Leadership conversations often focus on strategy, performance, and outcomes. But beneath every decision and interaction lies something less visible, and arguably more influential: motive.
In a recent interview, leadership expert Jill Macauley of Behavioral Essentials reframed leadership not as a function of what leaders do, but why they do it. Motive, she explains, is “the heartbeat of why you get out of bed every morning”—a force that operates largely beneath conscious awareness yet shapes behavior, perception, and ultimately, impact.
This distinction matters. Because when leaders fail to examine their motives, they also miss the blind spots that come with them.