Lead yourself first: why leadership skills can't wait for the job title

Stefano Centineo
Aug 21
5 min read

Updated: Oct 20

It usually starts with a moment you didn’t expect. A high-stakes project where you suddenly have to manage the team. A colleague asks for guidance, and you realise they see you differently. Or that first promotion, when the congratulations fade and you feel the weight of actually leading people.

For me, it was the first time I had to lead a critical conversation with an important stakeholder during a painfully delicate phase of an infrastructure project. The engineering team had spent countless hours designing the hell out of an impossible building (frustratingly visionary architects, anyone? 🙄).

There I was, trying to sell the design to an audience pushing back so aggressively I froze. Full panic mode. I had to swallow my pride and sneakily message my boss to come rescue me.

Moments like these stick because they reveal the truth: leadership isn’t a switch you flip when you get the title. It’s a skill you build long before the spotlight’s on you. If you wait until you have to lead, you’re already too late.

The four stages of competence — and why timing matters

Skill development in leadership follows the same pattern as any other domain. The Four Stages of Competence give us a useful lens:

Unconscious incompetence – You’re unaware you even need the skill. Many early-career professionals believe technical expertise alone will prepare them for leadership. It doesn’t. Leadership is a different set of muscles.
Conscious incompetence – You become aware of the skill and notice your own gaps. This stage is uncomfortable because awareness brings insecurity. Without emotional intelligence, that insecurity often turns into defensiveness: micromanaging, needing to be “the smartest in the room,” or avoiding feedback altogether.
Conscious competence – You’ve learned the skill, but it takes conscious effort. You prepare for conversations, you think carefully about decisions, and you can feel yourself “working” at leadership. Under pressure, though, it’s easy to slip back into old habits.
Unconscious competence – Leadership becomes second nature. You can respond to challenges calmly, think clearly in conflict, and adapt without overthinking your every move. The earlier you reach this stage, the more natural and confident you’ll be when the formal responsibility arrives.

Most professionals make the mistake of waiting until they are in the role to start climbing this ladder. By then, you’re not just learning the skill, you’re learning it while managing deadlines, people, and expectations. That’s when the cracks show.

The emotional intelligence gap

When leadership skills are underdeveloped, the missing piece is often emotional intelligence. It’s the ability to notice your own triggers, regulate your reactions, and respond in ways that strengthen trust rather than erode it.

Without it, pressure exposes insecurities. That’s when leaders fall into common traps:

Confusing control with competenceIf you’re not sure you can lead through influence, you might try to lead through control; hovering over every decision, approving every minor task, and dictating how people should work instead of setting outcomes and trusting them to get there. It might feel safer for you, but it communicates a lack of trust to your team. Over time, it kills initiative and creativity, because people stop thinking for themselves.
Equating compliance with successIf your measure of a good team is that they “do what they’re told without complaining,” you’re missing the point. Compliance doesn’t mean engagement, it just means people are doing the bare minimum to avoid trouble. High-performance teams are motivated and self-driven, not just obedient. Emotional intelligence lets you notice when people are following rules without buying into the bigger vision, so you can address the real problem.
Avoiding difficult conversations to sidestep discomfortMany new leaders think avoiding conflict keeps the peace. In reality, it usually lets resentment grow under the surface. If you don’t develop the ability to handle uncomfortable conversations early, you’ll either let problems fester until they explode, or you’ll come down too hard when you finally do address them. Emotional intelligence helps you sit in that discomfort, listen with empathy, and guide the conversation to resolution without letting your own anxiety derail it.

These behaviours aren’t about malice, they’re coping mechanisms for uncertainty. But they cost you credibility, trust, and performance.

With emotional intelligence, you lead differently. You still feel pressure, but you don’t pass it down. You can listen without feeling threatened. You can adapt your style without losing your integrity.

Self-leadership: the reharsal space for leadership

As obvious as it sounds, you can’t lead others if you can’t lead yourself.It’s not just about time management or discipline, it’s about knowing yourself well enough to lead yourself through challenges without waiting for someone else to correct you.

When you practise self-leadership early, you:

Build the habit of reflecting before reacting early in your career, you have the luxury of making mistakes without the weight of an entire team’s performance on your shoulders. Use it. After a tense meeting or a project setback, take a moment to analyse what triggered your reaction and what you could have done differently. Over time, this reflection becomes second nature, helping you make more intentional decisions when the stakes are higher.
Learn to manage stress without leaking it into your team if you’ve ever worked for someone who let their bad mood spill into every interaction, you know how destructive it is. Managing stress isn’t about pretending you’re fine, it’s about processing it in healthy ways so you don’t make it everyone else’s problem. The earlier you practise this, the easier it is to stay calm and constructive in genuinely high-pressure situations.
Take ownership of your growth instead of waiting for your manager to push you self-leadership means driving your own development: seeking feedback, identifying skills you want to build, and finding ways to stretch yourself without waiting for someone to hand you opportunities. Leaders who’ve practised this early don’t just “meet expectations”, they raise them, for themselves and for others.

It’s these habits that make leadership less about “proving yourself” and more about serving your team effectively.

Leading before you have the title changes how you lead

When you develop leadership and self-leadership early, the skills stop feeling like “techniques” and start becoming part of who you are. You’re not performing leadership, you’re living it.

That’s when the real shift happens. You become confident enough to admit when you don’t have all the answers. You can show uncertainty, doubt, or even anxiety without losing authority, because you’ve learned how to do it in a grounded, professional way.

Your team won’t see weakness in that vulnerability. They’ll see strength. They’ll see the courage it takes to be authentic in an environment where everyone is expected to “hold it together” at all times.

A good leader doesn’t pretend to be flawless. They have the courage to show up with their skills and their humanity intact. They lead not because they’re infallible, but because they’re willing to stand there, flaws, insecurities, and all; and still take responsibility for moving forward.

So, start now. Lead yourself first. Practise early. Normalise the habits that will make you not just a capable leader, but a human one. Because when you get there, you won’t just be leading a team, you’ll be giving them permission to lead themselves, too.

If you enjoyed this article and want to know more about upcoming leadership workshop, contact me at coach@stefanocentineo.com