Hi Reader

Is what you are currently building, personally or professionally, what you actually intended it to be?

That's a loaded question. I know.

But it's the one I keep coming back to. Because far too often, we build lives, create teams, and step into opportunities with absolute confidence. We tell ourselves these are conscious, deliberate choices.

But are they?

Because a lot of what we build is shaped by the subconscious. By assumptions we haven't examined. By a misalignment we haven't named. And yet we walk boldly forward, calling it intention.

The 24-Year-Old With A Team Of Veterans

I remember my first leadership role vividly.

I was 23, maybe 24. And I was handed a team of people who were 15, 20, 25 years older than me. Two of them had been working longer than I had been alive.

You can imagine the dynamic.

Now here's what I could have done. I could have come in trying to prove myself. I could have managed them, directed them, controlled the outputs. That would have been the obvious play.

Instead, I started every one-to-one with the same question:

"What can I do to help you grow?"

It sounds simple. Maybe even obvious, but you have to understand the context.

These were experienced professionals. They had worked under managers who valued performance over people, output over agency. So when a 24-year-old came in asking about their growth, the first response was scepticism.

Are you trying to restructure the team? Is this a test? Are you figuring out who to let go?

But I leaned in. I kept asking. And eventually, we got to the root of it.

One person looked at me and said: "I've got five years to retirement. I don't need a development plan. I just need you to clear the path so I can do my job well and leave with my dignity intact."

That hit me.

Because left to my own assumptions, I would have put him on a growth programme he never asked for. I would have measured his engagement against metrics that meant nothing to him. I would have built something that looked like good leadership from the outside and felt like disrespect from where he was sitting.

Another person wanted promotion. Another wanted to develop skills for a role that wasn't even in our company. No two answers were the same.

And here's what I noticed over time. When people felt genuinely heard, something shifted. They stopped waiting to be told what to do and started bringing their best thinking to the table. Not because I managed them better. Because I stopped assuming I already knew what they needed.

That's the difference between building something that looks right and building something that actually is right.

Nobody ever asks the person at the top "What can I do to help you grow?" You are expected to have the answers, keep the momentum going, and deliver. And you do. Every single time. But when is it your turn? That is exactly the conversation I want to have with you. Book A Conversation Here

The Root Cause You Keep Ignoring

That experience shaped the way I think about intentional building.

Because what I was really doing, even without fully articulating it at the time, was asking: am I solving root causes, or am I just putting out fires?

That's one of the central questions in Dimension 5 of the Intention Gap Scorecard: Impact and Alignment.

Here's the hard truth.

Most leaders are skilled firefighters. When pressure hits, they respond. They move fast, they handle what's in front of them, and they keep things running. That's valuable. But firefighting, by its very nature, is reactive.

And reactive leadership has a cost.

When you're always responding to what's urgent, you rarely address what's important. The root causes, the structural misalignments, the cultural patterns, and the unspoken tensions go untouched & they compound.

The original intention? It falls into the gap.

That's the Intention Gap: The space between who you intend to be and who you actually are under pressure. The space between what you say you'll build and what you're actually building when no one's watching.

And here's what makes it uncomfortable.

The gap doesn't open all at once. It opens one small decision at a time. One conversation avoided. One assumption left unchallenged. One quick fix chosen over the harder, slower, more honest work.

Until one day you look up and realise the team you have, the culture you've created, the leader you've become, isn't quite what you set out to build.

That moment of recognition? That's not failure.

That's the beginning of real leadership.

Practical Application: Build With Intention

This week, I want you to do something uncomfortable.

Look at what you are currently building: a team, a culture, a career, a life, and ask yourself honestly: Does this match what I actually intended?

Not what you tell people. Not the narrative you give in the boardroom or on your LinkedIn profile.

What did you actually intend?

And then ask the harder question: if it doesn't match, when did the drift begin?

Because the drift is rarely sudden. It's a hundred small decisions made under pressure. It's the conversation you didn't have. The boundary you didn't hold. The root cause you buried under a quick fix.

What is one thing you have been calling a priority that your actions tell a completely different story about?

Sit with that. Don't rush to fix it. Just let yourself see it clearly first.

This Week's Reflection Questions

1. What am I currently building and does it genuinely reflect my original intention?
2. When I look at my team or my leadership, am I solving root causes or managing symptoms?
3. What would it look like to ask the people around me: "What can I do to help you grow?" and actually follow through on what they tell me?
4. Where has pressure caused my intentions to fall into the gap and what is the one honest conversation I have been avoiding because of it?

If this newsletter made you pause, that pause is worth paying attention to.

The scorecard turns that feeling into clarity. [Take the scorecard here]

See you next Monday.

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