this continuous development by offering structured reflection across the four essential dimensions of leadership: leading myself, leading one other person, leading a team, and leading within the organization.

The questions are not meant to be answered quickly or correctly. They are invitations to slow down, notice patterns, and challenge familiar assumptions. Used regularly, they help leaders develop clarity, intentionality, and inner stability—qualities that become increasingly critical as complexity and ambiguity rise.

This exercise follows the natural flow of leadership responsibility: from inner alignment, to relational awareness, to collective capability, and finally to systemic impact. It can be used individually, in coaching, or as part of leadership development programs. What matters most is not how many questions you answer, but how honestly you engage with them.

🌱 Leading Myself (Me)

Exploring inner clarity, self-regulation, and growth edges.

What parts of me lead naturally — and which parts tend to follow out of habit or fear?
When I’m at my best as a leader, what inner conditions make that possible?
What am I currently unlearning about leadership — and what new stance is emerging?
How do I care for my own energy and mindset so that others can rely on me sustainably?

🤝 Leading One Other Person (You)

Building awareness in relationships and mutual growth.

Who challenges my leadership most right now — and what do they reveal about my development edge?
When I try to “help” someone, what assumption about my role sneaks in?
How do I balance honesty and empathy in difficult conversations?
What might change if I approached each 1:1 relationship as a shared learning space rather than a performance zone?

👥 Leading a Team

Expanding from individual influence to collective growth and capability.

How do I enable my team to grow beyond my current leadership capacity?
Where do I step in too much — and where do I leave too much space?
How does the team mirror my own mindset and behavior patterns?
What practices or rituals could help the team continuously develop itself without relying on me?

🏛 Leading in the Organization

Seeing and shaping systems — influencing through purpose and culture.

How does my leadership contribute to or challenge the existing organizational culture?
What systemic patterns do I notice repeating — and what might my own part in them be?
What’s the smallest meaningful change I can make that would ripple beyond my immediate scope?
How am I developing my capacity to think, act, and communicate at the system level — not just the team level?

Leadership is a Continuous Act of Development

Leadership does not improve by default. Experience alone is not enough. Without reflection, experience merely reinforces existing habits—effective or not.

The Leadership Compass exercises exist to counter that drift. They remind us that leadership maturity grows when we repeatedly return to ourselves, examine our impact, and consciously expand our capacity to take responsibility at broader levels. Each spiral through these questions strengthens self-awareness, sharpens judgment, and deepens the ability to lead with intention rather than reaction.

Becoming better at leadership is not about fixing deficiencies. It is about growing into the role again and again—as situations change, as people change, and as you change. Leaders who commit to this ongoing development create trust, stability, and momentum not because they have all the answers, but because they continue to learn.

Leadership, in this sense, is never finished.
And that is precisely what makes it a responsibility worth embracing.

This is a clear, self-contained description of the Responsibility Process, structured for people who want to understand and take responsibility, written so it stands on its own—no prior knowledge required.

The Responsibility Process – Overview

The Responsibility Process describes how individuals relate to challenges, outcomes, and their own agency. It explains how people respond internally when things do not go as expected—and why some responses generate learning and progress, while others drain energy and stall movement.

At its core, the model distinguishes between below-the-line states, where responsibility is avoided or deflected, and above-the-line states, where responsibility is consciously taken. The shift upward is not about blame or self-criticism; it is about reclaiming choice, ownership, and the ability to act.

For leaders, this process is foundational. The state of responsibility a leader operates from directly shapes trust, culture, and performance across the organization.

The States of Responsibility (from bottom to top)

1. Denial

“This isn’t happening.”

At the lowest state, reality itself is resisted. Problems are minimized, ignored, or dismissed. Data is questioned, signals are overlooked, and uncomfortable facts are avoided.

Energy is spent on not seeing.
Learning is impossible.
Change is blocked before it even starts.

Denial creates organizational blindness—and leaders in denial unintentionally invite repetition of the same issues.

2. Lay Blame

“This is someone else’s fault.”

Here, the issue is acknowledged, but responsibility is externalized. Other people, circumstances, leadership, the market, or “the system” are blamed.

Attention moves away from influence.
Relationships erode.
Justification replaces curiosity.

Blame feels temporarily relieving, but it quietly strips away agency.

3. Justify

“Yes, but here’s why it couldn’t be different.”

In justification, individuals explain why the outcome was inevitable. Reasons, constraints, and exceptions dominate the narrative.

The past is defended instead of examined.
Energy goes into proving correctness.
Improvement remains theoretical.

This state often sounds reasonable—and that makes it particularly dangerous in leadership contexts.

4. Shame

“It’s my fault—and I’m the problem.”

Responsibility turns inward, but in a destructive way. Instead of ownership, there is self-attack. Capability and worth are questioned.

Confidence drops.
Risk-taking disappears.
Responsibility collapses into self-protection.

Shame is not accountability. It is responsibility without power.

5. Quit

“Whatever. I’m out.”

In Quit, responsibility is abandoned entirely. The person may still be physically present, but psychologically they have disengaged: effort drops to the minimum, initiative disappears, and ownership is actively withdrawn.

Quit can show up in two common forms:

Visible quitting: resignation, withdrawal, open refusal.
Invisible quitting: staying, but emotionally checking out—often called “quiet quitting,” although the real issue is not silence, it is disconnection.

This results into:

Energy is conserved through detachment.
Problems are avoided rather than faced.
Contribution shrinks to compliance—or to nothing at all.

For leaders, Quit is a red flag with a megaphone. It signals that restoring responsibility will require more than motivation—it requires rebuilding trust, agency, and meaning.

5. Obligation

“I have to.”

This is the transition zone. Action happens, but without ownership. Compliance replaces commitment.

Work gets done, but energy is low.
Creativity is limited.
People do what is required—and nothing more.

Organizations stuck here often look functional while slowly losing engagement.

7. Responsibility

“I choose.”

At the highest state, individuals fully own their role in the situation—without blame, excuse, or self-attack. Responsibility is taken as a conscious choice.

Focus shifts to learning and impact.
Options and influence become visible.
Action is intentional and aligned.

This is the state where leadership becomes powerful—not because control increases, but because agency does.

Why This Matters for Leadership

The Responsibility Process makes one thing explicit: responsibility is a state, not a trait. People move through these states moment by moment—especially under pressure.

Leaders who recognize the process can:

* intervene without blaming,
* model responsibility instead of demanding it,
* and create environments where ownership becomes the norm rather than the exception.

The real leadership question is not “Who is responsible?”
It is: “From which state of responsibility am I leading right now?”

Because organizations rise—or stall—at exactly that level.