April 14, 2026 | Issue Archive​

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The Drain Isn’t Coming From Where You Think

Before a recent keynote, I asked 159 healthcare leaders to answer one question anonymously:

What leadership moment most consistently drains your energy?

Here's a sample of what came back:

"Negativity in the workplace."

"Employees making the same mistakes over and over."

"The same recurring meetings that produce no outcomes."

"Staff resisting change."

"The weight of other people's burdens."

Read those again.

Notice anything?

Every single one is about other people's behavior.

Not one person wrote: My inability to regulate under pressure.

Not one person wrote: My default pattern when things get hard.

Not one person wrote: Me.

And I don't say that to be hard on them.

I say it because I've been in enough rooms to know: this is universal.

It happens to you. It happens to me.

When we're drained, we look outward. That's not weakness. That's survival mode—and survival mode always finds an external cause.

Here's what I've learned that changes everything:

Their defaults are triggering yours.

When a staff member panics, something in you responds—with your own version of panic, or confusion, or an exhausting need to control the outcome.

When a team member retreats into isolation, you feel it—and you might retreat too, or overcorrect by trying to fix what isn't yours to fix.

You're not just witnessing their defaults.

You're catching them.

This is the part nobody talks about in leadership development. We spend all our time trying to manage other people's behavior—when the real leverage point is recognizing what their behavior activates in us.

Because here's the truth:

You cannot lead someone out of a default you haven't learned to override in yourself.

The leader who wrote "staff resisting change"—I'd want to ask: Where are you avoiding the uncomfortable conversation that would actually address it?

The leader who wrote "the weight of other people's burdens"—I'd want to ask: Which default kicks in when you absorb what isn't yours to carry?

Not to put them on the spot.

But because the path out of the drain isn't managing them better.

It's choosing differently—first.

The Moment

This week, when you feel your energy dropping—pause before you name the cause.

Instead of: They are draining me.

Try: What just got activated in me—and which of my defaults is running right now?

Panic? Confusion? Comfort-seeking? Doubt? Isolation?

Name it. That's where your leverage lives.

The Ending

Challenge the belief that your drain is always coming from the outside.

Sometimes it is.

But more often, someone else's default just handed yours the microphone.

You can take it back.

And when you do...

Up we go—

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