Episode 95: Why High Performers Struggle in Leadership Roles

Episode Summary

What happens when high performers become leaders but still operate like the star player instead of the coach? In this episode of Let’s Think About It, Coach Mo sits down with leadership strategist and former COO Stacey Bailey to unpack the hidden nervous system patterns driving burnout, self-doubt, and reactive leadership. Together, they explore the leadership shift from doing to developing others, why founders struggle to trust themselves under pressure, and how values alignment directly impacts decision-making, executive presence, and organizational clarity.

This conversation dives deep into leadership development, strategic planning, founder burnout, emotional intelligence, trust-building, and sustainable growth. If you’ve been operating in survival mode, constantly reacting instead of leading with intention, this episode will challenge how you think about leadership performance and self-trust. 

Take the free Burnout Mirror Assessment and discover the hidden leadership patterns draining your energy and clarity:
Burnout Mirror Assessment

Key Takeaways

• The Best Leaders Stop Playing Hero
  High-performing founders often struggle because they still lead like the star player instead of coaching the team. 
• Reactive Leadership Destroys Strategic Thinking
  Constantly putting out fires conditions leaders into survival mode instead of intentional decision-making. 
• Your Nervous System Becomes Your Leadership Style
  Leaders who never pause, reflect, or reset eventually lose clarity, confidence, and trust in themselves. 
• Values Misalignment Creates Burnout Faster Than Workload
  Burnout is often a signal that core values and purpose are no longer aligned with daily actions. 
• 90-Day Rhythms Create Sustainable Momentum
  Long-term plans fail when leaders lose focus. Clear quarterly priorities build confidence, trust, and measurable progress.

Transcript

Welcome And The SWAG Framework

SPEAKER_01 0:13

Welcome to the Let's Think About It podcast, where high achievers stop performing and start transforming. I'm Coach Mo, certified core energy leadership coach, founder of the Inner Arena, and creator of the SWAG framework. Self-awareness, why power, aligned action, and grip. Around here, we train your mindset, challenge your limits, and turn pressure into purpose. Subscribe now and join me on YouTube at Swag Coaching. So let's get your reps in. Welcome to another episode of the Let's Think About It Podcast. I'm your host, Coach Mo, and I'm here with another amazing guest. And her name is Stacy Bailey. Stacy, how are you? I'm great. Thanks so much for having me. Thank you for being here. Where are you checking in from?

SPEAKER_03 1:13

I am in beautiful Charleston, South Carolina.

SPEAKER_01 1:16

South Carolina. Nice. How's the weather out there right now?

SPEAKER_03 1:20

Oh, it is the crispest spring we've ever had in my 21 years here. We've had such a nice, cool, pleasant spring, and I'm just reveling in it before the heat comes in.

SPEAKER_01 1:31

That's awesome. What's one thing that you can tell us that's great about Charleston?

SPEAKER_03 1:38

Anyone else is going to say the food, which is true. But for me, I'm going to say that the community is really awesome here. And when you are lucky enough to get to spend all of your time here, the community is pretty amazing. Our parks and our culture and the way that people come together has been a joy.

SPEAKER_01 2:00

That's great. Are you born and raised there?

SPEAKER_03 2:03

I'm originally from Atlanta, but I came here in the early 2000s to go to college at Charleston and one of the lucky people who never left.

SPEAKER_01 2:12

Ah, there it is. So tell us, Stacey, who you are, what you do, and the type of value that you bring.

SPEAKER_03 2:18

I'm Stacy. I'm a I'm a mother of two and a former COO for a digital agency who now has kind of moved to the other side of the table, as it were. And I work with leadership teams and leaders of mostly creative service businesses to help them scale from that zone of kind of founder led to leadership team led, and going from that what got us here won't get us there.

SPEAKER_02 2:48

Okay.

SPEAKER_03 2:48

Doing it while maintaining vision, values, ethos, and the culture that's become so important to most of these leaders.

Leaving Well And Trusting The Pivot

SPEAKER_01 2:56

Okay. So help us understand how that pivot happen for you. What made you go to the other side?

SPEAKER_03 3:04

It was a little bit of serendipity. I had been at my agency for a 12, a little over 12 years.

SPEAKER_02 3:12

Okay.

SPEAKER_03 3:12

Knew the half joke I always say is after 12 years, a international merger, a rebrand, a pandemic, and two babies.

unknown 3:23

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 3:24

I gotta switch it up.

SPEAKER_03 3:25

I gotta switch it up, you know? Uh the serendipity was that I knew that leaving well was gonna be really important to me. That company and that leadership team had been really good to me for the last 12, 13 years. And so I told my leadership coach, I need to go. I don't know what it looks like. I want your help to leave well, to really make this a plan over the next several months. And after we had that call, the next time we talked, he was like, I'm actually gonna go out and expand on my own too. And I would have never offered unless you had opened the door, but I think you'd be great at this. And it was like this perfect moment of the intersection of what I my experience and what I'm great at, right? And I'm great at facilitating communications amongst teams. I'm great at thinking big picture and bringing it into the tactics. I'm great at operations and understanding how the operations help you achieve vision and a little bit of that improv in me, like the ability to do it on the fly, right? And so this has been a wonderful intersection.

SPEAKER_01 4:30

Before we get into the work that you do, I want to explore that a little bit more in depth because you you did make a pivot, which is a big pivot, which is maybe a life-transforming pivot to help us understand. Because on this show, we get into a lot of a lot about the inner critic fear and things like that. What did you have to do for self in order to sell in order to trust self? I can imagine the thought of making a pivot like that, expanding on your own. There was so much inner critic present that was trying to create a lot of self-doubt. So, how did you learn to just to trust yourself to be able to pivot forward?

SPEAKER_03 5:15

I invested in my coaches. I just can't do it by myself. And it was one of those moments that felt sudden, but really had been building over many years, right? I had a coach, two coaches actually, that I was working with, and we were exploring. I don't know what's next, but I know it's not doing more of this, right? I need a bigger change. Honestly, for me, the biggest thing to let go of was I felt so much accountability to the people in my care and that I worked with that I felt like I can't leave because I'll be putting them in a rough position. So some of that self-doubt was having to let go of that I'm not responsible for other people's outcomes all the time. And then once I did was able to do that and I decided I don't know what's next, but I'm gonna go is when the opportunity created itself. And I always felt like I got to jump off the cliff and I'll grow wings. But if I wait till I grow wings, I'm never gonna go. So so a lot of it was that. But I will say the one thing that my my coaches really encouraged me to think differently about, which I would have never done on without their prompt. They were like, What would you do? Would you want to take some time off between this and the next thing? Maybe take the summer off with your little kids. Can I even do that? Is that allowed?

SPEAKER_02 6:33

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 6:33

And then I said, okay, that's a boundary. I don't want to start right away. I want to start later. And I took the fortune to be able to do that, but we did a lot of financial planning. Figured out, okay, I can take about a hundred days off. And I got to just let go of my nervous system that had been taught to behave a certain way. Yeah, get into some of that real self-doubt of the ability to rest and be still before I got started in this journey. So I'm very grateful that I got to have that chance.

Founder Survival Mode And Doing Less

SPEAKER_01 7:03

That's why I love the work that us coaches do. We help leaders like yourself be present and be able to create vision to self-discover what that outcome looks like and where they're trying to trans, you know, transcend to. So that's amazing. One of the things that just sparked a thought when you said nervous system, and you work with a lot of leaders.

SPEAKER_03 7:29

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 7:29

What's the typical nervous system of a of a leader in today's time that you have a tendency to be attracted to to help?

SPEAKER_03 7:39

We work with a lot of founders who have grown who have bootstrapped their business and they've made it this far. They've built maybe a lifestyle business or they it's organically grown around them. And all of a sudden, it's almost like they look around and they're like, oh my God, I have a business. Not just a me, but there are people that count on me and people want to know where we're going and what we're doing. And I don't even know, right? When we get in those spaces, what we see a lot with those founders and leaders is they feel like they have to have all the answers. They feel like they are failing when they don't know exactly what they're trying to do or where they're gonna go, or that they can't make everybody happy. They are working harder, not smarter. They are not sleeping, they're not exercising, they're just in go survival mode.

SPEAKER_02 8:28

Yes.

SPEAKER_03 8:29

And I've been told I'm the only consultant they've worked with that tells them to do less. We're gonna do a little less. We're gonna set our sights on what's accomplishable because when we actually accomplish our goals, when we set goals that are realistic and we actually accomplish them, we build momentum so that we can keep pushing the goals further and further each quarter or each year, right? And it helps them feel like a little bit calmer. I don't have to do quite so much, I don't have to have all the answers. We're gonna work through it together.

SPEAKER_01 9:02

Not talk a lot about, but I work with clients similar to what you're describing. But I love this analogy with sports. Are you a sports person?

SPEAKER_03 9:11

Oh, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 9:13

So I love basketball, I love football, but the but basketball really steps out the most to me because it transfers to how leaders show up every day, right? They're enter the game and they're going and going, they're trying to, they're trying to win the game, right? And during the game, there's high, there's always these high pressure moments that show up, right? Sometimes the other team goes on a run and things is just out of whack. There's a lot of worry if we're gonna lose the game, but then at some point it might be on the line, the game is on the line, and you have to go to the free throw line, right? And then at that free throw line, the crowd is going crazy, hoping that if you're the away team, hoping that you miss the shot, if you're the home team, hoping that you make the shot so that you can stay in the game, right? And in that moment, you gotta pause, you gotta reflect on and visualize on you your form and how you're gonna shoot that free throw and it's gonna go in. And for most athletes, it's naturally conditioned that they have a technique in how they go to the line and then they shoot, switch, right? And a lot of times they've worked on that conditioning system on how they show up at the line during pressure moments to shoot and make it. And a lot of it involves breathing, pausing, visualizing technique, things like that. But then when you look at it from the leadership standpoint in this environment, a lot of us, a lot of leaders aren't conditioned that way. They're conditioned to just put out the fires. This popped up, I gotta react, I gotta react, react, react, react, react. And so that's what their nervous system is. So that's what brought them up to the ranks to where they are now. But then when they get there, as you described, am I really capable? Because there's these different pressures, and they don't have that nervous system, that leadership operating system to calm it down a bit, like at the free throw line. What's registering with you as I create that analogy?

Free Throw Leadership Under Pressure

SPEAKER_03 11:45

Two things. One is that we don't talk about leadership as a practice, like your conditioning, right? They can get up to the free throw line and they can shoot and they can make it in because they've shot a million free throws and they don't have to work so hard to think about. It's part of who they are now, right? So I like to think of leadership as a practice. It's not who you are, it's not a destination, and it's not a title, right? It is practicing these day-to-day decisions, practicing how we communicate and show up with vulnerability and show up with, you know, good questions that get people to think for themselves, right? And the second thing I'm thinking as you're talking is what we see is that a lot we we work with a lot of founders who were like star players on the team who are now the coach. And they're like, I don't know how to be the coach. I know how to be on the court, I know how to work hard at that. I don't know how to be on the sideline and tell them how to do it well. That is the big leadership leap from the best doer, the best player, to the leader of the team who's not actually even on the court most of the time, right?

SPEAKER_01 12:57

Because also because they they've been engraved with that I can do type attitude. They're naturally a high performer self-starter. They don't need a pep talk, they can just get the job done, right? So a lot of times what makes it hard to be in that role as the leader is now you got to motivate and inspire others to do the same. And we're typically high performers are just wired differently, wired in the sense that it's normal to be take initiative, it's normal to be motivated, it's normal to be a goal getter. Now I gotta teach somebody how to do that. I've never done that before. That's and then that becomes the challenge, and then now they're self-doubting themselves in how they can motivate the next person to be like them or to have similarities of what they carry and to be able to motivate them to take those steps forward, and so that becomes an internal barrier for them, and then they start distrusting themselves and their own abilities to be able to do that.

SPEAKER_03 14:02

Yeah. And I think that when you move as leaders, when you move from that star player to coaching mindset, right? The coach of the basketball team isn't telling you how to shoot the free throw. They're telling you you need the reps, you need to be able to do this in a point of tension, and they are setting the vision for what success and greatness looks like, right? Like the best coaches are saying we can achieve this, and this is how you each play a role and how we're going to achieve greatness together.

SPEAKER_02 14:33

Yep.

SPEAKER_03 14:34

They are not out on the court hitting it as hard, right? It's the mindset shift that a lot of founders have to go through or that we like to help them go through, is going from whatever, command and control to coach.

SPEAKER_01 14:50

Yes. So in your approach, are I I didn't ask you this, but are you do you do consulting or do you do coaching work? Which of the two?

SPEAKER_03 15:00

Yes, depends on which hat we're wearing, right? From a consulting side, because of my background in agency operations, I do provide some operations consulting, meaning I have seen how this is done well and done poorly, and let me give you advice and insight. But on the other side, when we're doing strategic planning and leadership coaching, that's really more coaching. We don't have the answers. We don't come in with a plan for anybody's business. We try to create the conditions and ask the right questions so that they and their leadership teams can surface and name what is true and what needs to be true and those sorts of things. So both hats just depends on circumstances.

SPEAKER_01 15:40

Okay. So going back to the analogy we were talking about with the sports and how these founders show up and they're a little off base, so to speak. How do you help them regain trust within self?

SPEAKER_03 15:54

Yeah. I think the first thing that all founders really need to focus on is what is the vision for the company? What is it that what is the company that they want to run and operate? What's the end goal? And it's okay if the end goal is I want to build this to be successful enough to sell it, or whatever that is long term. But knowing what the destination is helps them get to clarity so that they can provide the right guidance and coaching for the team. What we often see is that it's let's just do more of what we're doing and we will naturally grow. And that tends to not be true, right? What got you here isn't going to get you there. So, what is the work back? So that's part of it is if you want to be a good coach, you got to know what the goal is. So let's get clear on what that is so that we can work towards it together.

Values And Purpose As The Reset

SPEAKER_01 16:45

And I would add in error, your purpose. I think, I think that's really important too. And that's where I I know that's how I support my clients in with the swag framework, self-awareness, white popper, aligned action, and grid. That entry point is having the awareness of understanding what your purpose is. Because as we were describing the analogy, and even in high pressure moments, we are often distracted away from that.

SPEAKER_03 17:19

Absolutely. And I would add to that getting really clear on what your values are.

unknown 17:24

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 17:24

So we do a lot of values work with companies and with leaders. And it's important to have company values that you all can align on, but also knowing your personal values. And at the end of the day, what is the most important thing or two things to you? And then what is your purpose that lat that those ladder up to?

SPEAKER_01 17:45

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 17:45

So that everything works together. That's when you start to feel real momentum.

SPEAKER_01 17:50

Yeah, because values and purpose is extremely important and it correlates with the vision of where you're trying to go. I spent a lot of time teaching leaders that too, because think about it like this. And I ask this question a lot. Let's say your top five values, whatever they are. Maybe it's integrity, maybe it's family, trust, accountability, whatever, doesn't matter. When those values are very endeared to you and they're your top five, what does it feel like when one of them is not honored, off alignment? And the typical response I get is frustration, disappointment, lack of trust, all of these types of drainy type emotions. I say, okay, so think about that. When you're triggered at work or whatever you're doing, what's that feeling of the distrust, overwhelmed feeling, blah, blah, blah? Is there a possibility that one of your values, your key values, are not being honored in that moment? And if that's true, how do you realign? Because when you can when you can start to put awareness and consciousness around that moment of why you're feeling so overwhelmed and discouraged, that's a starting point of reconnecting to your purpose. Certain values are off and misaligned, but a lot of times going back to our leadership operating system, our nervous system, yeah, we're not conditioned to think about that. We're conditioned to just put out the fires and work a little harder, work a little faster.

SPEAKER_03 19:34

Absolutely.

SPEAKER_01 19:35

We can't afford to slow down and think about this stuff because we got ROIs that that needs to be accounted for.

SPEAKER_03 19:44

Absolutely. And it how much better would every business be if they built into their operating rhythms a way to slow down and make sound decisions and bets moving forward, not based on just we have to fly or we're gonna sink, but let's just take a moment to think about what could happen and how are we gonna get ahead of things, right? Being more proactive than reactive. And I think that's also part of where leaders' nervous systems get all jacked up is because we are just in reactive mode all the time. So it's okay, you can practice mindfulness, you can practice all of these different rituals that are foundational to helping you feel solid and grounded in who you are. But if you all you're doing all day for eight hours a day is reacting to everyone else's fires and not choosing time to focus on the business or on what being proactive looks like, then you always feel behind, right? And then it self-doubt and all of these things creep in.

Systems That Create Clarity And Focus

SPEAKER_01 20:51

So take me through a process of how you've helped shift a client who is struggling in this area and obtain success working with you and your agency.

SPEAKER_03 21:06

Yeah, absolutely. So we work with agencies that kind of are across the the spectrum of size and of so it's not really it's agnostic to size or specifics, but what tends to be true in all of them is that you have burnt out founders or leadership teams who are in dysfunction, who they have a plan, it's called doing things, that herb killer quote. So that's not a great plan. So, what we would do is we come in and we teach them some operating tools. Let's get clear on what does your organizational structure look like? Who is accountable for what? Because often in these organizations, you've got people who are wearing eight hats, and some people are wearing the same hats. When more than one person's accountable for something, no one's accountable, right? So let's get clear on accountability. Let's get clear on the tools. And then let's come back in a month and let's talk about road mapping. What does the business need to look, feel like, work like in three years? And we do these work back plans. And it takes two days and we go through values. What do values really mean and not mean? How do we operationalize our values? What do we want to be the best in the world at? And this is the thing that's going to be most important, I think, moving forward. It's always been important, but with AI and the ability for people to expand their businesses so quickly, it's like, what can we be truly best at? And getting really clear there and getting the team aligned. And then we let them go try it, right? Do it for 90 days. Let's set a plan. And then we come back together every 90 days. So we're building these rhythms so that when leadership teams, nervous systems at about 85 days, are like, I don't remember what we're doing or why we're doing it. Because I've lost sight of the plan. We come back together and reset, right? 90-day sprints tends to be where people can actually stay focused and then they start to lose their thread. When you get a three-year strategic plan, you put it on the shelf, you never see it again. It doesn't happen, right? So 90-day rhythm. So we're teaching behaviors. We're teaching, we do a lot of Brene Brown's dare to lead work around trust building, around understanding communication and feedback. So we're doing soft character skills and strategic skills. I'll give you an example of where we've seen really amazing outcomes. One one client we went into, they had four founders, all of whom had different perspectives on what the business should do.

SPEAKER_02 23:41

Okay.

SPEAKER_03 23:42

They all had different roles, but not really clear. And the team was like, we don't know who to go to for decisions.

SPEAKER_01 23:48

Okay.

SPEAKER_03 23:49

So we spent time with them figuring out what do you all want this business to be? What roles do you want to play in this business? Because you can be a partner that you can't get fired from, but you can have a role in the business that you can get fired from. Right. So let's talk about what your roles in the business and on the business are. Get clear on that. Understand who makes decisions about what things, right? We found that after we did that, we got them to some clarity. They had some bumps along the way. It wasn't perfectly smooth. But six months later, the team underneath them was reporting much greater clarity on what the heck they were doing, why they were doing it, and who they were to go to for that. And we saw sustainable growth from them quarter over quarter once they all had really clear roles and responsibilities. This tends to be where the foundation of issues are in these businesses.

SPEAKER_01 24:40

Do you utilize assessments as part of your process as well?

SPEAKER_03 24:44

Yeah. So our the operating system that we use is called System and Soul. And it is both the operation side of a business and the vision values ethos side. And then for assessments, we really like working genius and disk and even Enneagram. We've got at several of those. And depending on kind of the culture and the context of how they want to use it, is it about understanding alignment to roles? Is it about understanding how everyone works so that you can have empathy and communication? Right. Depending on those, we'll apply those different assessments.

SPEAKER_01 25:19

That's great. I like utilizing an assessment that I created. It's called the Burnout Mirror Assessment. It's pretty cool because it prints out a archetype of the types of burnout that you may potentially be carrying. And it's an opportunity for you to just start off with if you feel in this weight, right?

SPEAKER_02 25:39

Yeah.

Assessments Burnout Mirror And Closing

SPEAKER_01 25:41

I had an opportunity to build it in a sense to understand the type of burnout that you might be carrying, and it puts you in a certain category. I love that as a starting gate. It goes back to what we were talking about. A lot of times the reason burnout exists is because we're disconnected from our core values and our purpose. We're distracted away from it. And the archetypes really helps remind us dang, I've been distracted away from my core values. Thank you, Mo, for bringing this to my attention. So now I can start moving more with intentions as I make decisions moving forward. So that's a free assessment. It's called the Burnout Mirror Assessment. And you can find it at interarena leadership.com forward slash burnout dash. And it's it's free for anybody to sign off, Stacey. What are some lasting thoughts that you would like to leave with the audience?

SPEAKER_03 26:42

I want the audience and really anyone in a position of leadership, and that doesn't necessarily mean title, right? But anyone who is able to see an opportunity in others and has like the courage to try to develop it. I want them all to know that you like we talked about in the beginning, you don't have to have the answers. That's actually not great leadership. Coming in with all the answers is not a leader. Leaders help develop and coach the answers out of everyone. And I see this so often, which is why I want to reiterate it. Is that there's this fear of I don't know the answer, so I don't want to have the meeting or I don't want to go in front of the team or whatever it is until I figure it out. But when we can let go of that, we can live into our values and say, I don't know all of the details, but this is what I know, and be clear about that is the start of really excellent leadership.

SPEAKER_01 27:42

Absolutely. And in a sense, you're saying your swag is off.

SPEAKER_03 27:48

Your swag is off, and you need to realign your swag.

SPEAKER_01 27:52

Exactly. How can the audience find you?

SPEAKER_03 27:56

You can find us at intentioncollect.co online, um, or you can email me directly at Stacy with an EY at intentioncollective.co, and I would be happy to spend time with any of your listeners hearing about how their business is going and offering any sort of resources that we may have to help them get their swag back on, especially if their values align to the way that we work.

SPEAKER_01 28:23

That's right. I really do appreciate this conversation. So much insight, so many nuggets. Thank you for being here today, Stacey.

SPEAKER_03 28:31

Thank you so much for having me. It was really lovely.

SPEAKER_01 28:34

That's another rep in the inner arena. You didn't just listen, you leveled up your swag. Self-awareness, why power, aligned action, and grit. If this hit home, share it, subscribe to the Let's Think About It podcast, and lock in with me on YouTube at Swag Coaching. Until next time, stay aware, lead with your why, act in alignment, and keep your grit strong.