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Something has caught your attention. Perhaps you have been part of a conversation that, despite your efforts, keeps going wrong. You care about the other person, and you want things to go better. What can you do? Random Development is about getting curious in new ways, one of which is examining your BEING: Pause, experiment with the question, Who am I being in this interaction?, and notice what you discover.
How you do the experimenting is up to you. Whatever you are drawn to, try it, notice what resonates and what proves useful, and play with different ways of showing up.
The team has missed a deadline. It is not the first time, and I am getting frustrated. I call a meeting, and I reiterate to everyone what needs to happen, and why. I point out the commitments we had made, making sure everyone understands what is at stake. Nothing I say is unreasonable. I should not even need to be saying this again.
In the meeting, people choose their words carefully, explanations turn defensive, few ideas for moving forward are offered. It is as if I am talking to myself. Do I need to start talking about consequences? Is it time to replace some members of the team?
I keep wondering, Why are my messages not getting across?, or What needs to happen next? But have I asked myself, Who was I being in this conversation?
I had intended to offer clarity and accountability, yet I have instead brought about impatience, judgement, and an air of already knowing the answer. I have become the boss who needs to be in control, prove a point, fix the problem quickly, and protect myself from looking ineffective. My good intentions do not matter when they are not reflected in what I bring into the room and in how other people experience me.
I can focus on my options for BEING as a developmental practice, but not so that I may adopt a more attractive personality. I value being more aware of the kind of presence I bring into an interaction, the identity I step into, and the reactions that drive my words and behaviour, as all of that impacts other people, and that impact matters to me.
We can be clear without becoming controlling, loud, or coming across as a bully. We can convey confidence without pretending we have all the answers. And we can be courageous and assertive without becoming combative or dismissive or rude. Who we are being can change what becomes possible in the situation or conversation.
Over time, we can let go of the version of ourselves that just shows up under pressure, and become more adaptive so we can lead with the qualities different situations need.
Being is not a fixed personality or a single authentic self that you need to discover. As situations in life call for different qualities, you can expand your capacity to notice what you are bringing into a moment, and choose more consciously how to be in it.
This connects lightly with SEEING: Noticing more of what is happening around us may prompt an inward look as well. Over time, the question, Who am I being here and now? can become part of how you approach conversations, challenges, and relationships.
Before deciding what to say or do, notice what is happening inside you. Are you hurried, curious, irritated, anxious, defensive, energized, tired, generous, or perhaps eager to prove something? That inner state is not all of you, but it can easily become the person everyone else encounters, if you do not notice it first.
Though we are generally aware of our intentions, others mainly experience us through how we show up: through our tone, attention, choices, behaviour. Intending to be helpful, it can be easy to come across as controlling. Striving for efficiency, you may appear dismissive. You may challenge a friend because you believe in them and you intend to help them grow, yet your words may land as criticism. What might it be like for the person to be with you in that moment?
Under pressure, we sometimes slip into familiar roles without realizing it: the expert who must know, the rescuer who must fix, the judge who decides who is right, the controller who cannot risk uncertainty, or the pleaser who needs everyone to be comfortable. Notice the role and give it a simple name, not to criticize yourself, but to decide whether this is the person this situation needs.
Something happens. Your body and mind react, and action often follows almost instantly. A challenge to your ideas can seem like disrespect; silence can feel like resistance; a "We'll see" can strike you as a threat to your competence. Noticing the reaction can give you the space to decide how you respond.
Along with considering what action will work in a given situation, ask yourself as well which of your qualities the circumstances are calling for. Perhaps it is curiosity, steadiness, candour, patience, courage, humility, warmth, or resolve. Even if you do not embody the quality perfectly, choosing it mindfully in response to the situation lets you bring more of your unique being to the world.
Who you are being can affect whether other people engage, speak, take risks, disagree, think for themselves, ask for help, admit uncertainty, or bring their best ideas into the room. What really matters is not so much how we feel or intend to come across, but what our way of being makes possible for others.
Examine a real situation in which your impact did not quite match your intention, or one that repeatedly brings out an unhelpful version of you. A meeting, difficult conversation, conflict, teaching moment, decision, or situation in which you feel responsible, exposed, frustrated, or uncertain.
The aim is not to judge that version of yourself or replace it with a polished performance. Your developmental opportunity is to understand what brings that version of you forward and what it creates, and to consider whether another way of being might give you and the people around you some more useful possibilities.
Describe a situation in which something you said, or the way you acted, did not go the way you had intended. What happened, who was there, and what made the moment significant enough to stay with you?
What were you genuinely trying to make happen? Be generous enough to recognize your positive intention, while keeping open the possibility that intention and impact ended up not being aligned.
Recall what was happening inside you before and during the situation: your energy, emotions, tension, attention, assumptions, urgency, confidence, fear ... There is no need to explain or justify anything, just become aware of your inner state at the time.
Give that version of you a simple description: the expert, fixer, defender, judge, rescuer, controller, performer, avoider, learner, partner, host, or something else that resonates. Use it as a lens for exploring the situation, not as a label or diagnosis of who you are.
Now, put yourself on the other side of the interaction for a moment. What might people have experienced in your presence — through your tone, certainty, silence, eye contact, body language, pace, attention, questions, degree of openness and responsiveness?
What were you protecting, proving, avoiding, or trying to secure? Perhaps the reaction made sense in light of earlier experiences, the pressure you felt, or the assumptions you had made about others. Understanding that reaction gives you more choice for next time.
With practice, we can get more mindful and adaptive in how we show up. Name one or two qualities you would intentionally bring if you could go back to that situation. How would those qualities guide how you listen, speak, decide, ask questions, or hold your ground?
Once you have thought through the different options for being in difficult situations, try bringing yourself to a real situation the way you really intend. Then, notice what changes: in you, in people's responses, and in the new possibilities that emerge.
The idea is not to "fake it," or to become someone who you are not. Your developmental opportunity is in deeply appreciating the impact of how you show up, and in becoming aware of a wider range of options for being.
Whatever we do, and however we do it, there is impact. If we care about the way our words and actions effect the world around us, being attentive to how we are being with people, work, and situations affords us new options and creates new possibilities.
Sometimes they do, especially when a delay would cause bigger problems. But decisiveness can turn into certainty, and certainty can communicate that other people's thinking is no longer needed. Experiment with being decisive as well as open: clear about what must happen, curious about what you may not know.
Wanting to help can quickly turn an educator or coach into the person who supplies answers, fills silence, and points out the next step. Yet the learner may need you to be patient, curious, and confident in them, not to excuse them from thinking. Being the learner's guide and supporter does not mean rescuing them.
Expertise matters. But the urge to prove ourselves as experts can cause us to listen mainly for opportunities to demonstrate what we know. Being a curious partner does not require abandoning expertise; we can bring wisdom into the relationship with humility, supporting the client's discovery and growth.
When we take on a new role and greater responsibilities, our mind may trick us into believing we need to "perform," or become the person we think the role or the employer requires. Being that way may help temporarily, but it can prevent us from asking questions, learning, and bringing ourselves fully into the role.
The more important it feels to make someone understand, the easier it is to stop listening to them. Repeating your arguments more forcefully, offering more evidence, or correcting every objection makes you less responsive. Be clear about what matters, but stay open to being affected by what you hear.
Before your next conversation, meeting, class, decision, or interaction this week, choose a quality you would like to bring into it. Pick something that actually matters in that situation — perhaps curiosity, steadiness, courage, warmth, patience, candour, humility, or resolve — and take a moment to consider what that quality might look like in practice.
During the interaction, notice when pressure starts to trigger a more automatic or protective version of yourself, and re-focus on the quality you chose. Afterwards, reflect on how it went, for both you and others: Look for clues in what other people did, said, risked, questioned, or contributed, and ask what your way of being may have helped make possible.
Aspects of BEING have been researched from various angles: identity, mindfulness, meaning-making, emotional dynamics, and the way we continually construct ourselves in response to experience. All of this exploration suggests that who we are being is neither entirely fixed nor entirely private. Shared experiences help us grow.
A recent review of leader identity development highlights meaning-making as central to how people develop their sense of themselves in leadership. Experiences do not simply teach skills; people interpret those experiences, connect them with their evolving sense of self, and gradually change what leadership means to them and who they understand themselves to be within it.
Sunderman, H. M., & Orsini, J. (2024). Leader(ship) Identity Development and Meaning Making: A Scoping Review. Journal of Leadership Studies, 18(3), 23–47. DOI: 10.1002/jls.21905
A systematic review of 61 empirical studies describes managerial identity work as an ongoing process through which people shape, negotiate, and redefine professional identities in response to organizational, social, and personal pressures. It underlines the notion of BEING by challenging the idea that a role simply reveals who we already are; roles and experiences are opportunities for our sense of self to be actively reconstructed.
Westen, W., & Graça, M. (2024). Managerial identity work: a systematic literature review with a conceptual model. Management Review Quarterly. DOI: 10.1007/s11301-024-00481-6
A meta-analysis drawing on 109 studies found that greater leader mindfulness was associated with more follower-centred leadership behaviours and with better follower relationships, well-being, and performance. The authors describe mindfulness in terms of present-moment attention combined with an open and receptive attitude, which fits an important part of BEING: noticing our state and responses to have more choice about what we bring to other people.
Donald, J. N., Nguyen, H., Conigrave, J. H., Johnson, A., Adarves-Yorno, I., Cheng, R., Bedi, A., Lowe, K. B., Lyons, J. L., Devine, E. K., Tamm, G. B., & Ryan, R. M. (2025). Does Leaders’ Mindfulness Benefit Followers? A Meta-analytic Review and Research Agenda. British Journal of Management. DOI: 10.1111/1467-8551.70009
Recent research on workplace emotional contagion treats emotional life as something circulating among leaders, colleagues, clients and other stakeholders, rather than remaining contained within one person. The findings reinforce a useful developmental point: Our emotional presence participates in a wider social environment, and becoming aware of that influence matters even when we cannot control exactly how others respond.
Petitta, L., & Jiang, L. (2026). Integrating Emotional Contagion into Leadership Theorizing: Development and Validation of the Leader Awareness of Holistic Contagion Scale. European Journal of Investigation in Health, Psychology and Education, 16(5), 61. DOI: 10.3390/ejihpe16050061
Paying attention to who you are being can open other questions. You may become curious about what you had not noticed, what your presence is creating between people, or what repeated ways of being are gradually shaping you into.
What might this way of being make easier — or harder — for me to see?
What does who I am being help create between us?
What am I rehearsing into a more lasting way of being?
As you go through your days, notice what version of you appears when something important, difficult, or uncertain happens. Suspend your judgment, and instead get curious: Experiment with bringing a quality that might serve the situation better. The range of what becomes possible in tricky situations expands as you become more proficient at choosing who you are being in each one. That's Random Development.
