The Body Remembers
Before you can think, your body has already responded. A tightness. A withdrawal. A need to explain. These are not random reactions. They are patterns the body has learned and practised over years. Noticing them is where a different kind of self-awareness begins.
We often think of the past as something we can recall.
A memory. A story. Something we can describe if we try hard enough. But much of our past does not live in our thoughts. It lives in our body. It shows up in ways we do not always understand.
A sudden tightness when someone raises their voice.
A sense of hesitation when we are about to speak up.
A need to explain ourselves, even when no one is asking.
These reactions can feel immediate, almost automatic. Before we have time to think, the body has already responded. And sometimes, we are left wondering, “Why did I react like that?”
I see this most often in my marriage. A comment made by the spouse could lead to a disproportionate reaction from me.
We tend to explain these moments logically.
“I’m just tired.”
“It’s been a long day.”
“The person was being difficult.”
And sometimes, those explanations are true. But more often than not, they are incomplete. Because the intensity of our reaction does not always match what is happening in front of us.
Something small happens, but our response feels big.
Something neutral happens, but we feel defensive.
Something simple is said, but we feel the need to withdraw.
It is as if the body is responding to more than just the present moment.
What the Body Has Learned
In Singapore, many of us grew up in environments where certain ways of being were expected.
Respect authority. Do not talk back. Do not make unnecessary trouble. Follow the rules.
These are not wrong. They have helped many of us move through life in structured and predictable ways.
But over time, the body learns.
It learns when it is safer to stay quiet. It learns when speaking up leads to discomfort. It learns how to brace, how to adapt, how to fit in.
And the thing about learning like this is that it does not disappear just because we grow older or wiser. It does not disappear after a conflict, even when we choose to forgive.
In many moments, when facing a boss, a loved one, or even a difficult conversation, the body responds first. Not because we have consciously chosen it, but because something in us recognises the situation.
A bit like taking the MRT during peak hour. Even before the train arrives, our body already knows what to expect - where to stand, when to move, how to position ourselves to get in. We do not think about it. We just do it.
In the same way, the body has been “practising” for years. Practising how to respond. Practising how to protect. Practising how to belong.
So when a familiar situation appears, the body does not wait for analysis. It acts intuitively.
It is a kind of intelligence rather than a flaw.
Patterns We Call “Who We Are”
The body is trying to take care of us, using what it has learned. But sometimes, what it has learned is no longer useful for who we are today.
The body that helped us navigate school may not serve us in leadership.
The body that helped us avoid conflict at home may limit us in our relationships now.
The body that helped us “keep the peace” may come at the cost of being honest.
And yet, the body continues to act because it has not been updated.
The difficulty is that we often relate to these reactions as just who we are - “I’m not the kind who speaks up. I’m just bad at difficult conversations. I’m naturally like that.”
But what if these are not fixed traits? What if they are patterns the body has learned over time? Patterns that once made sense. Patterns that once protected us. Patterns that we are now outgrowing.
Noticing these patterns is about becoming aware of how this intelligence still lives in us and how it might be incoherent with who we want to become.
These patterns appear in small moments - the message we rewrite multiple times before sending, the conversation we avoid, even though we know it matters, the tasks we dislike doing and procrastinate on.
On the surface, these look like everyday behaviours. And if we are willing to stay curious, even for a moment, we might begin to notice something more.
Not a clear story. Not a full explanation. Just a sense that this reaction feels familiar. As if we have been here before.
A Different Kind of Listening
This is where a different kind of listening begins. In ontological coaching, this is called “listening to the body”. It is listening for the pattern in how our body reacts.
Not asking, “What should I do?” but gently wondering, “What is my body remembering here?” Sometimes, nothing obvious comes up. But the act of noticing itself starts to create space.
We might start to notice that small gap between what we feel and how we automatically respond. And in that gap, something new becomes possible.
We may still feel the urge to speak, but choose to listen a little longer. We may still feel the urge to judge, but choose to remain curious a little longer. We may still feel the urge to withdraw, but stay present just a bit more.
And over time, the body does what it has always done. It learns again through new experiences.
Experiences where speaking up does not lead to rejection, but to new possibilities. Experiences where honesty does not break the relationship, but leads to deeper trust. Experiences where slowing down does not mean getting less done, but allows for deeper connection with others.
These moments begin to reshape what the body expects.
Perhaps this is part of the work - to recognise that we are not just thinking beings, but embodied beings. That our way of being today is shaped not only by what we believe, but by what we have lived through. And that change is not only about new ideas, but new embodied experiences.
And in noticing that, we begin to shift from conceptual self-awareness to embodied self-awareness. Perhaps that is the real question - not just "Who am I?" but "What is my body still remembering?"
Continue Reading — The Ontological Coaching Series:
Interested in experiencing 1-1 ontological coaching firsthand? Learn more here.
Written by Victor Seet
Victor facilitates teams to leverage their collective strengths, get clear on ways of engagement and ways of working to strengthen team and interpersonal dynamics. Victor specializes in integrating strengths-based and ontological approach into his team coaching and leadership workshops.
Listening to the Body - The Body Knows First
The body flags disruption long before the mind has words for it. This is about learning to listen to what it is already telling you.
We learn a lot about listening - listen to understand, listen with empathy, active listening. They share quite similar concepts and practices. This article is about something different. It is about listening to the body.
Our body actually flags disruptions. It gives us data. But disruptions rarely arrive as insights. They arrive as discomfort. Frustration. A sense of flatness we cannot explain. The feeling that we are doing the right things, but something essential is missing.
We might not call it a signal at first. It just feels like “one of those weeks.” Or months.
When we override the signals
I ignored the signs for a long time. The recurring stress at work and at home pushed me toward unhealthy eating. Snacks, burgers, pratas, and steak. They became a way to cope - something warm, something familiar, something that did not ask questions. I gained weight. My sleep and mood suffered.
At some point, it stopped feeling like a phase and started feeling like a pattern.
In Singapore, many of us were raised to push through difficulty rather than sit with it. So we work longer. We push harder. We optimise. Even rest becomes something to get right. We plan a holiday and treat it like another project - itinerary, timings, food spots all mapped out. We tell ourselves we are tired, not stuck.
And because life in Singapore moves quickly, it’s easy to blend in. From the outside, it feels like everyone is rushing for the MRT, rushing from place to place, rushing to queue for food. It feels normal to clear emails late into the night. Everyone is trying to keep up. So we assume what we are feeling is normal.
But the body is a more honest observer than the story we are telling ourselves.
A tightness in the chest.
A heaviness when we wake up.
A hesitation before a certain conversation.
A recurring dread before certain tasks.
These are not random. They are not inconveniences to suppress or explain away. They are the first vocabulary of something important trying to surface.
Noticing What We Have Missed
The challenge is that we often do not speak this language.
We are more fluent in explaining, justifying, and analysing. We can give very good reasons for why we are stressed, why we cannot slow down, why things have to be this way. But when it comes to simply noticing what is happening in the body, we hesitate.
It can feel unproductive. Even uncomfortable.
So we do what we know how to do. We override.
We push through the tightness.
We distract from the fatigue.
We scroll when things feel too quiet.
A bit like being at a buffet, already full, but still eating more because it’s what everyone else is doing. We don’t pause long enough to ask if we should continue eating.
As a parent of three, I am starting to pay more attention, especially to how I show up with my kids.
I notice that I can be physically present with my children while being entirely absent, my attention consumed by the very anxieties I am trying to outrun. When my child says, “you are always on your phone,” I could deflect with my work responsibilities. I could explain the the deadlines and the job expectations. But what’s underneath that complaint is often true.
Something in me has gone automatic.
Something in me has become so habitual that I can no longer feel it.
And it is often the body that reveals this first. Not as a clear thought, but as a subtle disconnection. A lack of warmth. A sense that we are going through the motions of something that used to feel alive.
We might notice it in small moments - sitting at the dinner table, hearing the conversation but not really being there. Walking beside someone we love, yet feeling a distance we cannot explain.
These are subtle but real signals.
Listening to Our Body as a Practice
The body is trying to bring us back. Back to what matters. Back to what we are avoiding. Back to what we have stopped noticing.
But listening to our body is not something most of us were taught.
We were taught to think clearly, to speak properly, to behave appropriately. The body, on the other hand, can feel like the stick holding the lollipop. The lollipop is the brain, and the body is just “a thing” to hold it up.
What might change if we related to our body sensations differently, as an ongoing practice?
Not as interruptions, but as invitations.
An invitation to pause, even briefly, in the middle of a busy day.
An invitation to notice what is happening without immediately fixing it.
An invitation to ask, quietly, “what is this trying to show me?”
Nothing dramatic happens. There are no big, visible breakthroughs. But something shifts within us.
We become a little more present.
A little less automatic.
And over time, this small shift changes the way we move through our days.
Like choosing to be in the moment instead of rushing off. While the environment and the people we interact with are more or less the same, but our way of being is now different because of the small shift. We start to experience what was always available, but rarely noticed in the past.
New possibilities now open up - possibilities to bless others with an act of service, to smile at someone, to acknowledge a colleague’s actions or to say something kind to a neighbour.
And perhaps this is what listening with the body can bring.
And for me, those possibilities open up a whole new world to breathe in.
Continue Reading — The Ontological Coaching Series:
Written by Victor Seet
Victor facilitates teams to leverage their collective strengths, get clear on ways of engagement and ways of working to strengthen team and interpersonal dynamics. Victor specializes in integrating strengths-based and ontological approach into his team coaching and leadership workshops.
The Way of Being - Why How You Show Up Shapes What Becomes Possible
Most leadership behaviour change does not last beyond a quarter. The reason is structural - the Way of Being. Here is what it takes to make change actually hold.
By Victor Seet — Ontological & CliftonStrengths Coach, Singapore
For years, leadership was something I did to influence others. The conversations I had with others. The decisions I made to effect change. The strategies I rolled out for the team. I optimised the doing relentlessly, and for a long time it worked.
Then I noticed something uncomfortable. The same type of conversations, held by me on a good day and a bad day, produced completely different results, even when the words were almost identical. My team was not actually responding to what I was saying. They were responding to who I was being while I said it. I noticed how my wife responded to me in different situations. Similarly, I noticed how my kids responded to me.
I started paying attention to Way of Being. And it remains, in my experience, the most overlooked variable in workplaces today. It is also, I have come to believe, the real reason most behaviour change does not last.
What Way of Being Actually Means
In ontological coaching, Way of Being is not a personality, a mood of the day, or a set of values you wrote on a slide. It is the structural coherence of three domains that have settled in every human being over time.
Language is how we speak, and what we say to ourselves when no one is listening. Mood is the emotions we carry, the ones so familiar we no longer notice them. Body is how we hold our shoulders, our jaw, our breath, our posture, the way our chest tightens before certain conversations.
These three are always operating. We just rarely notice them. As I shared in an earlier piece, most of what shapes us stays transparent until something cracks the lens. Way of Being lives in that same transparent territory. We are being someone right now as we read this article. We just are not paying attention to it.
And here is what makes it structural rather than situational. Our Way of Being did not get assembled this morning. It got built quietly over years, out of what was rewarded, what was punished, the survival strategies that worked when we were young and somehow stayed. By the time we are adults leading a team, our Way of Being is the deep coherence underneath every interaction we have. It does not change because we read a good article or attended a workshop.
Why This Matters More Than We Admit
At work, we are often very good at the what. We optimise. We restructure. We KPI. We send people for training. We create new processes and systems.
What we tend to miss is that two leaders with identical strategies will produce wildly different cultures, because they carry different bodies into the room, speak from different moods, and run different internal language. The strategy did not change the outcome. The Way of Being did.
This is also why so many leadership development efforts produce a short-lived high. The workshop teaches a new behaviour. The leader returns to the office. The body is the same. The internal language is the same. The mood is the same. Within two weeks, the new behaviour has been quietly absorbed back into the old Way of Being, and nothing has actually changed.
Behaviour change without Way of Being change will be shortlived. I believe I have done enough CliftonStrengths workshops to say that. And I say transparently that the workshop feedback I get is very consistent. The workshop feedback is fantastic. The check-in feedback a few months later says everything went back to normal.
Whatever insights learnt and applied from the workshop is sustainable for a quarter at most.
The Invisible Triad at Work
Let me make this concrete with two examples.
A senior manager says she keeps getting feedback that her team finds her intimidating. She does not understand it. She does not raise her voice. She does not scold. So we slow down. We examine her body. Her arms cross frequently. She leans to the front most of the time in our conversations as if she is ready to pounce. Her shoulders are pulled up. Her jaw is set. We examine her language. Her words tend to be corporate speak, and formal. She often begins with "actually" and "no" and uses a lot of “you”. We examine her mood. She is in a low-grade impatience most of the day.
She had no idea. Her team has been reading her body and mood long before they hear her words. None of this is what she is doing. It is who she is being.
Another example. A founder tells me he wants to build a more innovative culture. He runs ideation sessions. He sets up Slack channels. He buys whiteboards. Innovation does not come. So we look at his Way of Being in those rooms. His body disposition shows his energy is often channelled downwards, like roots going deep into the ground. His language is heavy with "but" and "the issue is" and often evaluative. His mood is suspicion dressed up as rigour. His team has learned, without anyone saying it, that ideas get torn down and punctured quickly.
Why Structure Matters: The Limit of Insight
Here is the part many coaching conversations skip past. I have done that often too.
In a good session, a client can have a moment of genuine seeing. “Oh! I have been intimidating my team. Oh! I have been shooting down every idea. Oh! I have been listening to respond rather than to understand.”
The lens cracks. Something opens.
But the seeing alone does not change anything yet. Because the structure that produced the old way of seeing is still intact. The body has not moved. The mood has not shifted. The internal language is still running its old loops. In a week, and sometime days, the structure quietly reasserts itself, and the insight from the previous coaching session feels like a memory.
This is why Way of Being work cannot stop at insight. The insight is the doorway. The work is the slow expansion of the structure itself - new bodily practices, new mood disciplines, new linguistic moves, until the structure can hold a different way of seeing as its new default.
This is also why ontological coaching takes time. I have stopped doing one-off or even a pair of coaching sessions. We can open a new way of seeing in a single conversation. We cannot install a new Way of Being in a single conversation. The structure is older than that and will not be hurried.
A Closing Invitation
The question is not, what should I do differently this week?
The deeper question, the one that takes time to even hear properly, is this. Who am I being at work, in my marriage, with my children, with myself? And is that who I want to be?
The answer rarely comes in one sitting. But the willingness to ask it, gently and honestly, is already the first crack in the structure.
In the next piece, I will explore what sits on top of Way of Being - the Observer we become because of it, and why shifting how we see is both the easiest and the hardest part of this work.
Continue Reading — The Ontological Coaching Series:
Interested in experiencing ontological coaching firsthand? To explore 1-1 ontological coaching, enquire here.
Written by Victor Seet
Activator • Communication • Strategic • Self-Assurance • Command
Shame is the Most Hidden Mood in Any Workplace — and It Shapes More Than We Realise
Shame is hard to talk about because it doesn't want to be seen. Where resentment leaks sideways and anger announces itself, shame works quietly underneath. This piece goes a layer deeper than my earlier writings on shame, into the distinction between the emotion and mood of shame, and what that mood does to how we see ourselves, our work, and the people around us.
I have written before about how shame forms in a shame and honor culture, and how it shows up in the language and behaviours of the workplace. This one builds on the last two and hopefully goes a layer deeper. It is about what shame does to us as observers, to the very lens through which we see ourselves, our work, and the people around us.
Shame is not just an emotion that comes and goes. It is a way of seeing.
Shame is hard to talk about because it doesn't want to be seen. That is its nature. Where resentment leaks out sideways and anger announces itself, shame works quietly underneath. It bends what we notice, what we say, what we dare to attempt. And by the time we feel its effects, it has usually been at work for a long time.
The Emotion of Shame and the Mood of Shame
This is a distinction worth knowing. The emotion of shame is a moment. Something happens, a public correction or an idea dismissed in front of others, and there is a wave of shame that moves through us. The chest tightens. The face warms. We want to disappear. The wave is uncomfortable, but it passes. The emotion does its work and moves on once the event is over.
The mood of shame is something else entirely. It is shame that has stopped being a visitor and become a resident. It is no longer something we feel. It is something we live in, often without realising it. The walls of our room are made of shame, and we live inside the room long enough that we mistake the walls for the world.
When we are in the mood of shame, we are not having a shame reaction to a specific event. We are already in shame before the event happens. This is a key distinction. A colleague's feedback is read through shame. The boss's silence in the meeting is read through shame. The mistake in a submission is interpreted through shame. There does not need to be a triggering moment, because the mood is already there, doing the interpreting in advance.
In my own life, the mood of shame was largely invisible to me for years. I blamed others for their behaviours. I thought my self-criticism was high standards. It took a breakdown and the slow work of ontological coaching for me to see that I had been living inside a mood, not seeing the world.
The mood of shame is dangerous in workplaces precisely because it is invisible to the one inside it. Emotions are tied to events. Moods are what we live in. And what we live in, we tend not to question.
How the Mood of Shame Looks in Workplaces
The mood of shame at work does not look like sadness or visible distress. It often looks like something else entirely.
Sometimes it looks like the high-performing colleague who cannot rest. Works through every weekend, takes on every extra project. From the outside, dedication. From the inside, the mood whispering if I stop, I will be exposed.
Sometimes it looks like the leader who cannot let anything go. Every detail must pass through them. From the outside, high standards. From the inside, if something fails, the inner voice whispers “I am a failure”.
Sometimes it looks like the team member who caveats every statement with "I'm not sure but…" From the outside, humility. From the inside, the mood negotiating in advance for safety from judgment.
Sometimes it looks like charm. The person everyone likes. From the outside, emotional intelligence. From the inside, the mood keeping itself safe through being liked.
Do these behaviours mean they are 100% expressions of shame? Absolutely not! That is the thing about the mood of shame. The narratives are visible mostly to the people inside the mood, who are doing what the mood asks of them.
Shame as an Observer
In ontological coaching, we talk about the observer - the one who sees, interprets, and acts in the world. Different observers see different worlds. The shame observer sees a particular kind of world.
In the world of the shame observer, every interaction is a verdict. Every silence from a colleague is read as disapproval. Every email without a greeting is read as cold. The key distinction is that the data which others hold loosely - maybe she's just having a busy morning - the shame observer holds tightly, with weight and finality.
I noticed this in myself when I went for counselling a couple of years ago. I shared with the counsellor about a difficult workshop where the feedback had several critical comments. While some will see that as data to improve, I read those comments with a small voice in my head that has been there since I was fourteen. It was a voice of ridicule, telling me I was lousy. I spent weeks in a quiet contraction that I could not explain.
That is the shame observer at work. The same words, on the same page, become entirely different things depending on the lens we read them through.
What the Mood of Shame Does to a Team
When the mood of shame settles into a team, certain things stop happening. As a team coach, I have learnt to identify certain recurring patterns. Here are some notable ones:
People stop asking questions in meetings, because asking a question would expose them - admitting they did not know, fear of being scolded, fear of wasting other colleagues’ precious work time.
People stop volunteering for stretch projects, because failure is intolerable.
People stop bringing half-formed ideas, because ideas at work must arrive fully formed and bulletproof.
What gets lost is everything that depends on a willingness to be seen as unfinished:
Curiosity. Experimentation. Real collaboration. Genuine learning. All of these require the ability to sit in the unknown in front of others. The mood of shame makes that impossible.
The team keeps functioning. Reports get filed. Targets get hit. But the energy in the room is managing exposure and failures rather than advancing the actual work. And we often cannot tell the difference, because both look like activity.
Four Practices to Work With Shame
Notice the body first. Before we try to think our way through a shame moment, we find the physical signal. Where did we tighten? When did our breath change? The body knows before the mind does.
Name it specifically."I am in shame right now because _____." Here’s an example "I am in shame right now because my manager gave me critical feedback on my report, and I am hearing it as a verdict on who I am rather than what I did.”
The specificity is what creates distance. Shame thrives on the vague.
Ask whether this is the emotion or the mood.
"Did something just happen, or have I been carrying this all week?" The answer changes what kind of work is needed.
Tell one safe person. Shame is a relational wound, and it heals relationally. One witness, well chosen, breaks something open.
Shame is the emotion most workplaces never learn to see. But it is shaping the room whether or not we name it. It shapes what gets said, what gets risked, who gets heard, and who quietly checks out.
The question worth sitting with is not how do I make shame disappear? Instead, I recommend this - "What would become possible here if shame had less power over how we see each other?"
Continue Reading — The Emotions at Workplaces Series:
Interested in experiencing ontological coaching firsthand? Explore 1-1 coaching with Victor here.
Written by Victor Seet
Activator • Communication • Strategic • Self-Assurance • Command
As a Gallup and Newfield Certified Leadership Coach in Singapore, Victor is passionate about helping people be better observer of themselves to achieve the results they want, especially in the area of well-being and performance. Victor intentionally integrates the strengths-based and ontological approach into his leadership coaching and workshops.
Resentment Is One of the Most Expensive Emotions in Any Workplace
A leader once told me he had been "a bit frustrated" with his director for nearly two years. By the end of our conversation, he could see it was not frustration at all. It was resentment and it had quietly been shaping every decision he made at work.
By Victor Seet, ICF (PCC, ACTC). Newfield Certified ontological coach and Gallup Gold and Platinum Certified CliftonStrengths Coach. Based in Singapore.
A few years ago, I sat across a senior manager who told me, almost in passing, that he had been "a bit frustrated" with his director for nearly two years. He said it the way you might mention a sore knee. Manageable. Liveable. Background noise.
But as we kept talking, something else came out. He shared that he had stopped offering ideas in meetings. He had quietly turned down two projects he would have once jumped at. He told his wife he was thinking of leaving the organization. To him, none of these actions were connected. They were just things that had happened.
By the end of our conversation, he saw things differently. What he had been calling "frustration" for two years was actually resentment. And the moment he had a different word for it, the whole picture revealed itself with greater clarity.
Nothing in his work situation had changed in that hour. But something in him had.
Frustration and resentment are not the same thing
Most of us were taught one big word for difficult feelings at work - “frustrated”.
We use it for many things. Traffic on the way to a client meeting. A teammate who keeps missing deadlines. A boss who keeps interrupting whenever someone presents an idea.
But frustration and resentment are actually two very different things, and they ask for very different responses.
Frustration is fresh. It is the small jolt of energy when something gets in your way. You feel it, you say something or you adjust, and it passes. Frustration moves.
Resentment does not move. Resentment is what frustration becomes when it is swallowed too many times. It is anger that was never given permission to speak. And once it settles in, it stops looking like an emotion. It starts looking like your personality. Your cynicism. Your "this is just how I am at work now."
The leader I was speaking with had been treating resentment as if it were frustration for two years. No wonder nothing had shifted.
Why this matters more at work than we think
Resentment is expensive in the workplace because of how quietly it shows up.
It rarely arrives as an outburst. It arrives as the team member who has stopped putting their hand up. The senior who has stopped mentoring. The high performer whose effort has gone from 110 percent to a precise 70. The colleague who agrees in the meeting and then quietly does the opposite.
Most managers read these as performance issues. Or attitude problems. Or signs that someone has become "less engaged."
But underneath, very often, is something simpler. A contribution that was never seen. A boundary that was never shared. A need that never found language. A small moment of being passed over that was never repaired.
The problem is not that people are quietly resentful at work. The problem is that most workplaces have only one distinction for what is happening — disengagement — and so the actual signal gets missed.
What resentment is really pointing to
In the ontological tradition I work in, every emotion is treated as information. Resentment is no exception.
When you sit with resentment honestly, it usually points to one of three things.
Sometimes it points to a request that was never made. You wanted something from your boss, your colleague, your spouse — and instead of asking, you waited. Hoped they would notice. They did not. Now you are upset with them for not reading your mind.
Sometimes it points to a boundary that was never declared. You said yes when you meant no. You took on the extra project, the extra weekend, the extra emotional labour. And then you resented the person who asked, even though you were the one who said yes.
Sometimes it points to a moment of harm that was never repaired. Something happened — a comment, a decision, a being-passed-over — and no one ever came back to acknowledge it. So you carry it. And it keeps colouring everything that comes after.
None of these are fixable from the outside. But all of them become workable the moment you can name which one you are dealing with.
Three practices to work with resentment
These are practices I use with my own clients, and that I have come back to in my own life more than once.
Write the letter you will never send. Sit down and write the full, unedited version of what you wish you could say. No one needs to read it. The point is not to deliver it. The point is to give the resentment somewhere to go that is not your body and not your behaviour at work.
Name it precisely. Try saying out loud, "I resent _____ because I needed _____ and it was not there." Specificity does something that vague reflection cannot. The moment you name what was actually missing, you have something you can act on.
Bring it to a witness. A coach, a trusted friend, a peer. Resentment loses its grip when it is heard. Not advised on. Not solved. Just heard. This is part of why so many people start to feel different in coaching long before anything in their situation has changed.
The distinction that changes everything
Once you can tell frustration from resentment in yourself, you start to notice it in others too. The colleague who has gone quiet. The team member who used to push back and no longer does. The friend who keeps making the same complaint about the same person, year after year.
These are not character flaws. They are signals. The world has not changed. Your distinctions grew.
And once that happens, you can never quite go back to not seeing.
Continue Reading — The Emotions at Workplaces Series:
Interested in experiencing ontological coaching firsthand? Explore 1-1 coaching with Victor here.
Written by Victor Seet
Activator • Communication • Strategic • Self-Assurance • Command
As a Gallup and Newfield Certified Leadership Coach in Singapore, Victor is passionate about helping people be better observer of themselves to achieve the results they want, especially in the area of well-being and performance. Victor intentionally integrates the strengths-based and ontological approach into his leadership coaching and workshops.
Why Some Truths Only Surface When Things Break
Most of us don't notice the lens we look through until something cracks it. A coach's honest reflection on what ontological coaching is, and why disruption is often the doorway to seeing clearly.
A coach’s reflection on the moment ordinary life stops working and what that has to do with how we see.
People often ask me what ontological coaching actually is. One of the responses I often give is this: it is the work of helping people see what they have been looking through their whole lives without realising it.
Let me explain.
Most of what shapes us is invisible to us. Not because we are inattentive, but because our assumptions, our habitual ways of seeing, our beliefs about who we are and how the world works all operate quietly, beneath conscious thought. They are the lens through which we look at everything.
And as long as the lens is intact, we don’t notice it. We only see through it.
Then something happens. An unexpected event. A piece of feedback. An email from a client. We call these the “Oh no” or “Oh wow” moments. What most people miss is this: the cause of the disruption is rarely the event itself. It is the way we had been seeing, the lens we never knew we had, that just got cracked.
And in that moment when the lens cracked, we suddenly see the lens. Not just the world we were viewing through it.
This is not a moment of failure. It is a moment of realization.
In ontological coaching, we call this “a break in transparency.”
For me, this kind of “break in transparency” moment came in 2019, before Covid.
I was leading the team on the largest project we had ever taken on - largest both in revenue amount and the scale of the project. There was no blueprint, no template, no precedent. And yet we designed the solution, pitched to the client, and won the project. Every external measure said success. The client was so pleased with the end results that they wanted to make it recurring.
But something had been off the whole way through, and I had not paid attention.
In the project debrief, it became painfully clear. My team was resentful of how I had led them. Feedback had not been heard. Requests had been ignored. I had kept pushing forward. Trust between me and them broke down and I had no idea.
Somewhere along the way, I had stopped being conscious of who I was and who I wanted to be.
How the Lens Gets Built
Here is what most people do not realise about the lens we look through.
We did not choose it.
It got built quietly, over time, out of the things we were rewarded for, the things we were punished for, the survival strategies that worked when we were young and somehow stuck around as we aged.
From the unspoken family rules. The narratives from the different authorities in our lives. The cultural scripts of the society. And the personal expectations we slipped into without quite noticing.
For me, the lens that broke in 2019 was something like this. Strong leaders deliver results. Strong leaders lead by example and push through challenges and roadblocks. A team will naturally be fearful in the face of tough challenges and there is no need to slow down and ask the team if they are okay. Strong leaders do not show fear and weaknesses.
Did I ever sit down and decide that was my philosophy of leadership? No. I just absorbed it from my parents and leaders I had admired. From a culture that rewarded outcomes over process. From an internal voice that had been with me for so long that I assumed it was simply me.
And that is the deeper trap. We don't experience the lens as a lens. We experience it as reality. As common sense. As just the way things are. The assumption disappears into the background, and from inside it, we look out at our lives and conclude that this is how the world works.
The Default Future We Drift Into
Each of us, in every area of life, has a default future. We do not choose it consciously. We drift into it. The drifting happens precisely because the assumptions driving it are invisible, running in the background like software we installed so long ago we have forgotten the program is even there.
For many Singaporeans of my generation, the default future looks like this: work harder, achieve more, earn the title, provide for the family, retire comfortably. These are not bad goals. But when they become the only map, without ever being examined, they can lead a person into a life that looks successful from the outside and feels empty on the inside.
Why We Cannot See It Until It Breaks
I wore glasses since I was 10. I forget they are on my face. I don't see them - I see through them until something small happens. A smudge. A scratch. A drop of rain. Suddenly I cannot help but notice the glasses themselves.
The lens we look at life through is the same. We don't notice it when life is moving smoothly. We notice it when something disrupts the smoothness. This could be a comment that lands wrong, a silence that feels new, a result that should feel like a win but doesn't. The disruption does not have to be dramatic. It just has to be enough to break the autopilot mode we did not know we were on.
If things were obviously broken, we would stop and look. But most of us are not in crisis. We are in something quieter. The friendships still exist. The marriage still functions. The team still delivers. So we keep going. And the lens stays invisible.
In ontological coaching, we have a name for things that have become so familiar we no longer notice them - we call them transparent. The way you walk. The way you talk. The way you engage with your colleagues. All transparent. Until something disrupts it.
That disruption is what we call a “break in transparency”. It is the moment the lens stops being invisible. The moment you finally see what you have been looking through all along.
It rarely feels good. But it is the only doorway through which a new way of seeing becomes possible.
Strategy Cannot Fix What Is Actually Wrong
After that team debrief, I did what most people would do - take a few days off, reflect, and re-strategise. This is likely a sensible response except such a response operates at the level of strategy. I had a realization during my self-reflection - strategy cannot fix what is actually wrong.
What I needed to face was a different kind of question. Not what do I need to do differently?
But who have I been, and who do I want to be?
This is what ontological coaching actually does. It supports people to shift not just their behaviour, but their way of being - so they begin to see themselves, others, and the world from a different vantage point. But this shift only becomes possible when something in the old way of being has been disrupted enough that simply returning to it is no longer an option.
The crack is the precondition for seeing the lens.
In my coaching, I help clients name what is not working, not as complaint, but as a courageous claim on a future they actually want, rather than the one they have drifted into. The first step is always the honest acknowledgement that the current path is not delivering what matters.
This is harder than it sounds in Singapore. We move so fast and efficiently that time to reflect, to stop and see, feels like a luxury. We also do not reward admissions of stuckness. Vulnerability is often read as weakness. So we manage by pushing forward, project confidence, and keep building sophisticated strategies on top of unexamined foundations. The structures hold. Until they don’t.
What To Do With the Crack
If something here resonates with you, the instinct will be to ask: so what do I do?
That is a good instinct. But the first move is not an action. It is an inquiry.
Sit with what is not working. Name it first to yourself, before anyone else. Be specific and honest.
For me, this meant facing some uncomfortable truths. I had been blinded by outward success. I had been ignoring the signs that I was not okay physically, emotionally, or spiritually. I had stopped making it safe for my wife to be honest with me, somewhere along the way I cannot quite pinpoint. I had stopped making it safe for the team I was leading.
Hard truths. But the kind that carry the possibility of change, because they locate the source of the stuckness where it actually lives - in our own way of seeing, not in the circumstances around us.
The disruption is not our enemy. It is our teacher. And unlike most teachers, it will wait patiently, and with remarkable persistence until we are ready to hear what it has been trying to say.
The lens we do not see until it cracks. The self we do not meet until ordinary life stops working the way it used to.
This is not a crisis. It is an invitation.
The question is whether we are willing to accept it.
Continue Reading: The Ontological Series
This piece is part of my ongoing series on ontological coaching - exploring how shifts in how we see produce shifts in how we live.
If this resonated, you may want to read:
Curious what your own lens might be hiding from you?
I work with leaders, professionals, and couples navigating stuckness, transitions, and the quiet sense that something is no longer working. If you would like to explore what 1-1 ontological coaching could open up for you, get in touch here.
The Power of Distinctions: How Clarity Actually Works
Most of us carry big baggy words like "stressed" or "off" without knowing what's really inside them. This is a story about how naming things more finely changes everything.
A few years ago, I was in a pair conversation on the first day of a coaching course. My partner and I were supposed to share why we had signed up. Once we sat down together, I intuitively said to her, "Would you like to start first?"
After the conversation, she thanked me. She said she loved to listen, and because I asked her to go first, she could get the task out of the way and be fully present when I was speaking. In our conversation, I experienced her as a great listener.
What she said made me realise something - I hate sharing things without being clear about what I am going to say. So my request for her to go first was actually about my own needs. I needed time to sort out the content and structure in my head. Which means while she was speaking, I was not really listening.
By the end of our debrief, I had observed something new in myself and gained a new distinction. I had new words for my behaviour in conversations. People had called me a babbler before especially when I had little preparation about my content and structure. I had also received feedback that I was a poor listener. Now I could connect the dots.
Nothing in my life had changed in that hour. But something in me had. I walked out lighter, clearer, and able to act. The shift was not motivational. It was ontological. I had gained a distinction.
What is a distinction, really?
If you have ever ordered kopi at a hawker centre, you already understand distinctions better than most management books will teach you. To someone new, "kopi" is just coffee. But stand at your favourite stall long enough and the menu opens up: Kopi, Kopi-O, Kopi-C, Kopi-gao, Kopi-poh, Kopi-siew-dai, Kopi-C-siew-dai, Kopi-C-kosong. Each word points to something specific. Each one allows the uncle to make exactly what you want.
Now imagine walking into the same stall knowing only the word "coffee." You will still get a drink. But you will not get your drink. And worse, you will not even know what you are missing.
This is what distinctions do. They are not just words. They are how we cut up reality so we can see it, choose, and act. Without distinctions, the world looks like one big lump. With distinctions, the world shows us options.
Why this matters more than it sounds
In the ontological discipline I work in, there is a quiet but radical claim: we do not see the world as it is. We see the world as our distinctions allow us to see it. This is not just philosophy. It is a practical truth that shapes every decision we make.
Take a leader who only has one distinction for difficult conversations: "conflict." Every disagreement gets filed under that one word. The body responds accordingly. Shoulders tense up. Breathing gets shallow. The instinct is to either avoid or attack. Now give that same leader three distinctions: complaint, request, and boundary. Suddenly what felt like "conflict" might actually be a request that was never made. Or a boundary that was never shared. The shoulders soften. A different response becomes possible.
The leader did not become braver. She became clearer. And clarity, it turns out, is not a personality trait. It depends on the distinctions you carry.
The MRT map and the territory
Singaporeans navigate the city using the MRT map almost without thinking. But the map is not Singapore. It is a set of distinctions about Singapore. With the MRT map, we see stations, lines, interchanges and that let us travel with clarity. Without the map, we could still travel from Tampines to Tuas. But it might not give us landmarks we could associate with places we want to go.
Our inner life works the same way. The distinctions we hold are the map we use to navigate ourselves. When someone says "I just feel off lately," they are often saying their inner map has gone blank. They cannot locate themselves.
Is what you are feeling disappointment or resentment? They look similar from far away. But they ask for different things. Disappointment asks to be grieved. Resentment asks for a conversation that has been postponed too long. Treat one as the other, and you will spend years trying to fix the wrong problem.
What an ontological coach actually does
This is the work an ontological coach does. We do not give advice. We do not hand people answers. What we do is help others gain distinctions they did not have before.
Sometimes that means helping someone notice their own body. The way their jaw tightens when a certain colleague's name comes up. The way their voice drops when they talk about their father. The way their energy goes up when they recall a particular memory. Sometimes it means helping someone name an emotion they have been carrying without knowing it. Other times, it means helping someone see how they have been listening. Or not listening. Like I learnt that day in my coaching course.These are signals that were always there. The coach just helps the person see them.
That is the work of clarity. The world has not changed. Your distinctions grew. And once that happens, you can never quite go back to not seeing.
Continue Reading — The Ontological Coaching Series:
What is Ontological Coaching? A Singapore Practitioner's Guide
The 15 Beliefs That Stop You From Learning - And Being Resistance to Change
Interested in experiencing ontological coaching firsthand? Explore 1-1 ontological coaching.
Written by Victor Seet
Activator • Communication • Strategic • Self-Assurance • Command
As a Gallup and Newfield Certified Leadership Coach in Singapore, Victor is passionate about helping people be better observer of themselves to achieve the results they want, especially in the area of well-being and performance. Victor intentionally integrates the strengths-based and ontological approach into his leadership coaching and workshops.
Frequently Asked Questions About Distinctions and Clarity
Q: What is a distinction in ontological coaching?
A: A distinction is a precise word or concept that lets you see something you could not see before. It is not just vocabulary. It is how we cut up reality so we can act on it. The kopi example illustrates this idea. To someone new, "kopi" is just coffee. But to a regular at a coffee shop in Singapore, the menu opens up to kopi-O, kopi-C, kopi-gao, kopi-siew-dai etc. Each word points to something specific about the coffee and the way it is made, which lets the uncle make exactly what you want. Distinctions work the same way in our inner life. The more we have, the more we can see, choose, and act with clarity.
Q: What is the difference between gaining a distinction and just learning a new word?
A: A new word is information. A distinction is a shift in what we can see and do. We can read a definition of resentment and still not know whether what we are carrying is resentment. The word becomes a distinction the moment we recognise it inside our own experience and our range of possible action expands because of it. The body usually signals when this has happened. Something settles. Or something releases. From the outside, nothing has changed. Internally, everything has. That is why the article says once we have gained a distinction, we can never quite go back to not seeing.
Q: Why does naming an emotion change how we experience it?
A: Because what we cannot name, we cannot work with. Disappointment and resentment look similar from a distance, but they ask for different responses. Disappointment asks to be grieved. Resentment asks for a conversation that has been postponed too long. Treat one as the other and you will spend years trying to fix the wrong problem. Naming an emotion is not a small linguistic act. It is the moment a vague heaviness becomes something you can locate, sit with, and respond to. The distinction creates the leverage.
Q: How do distinctions actually change what becomes possible for us?
A: Distinctions change the range of action available to us. Consider a leader who only has one word for difficult conversations - “conflict”. Every disagreement gets filed there. The body responds with tension, and the only options that come to mind are to avoid or attack. Now if we give the same leader three distinctions: a complaint, a request, and a boundary, then this leader now sees difficult conversations differently. What used to feel like conflict might actually be a request that was never made, or a boundary that was never shared. The leader did not become braver. She became clearer. And clarity, it turns out, depends on the distinctions we carry.
Q: How do I gain new distinctions about myself?
A: Distinctions usually come through three doors. The first is a conversation with someone who can mirror back what you cannot see in yourself, which is part of what makes ontological coaching work. The second is a direct experience that shows us something we could not understand before - what we commonly call a realisation. For me, it was the realisation that I have asked my partner to speak first because I needed time to organise my own thoughts. I suddenly realised that I have prioritised speaking over listening as a recurring pattern. The third is reading or studying frameworks that give us new vocabulary, then testing whether the words actually fit our lived experience. Distinctions that stay only as concepts do little. The ones that change us are the ones we feel in the body when we land on them.
Resolving Conflict When You See the World Differently
Many Singaporeans have asked how CliftonStrengths can help with conflict resolution. My response has evolved as I grew as a coach. Conflicts are not only clashes of talent. They are clashes of observers. And resolution is not only about understanding each other's themes. It is about shifting how we see.
Conflicts are part of being human. We work with people who do not see what we see, who do not value what we value in the same order. So we clash. And while clashing is never pleasant, the way we work through a conflict often determines whether the relationship ends up stronger or quietly weaker afterwards.
Many Singaporeans have asked me how CliftonStrengths can help with conflict resolution. My answer has shifted as my own training has deepened. CliftonStrengths still gives us a powerful entry point - language to talk about why we see things differently. But my work in ontological coaching has shown me that strengths alone do not explain the full picture. Conflicts are not only clashes of talent. They are clashes of observers. And resolution is not only about understanding each other's themes. It is about shifting the way we see, the way we feel, and the way we hold our bodies in the conversation.
This article, written on April 2026, is an updated take on a piece I wrote 8 years ago. The earlier version was useful then. This one, I hope, goes a little deeper.
1. We are not just clashing perspectives. We are clashing observers.
CliftonStrengths gives us empirical grounding for why we clash. Gallup's research has shown that the probability of two people sharing the same top five themes in the same order is one in 33 million. So when two colleagues look at the same situation, they are almost certainly seeing two different situations.
The ontological discipline takes us further. Strengths are one stream that shapes how we see. They are not the whole stream.
Each of us is an observer. And what we observe is shaped by three inseparable domains - language, body, and emotion. The words we have available to us. The way our chest, jaw, and shoulders are organised in the moment. The mood we are living inside. All of these shape what we see before we have even formed an opinion about it.
So when a Strategic and an Empathy theme clash in a meeting, it is not just a clash of cognitive lenses. The Strategic person may be living inside a mood of urgency, holding a language of options and trade-offs. The Empathy person may be living inside a mood of care, holding a language of impact on people. Both are seeing accurately. Both are seeing partially. And neither realises how much their body and mood are doing the seeing for them.
This is the deeper reason why most workplace conflicts are not really about office politics or personal attacks. They are observers colliding, each unaware of the soil their seeing grew from.
2. Ask sharper questions when you have been triggered.
When emotions rise, our first instinct is to look outward. What did they do wrong? Why are they like this? The work of self-awareness is to turn that question inward, gently, without self-blame.
CliftonStrengths gives us some clues. Which of my talents got triggered? And how? My Analytical is triggered when an accusation is ungrounded. My Discipline gets thrown off by surprise. My Consistency flares when I sense unfair treatment. Each talent has its own pattern of being activated, and naming the pattern is the first step to taking responsibility for it.
Ontology adds another layer by linking emotion and talent together. Try sitting with these:
What distrust was I already carrying about this person before our conversation even began?
Which of my talents, and the emotional state connected to it, could be hindering me from resolving this conflict?
Which of my talents, and the emotional state connected to it, could help me resolve this conflict?
These questions move us from describing what triggered us to noticing the observer we became before the trigger arrived. That is a different kind of seeing. And from that seeing, different action becomes possible.
3. Conflict avoidance is not the same as conflict resolution.
Many of us, especially in Singapore, are quietly trained to keep the peace. We sweep things under the carpet. We tell ourselves the relationship is fine. We hope time will do the work for us.
It rarely does. What gets buried tends to compost into something else. Resentment. Cold professionalism. A subtle withdrawal of trust the other person can sense but cannot name. The relationship does not break. It just slowly stops being a relationship.
Real resolution asks more of us. It asks for humility. And ontologically, it asks for something specific. Forgiveness is not a feeling. It is a declaration. We declare ourselves no longer bound to the past act, no longer waiting for the other person to fix what cannot be fixed. The body releases. The mood shifts. New action becomes possible.
This is why I often tell clients that the individual is more important than the issue. When we hold the person above the dispute, we make space for a declaration of forgiveness even when the issue itself remains unresolved. That move alone can rebuild trust where logic and explanation cannot reach.
4. Debrief together, and look for what was underneath the storm.
Once the heat has settled, a good debrief can turn a clash into a deepening of trust. The simplest question is still the one I have used for years. Which of our strengths do you think were colliding?
Years ago, I had a heated argument with Jason, a former business partner. At one point I said to him, "What you did does not build trust." I thought I was making a fair point. He went quiet. The conversation cooled, but something between us had shifted in a way I could feel for days afterwards.
When we debriefed, I learnt something I had not understood. Jason has Relator in his top five. Trust is the soil his relationships grow in. To use that word as a weapon, even unintentionally, was to strike at something foundational.
I read that story differently now. The ontological lens shows something more. I had made a public assessment - a statement about him, in a charged moment, without grounding it in shared standards. I had called something "untrustworthy" without first declaring what trust meant to me, what evidence I was using, or what I was actually asking him to do differently. Ungrounded assessments are one of the most common ways relationships break, and most of us do not even know we are doing it.
We agreed afterwards that "trust" between us would only be used as a word of affirmation, not accusation. We also built a small practice. When one of us had a complaint, we would name it as a complaint, ground it in something specific, and turn it into a request rather than a verdict. That small linguistic shift saved us many future arguments.
A good debrief is not just about understanding which themes clashed. It is about asking together: what assessments did we make about each other? What standards were we each holding that the other did not know about? What request was hiding inside the complaint?
5. Settle yourself before you start the conversation.
This is the piece I would have missed in the article I wrote years ago, and it may be the most important one.
Most of us walk into difficult conversations with a body that has already decided how the conversation will go. Shoulders up. Jaw tight. Breath shallow. From that body, almost no good conversation is possible, regardless of how carefully we have prepared our words.
Before any difficult conversation, pause and ask yourself two simple questions. Am I tense or relaxed right now? And if I had to name what I am feeling in one word, angry, resentful, anxious, hopeful, what would it be? You are not trying to fix anything. You are just noticing. Five minutes of walking, breathing, and naming the feeling out loud will change the conversation more than another hour of rehearsing what to say. From a calmer body and a clearer mood, the same words land differently. And often the words you no longer need to say become obvious.
A closing thought
CliftonStrengths gave me my first language for understanding why people clash. Ontological coaching gave me the deeper layer underneath. Both ideas helped me understand that we are observers, shaped by language, body, and emotion, and that real resolution involves shifting the observer, not only exchanging information.
Tools are only as powerful as the person using them. Both work best when something more fundamental is at play. A genuine valuing of the relationship over the rightness of one's position. A willingness to take ownership of how we are showing up. And a quiet trust that the other person, like us, is also seeing something real, just from where they stand.
If you find yourself in a season of unresolved conflict, perhaps the invitation is not to find the perfect words. Perhaps it is to first notice what kind of observer you have become around this person, and ask whether you are willing to shift.
That noticing, quietly done, is often where the real resolution begins.
Written by Victor Seet
Activator • Communication • Strategic • Self-Assurance • Command
Victor coaches teams to leverage their collective strengths, get clear on ways of engagement and ways of working to strengthen team and interpersonal dynamics. He intentionally integrates the strengths-based approaches and emotional agility into his team and 1-1 coaching and facilitation workshops.
Frequently Asked Questions About Resolving Conflict.
Q: What does it mean that conflict is a "clash of observers" rather than a clash of strengths?
A: A clash of strengths assumes two people have fixed traits that don't get along. A clash of observers goes further. Each person is seeing the situation through three filters at once - the mindsets and inner beliefs, the mood they are living inside, and their body system. Two people in the same meeting are almost never seeing the same situation. Their CliftonStrengths shape part of that seeing, but so does the urgency in one person's chest or the care sitting in the other person's voice. Calling it an observer clash rather than a clash of strengths opens up something a strengths framing closes down - the possibility that the seeing itself can shift.
Q: How do I know which of my CliftonStrengths got triggered in a conflict?
A: Pay attention to what the other person did or said just before the heat rose in you. Different talents have different trigger patterns. Analytical gets activated by ungrounded accusations. Discipline gets thrown off by surprise. Consistency flares at unfair treatment. Responsibility tightens when accountability is blurred. Naming which talent got triggered, and the emotion attached to it, is the first move from reacting to responding. The work is not to suppress the trigger. It is to notice the pattern, so you can choose your next action rather than be driven by it.
Q: What's the actual cost of avoiding a difficult conversation?
A: Avoidance feels like keeping the peace in the moment, but what gets buried tends to compost into something else. Resentment. Cold professionalism. A subtle withdrawal of trust the other person can sense but cannot name. The relationship does not break. It just slowly stops being a relationship. Real resolution asks for something avoidance cannot offer, namely the willingness to look at what is actually there and declare what needs to be declared. That can let both people see each other again. Time alone does not heal these things. Declaration does.
Q: How should I prepare myself before a difficult conversation?
A: Most preparation focuses on words - what to say, how to phrase it, which arguments to lead with. The deeper preparation is on the body and the mood we bring into the room. Before the conversation, pause and ask two simple questions. Am I tense or relaxed right now? And if I had to name what I am feeling in one word, what would it be? We are not trying to fix anything. We are just noticing. Five minutes of walking, breathing, and naming the feeling will change the conversation more than another hour of rehearsing your script. From a calmer body and a clearer mood, the same words land differently. And often the words we no longer need to say become obvious.
Q: What is the difference between forgiveness as a feeling and forgiveness as a declaration?
A: Most people wait to feel forgiveness before they extend it, as if forgiveness is an emotion that arrives unbidden once enough time has passed. Ontological coaching treats forgiveness differently. It is a declaration we make. It is a stance we take - that we are no longer bound to the past act and no longer waiting for the other person to fix what cannot be fixed. The feeling often follows the declaration, not the other way round. The body releases. The mood shifts. New action becomes possible. This reframing matters because it puts forgiveness back in our hands, rather than leaving it to circumstance.
Developing Humility
Humility is widely admired in leaders but rarely discussed in practical terms. How do you actually grow it? Singapore ICF coach Victor Seet explores what genuine humility looks like in leadership and offers concrete ways to develop it, drawn from his coaching and personal experience.
*This article was first written in August 2018 and further developed in April 2026.
Humility seems underrated in corporate leadership. Yet, it is arguably the single, most important determinant of how power and authority will be used by a leader. There have been several articles written on the importance of humility in leadership. This article is written as an extension of the existing discussion(s), and in particular, to explore how to cultivate humility. I approach this topic not as an expert; far from it. In fact, I have broken trust and lost employees because of the lack of humility on my part.
Humility has been defined in several ways. For the purpose of this article, humility will be taken as "not thinking that we are better than we really are in terms of our importance and our ability; but having sound judgement."
In the same vein, someone said "people with humility do not think less of themselves; they just think about themselves less." I fully agree.
Why Humility Cannot Be Studied Like a Subject
Developing humility can be challenging because character formation works differently from the conventional knowledge-based approach to learning. In my previous vocation as a church pastor, one of my primary responsibilities was to help individuals grow in character. The process was baffling. I discovered that one's knowledge of a character trait does not necessarily translate into one's practice of the same trait. Take my life for instance. Though I may cognitively know a lot about humility, my personal failings remain because of a lack of self-awareness.
This is where I feel many leaders get caught off guard. We treat character the same way we treat technical skill. Read the right book, attend the right workshop, take notes, apply. But humility does not work that way. Knowledge sits in the head. Humility lives somewhere else, in how we see ourselves and others when no one is watching.
Developing humility requires a great level of self-awareness, which is not easily acquired. And self-awareness is not really about knowing more facts about yourself. It is about who you become as the one observing yourself.A leader who only sees the world through the lens of his own importance keeps arriving at the same conclusions about every situation. Until that lens shifts, no amount of feedback will land.
The Direct Path Does Not Work
Suppose a student requires two magic bullets to ace an exam:
knowledge of the subject matter
time management skills.
Most will agree that knowledge of the subject matter will directly affect the grades while time management affects the end outcome indirectly. Knowledge of the subject matter directly impacts a student's ability to answer the exam questions. Time management is also required for effectiveness. Unless we apportion time to study, time to rest, time to relax, we will not be effective.
I would like to suggest that character traits are best cultivated through indirect means. Trying to be more humble in a direct way can only lead a person to be prideful. It is like making a statement "I'm so proud that I can become humble." It simply does not work. Instead, allowing people to come to their own realizations of their pride may work better. This is the practice of self-awareness.
The reason the direct approach fails is subtle. When I aim straight at humility, the “I” doing the aiming is the very thing in the way. Pride does not disappear because I declare war on it. It just finds a new costume to wear, often the costume of the humble leader.
Two Indirect Practices: Service and Listening
How, then, does an indirect approach look like?
One possibility is through acts of service. Through acts of service, one may discover their prideful areas. Are there tasks I deem too menial to act upon? Am I upset when I am not recognized for the things I have done? Why am I reacting negatively to feedback given to me?
Service has a way of showing us what we would rather not admit. The leader who enjoys running a strategy meeting but quietly resents clearing the cups afterwards has just learned something about himself. That quick flash of irritation when asked to do something small, like clearing the cups, is not a weakness to hide. It is a signal worth paying attention to. A leader who can notice these moments without rushing to defend or explain has already started the work of humility.
Another example of an indirect approach is to practice listening. Intentionally listening to others and paraphrasing what they say is a way to realize if we are more interested in others or in ourselves. Leaders who are more interested to tell others what to do usually end up causing more hurt because of a lack of empathy. Listening is one of the hardest things for leaders with big egos. I regret to say this is one of my most painful realizations.
There is a kind of listening many leaders practise. While the other person is talking, the leader is already preparing his reply, lining up his counter-point, steering the conversation back to what he wants to say. He looks like he is listening, but nothing in him actually shifts. True listening is different. Something in us has to soften. We have to be open to being changed, even a little, by what the other person is sharing. For a leader who is used to having the answers, this can feel like losing ground. I like to think it is actually the start of being trusted.
Other Quiet Disciplines
In essence, humility is a realization of how proud we are. Engaging in good disciplines such as listening and intentionally serving others are powerful ways of gaining self-awareness. Other approaches include journaling and giving thanks. Journaling slows down the rush of the day long enough for patterns to surface. Giving thanks shifts the centre of gravity. A leader who is genuinely thankful, is in that moment, no longer the protagonist of the story.
When a Good Principle Becomes a Weapon
Let me share a personal story.
One of my core beliefs is that it takes two hands to clap. I do not believe marriages or relationships break down because of one party alone. The power of such a belief should empower me to reflect, take ownership of my mistakes, and adjust my behavior. Unfortunately, a lack of humility meant I ended up focusing on where the other party had failed. In short, I like to blame others rather than search my heart.
This was the trap I fell into. A good principle, in the hands of pride, becomes a weapon. It takes two hands to clap was meant to lead me inward. Instead, it gave me a sophisticated way to keep score. Yes, I made a mistake, but so did they. The principle was sound. The observer applying it was not.
I increasingly realized how much pain I have caused my family, close friends, and my work team. My pride caused me to reject feedback. I even rationalized that I was less at fault and more humble since I was constantly adjusting my behavior. Sadly, behavioral change can be superficial. In thinking I had grown in humility, I had ironically become more prideful.
You can change the surface and leave the root untouched. You can adjust your tone, your phrasing, the way you run your meetings, and still be the same leader underneath, just better at hiding. The work is not at the level of behaviour. It is at the level of who you are being when the behaviour happens.
The Freedom on the Other Side
The truth hurts. But there is a freedom on the other side of it that the prideful leader never gets to taste. When you no longer have to defend the version of yourself that has to be right, has to be impressive, has to be ahead, something settles. The meetings get lighter. Feedback gets easier to receive. The team starts telling you the things they used to keep to themselves. If we believe that humility is thinking of ourselves less, it is extremely freeing to focus on the beauty and joy of growing our character and perhaps, the people around us. I hope I can be steadfast in seeing this beauty and joy.
Written by Victor Seet
Activator • Communication • Strategic • Self-Assurance • Command
As a Gallup and Newfield Certified Leadership Coach in Singapore, Victor is passionate about helping people be better observer of themselves to achieve the results they want, especially in the area of well-being and performance. Victor intentionally integrates the strengths-based and ontological approach into his leadership coaching and workshops.