Almost every leadership development process runs in one direction: define the ideal future state, measure yourself against it, close the gap. Goals, competency frameworks, performance reviews — all of it points forward. The question that gets skipped is the one that explains the most: how did I get here?
This article makes the case that behaviour change has three components, not two. There’s the future state you’re aiming at, the present state you can reflect on in real time, and the past state — the accumulated patterns that quietly determine why you lead the way you do. That third component is routinely left out of leadership work, partly because it borders on therapeutic territory, and partly because organisations rarely make room to discuss anyone’s history beyond their résumé. Yet your parents were your first bosses and your family your first organisation. Three anchors from that early context still shape you: power, relationships and identity.
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