Message From Julie: Extraordinary Leadership Starts in the Ordinary Moments

Author: Julie Chance, Founder of Action Strategies by Design

A few years ago, I attended the wedding of a friend’s daughter. In his toast to the young couple, the Man of Honor encouraged them to appreciate the ordinary as the way to achieve the extraordinary. He urged them to appreciate ordinary things like walks and shared sunsets and suggested in doing so they would find the extraordinary.

Not only is this a powerful life lesson, but also a powerful lesson for leaders. 

I’ve spent years working with leaders across organizations, and one thing has become clear. Extraordinary leadership isn’t about big, dramatic moments. It’s about the small, everyday choices leaders make—moment by moment—that ultimately shapes their impact.

And those choices are driven by mindset.

When I facilitate leadership sessions, I often start with a simple question: Think of a leader who had a big impact on you. What did they actually do? Most people don’t talk about technical expertise or strategy. They talk about how that leader showed up—how they listened, challenged, supported, or created space.

That’s mindset in action and it’s something as a leader you can intentionally develop.

A Framework for Understanding Mindset

One of the most practical frameworks you can use (and teach to those you mentor or coach) is this:

Mindset → Stories → Choices → Impact

Your mindset drives the stories you tell yourself, which shape the choices you make, which ultimately create your impact.

Here’s an example of how the model works. Think about a high-stakes meeting.

You have a perspective that could shift the conversation and prevent a bad decision, but you hesitate. The internal story you tell yourself might sound like: “I’m not senior enough to challenge this.” “Or no one else seems concerned.” Your story leads you to stay quiet. The impact? Risks go unspoken, and a poor decision is made.

Now shift the mindset.

What if the story becomes: “My perspective could add value and prevent a bad decision. If I don’t speak up it could cost the company a lot of money and damage credibility. Same situation. You make the choice to speak up. And the impact? A better decision for the organization and increased visibility for you.

Nothing external changed. Just the mindset you chose.

The Five Mindsets That Change How You Lead

In my experience, the most effective leaders aren’t different because of talent. They’re different because of the mindsets they consistently choose.

Here are five shifts you can start making immediately:

• Choose courage over comfort – Speak up, even when it’s uncomfortable. Have the difficult conversation. Share your idea. Question a decision.
• Choose possibilities over probabilities – Don’t get bogged down in what’s likely; explore what’s possible.
• Choose vulnerability over perfection – Admit when you don’t have the answer or when you’ve made a mistake. Pretending to be perfect erodes trust while vulnerability demonstrates strength and builds trust.
• Choose curiosity over certainty – A leader’s job is not to have all the answers. It is to guide the team in finding answers. Be curious, ask more questions and listen longer.
• Choose service over status – Leadership is a responsibility not a reward. Focus on impact, not image.

These aren’t personality traits you either have or don’t. They’re decisions you make, often in small moments.

If You Want to Shift Behavior, Start with Language

Organizations can build great leadership development programs that teach valuable skills but if leaders don’t shift the way they think, behavior change won’t stick.

One of the simplest ways to shift mindset (or identify the mindset you or others are operating from) is by focusing on language.

Start by noticing the stories you’re telling:

• “I’m not ready.”
• “I don’t have enough influence.”
• “This won’t work.”

Then challenge those stories:

• What am I assuming?
• Is that actually true?
• What else could be true?

From there, rewrite the narrative:

• “I’m not ready” → “I can figure this out as I go.”
• “I don’t have influence” → “I can influence one conversation at a time.”
• “This won’t work” → “What’s possible that might work?”

When you shift the language, you shift the mindset. And when the mindset shifts, behavior follows.

The One-Degree Shift That Changes Everything

You don’t need massive change to create meaningful impact.

Instead, ask yourself or those you lead:

• When can you choose courage instead of comfort this week?
• Where can you lean into curiosity instead of providing answers?
• How can you demonstrate vulnerability instead of feigning perfection?

Small shifts create a big impact. Consider the impact on the relationship of the young couple if they take five minutes and notice a sunset even amidst the chaos of working and caring for an infant and toddler. Or if they can laugh with their child who just spilled chocolate syrup spilled all over the kitchen floor even though they must now clean it up. 

Consider the leader whose team is behind on a major project. Rather than piling on the pressure she says, “Let’s pause and step back for a minute. If it were possible, what would we need to do differently?” Think about the leader who chooses to be vulnerable and admit they made the wrong decision, building trust in the process rather than becoming defensive or blaming the team. Or the leader who when someone misses a deadline says “Help me understand what got in the way” instead of jumping to the conclusion the person is unreliable or lazy.

Over time, those one-degree changes compound. They shape how you show up in meetings, how you make decisions, how you interact with your team, and how others experience your leadership.

Your extraordinary leadership story is not written by dramatic moments. It doesn’t require a position of power. It happens in the choices you make in the everyday moments that matter most