Leadership is a discipline that demands clarity, direction, and adaptability. Time is important. Yet, many leadership approaches remain preoccupied with the past, whether through organizational history, habit, personal mistakes, or inherited dysfunction. This backward-facing posture is often reinforced by developmental models that prioritize therapeutic reflection over actionable change. I believe that approach to be highly flawed. While the past may offer lessons, it cannot provide direction. The real work of leadership requires orienting toward a strategic future and treating the present as the operative link between intent and outcome.

The Past is Informative but Non-Directive

The past is often treated as a foundation, but its real utility is limited to insight. It cannot be changed, and it cannot dictate future outcomes unless we allow it to. From a psychological standpoint, memory isn’t even a reliable ledger of events. It is shaped by emotional filters, cognitive biases, selective interpretations, and so on. This is to say that leaders who base their identity or strategy on a self-assessed and fixed understanding of their past risk reinforcing distortions rather than extracting clarity.

Contrastive Inquiry offers a useful correction to this pattern. By examining opposing possibilities and transforming them into questions, leaders are prompted to confront assumptions head-on. If one believes the past defines them, the immediate contrast is the idea that it does not. That contrast initiates the more productive inquiry: What defines a leader now, and what should define them moving forward?

Understand that there is no strategy that can revise the past. There is only the choice to learn from it and move with intention toward the outcomes that must be realized. Leadership is not a process of excavation; it is a process of construction. The past provides tools, not blueprints.

The Present is a Transitional Moment

The present is often romanticized as the only thing that truly exists. While there is value in being fully engaged in the moment, I think that the suggestion that “now” is all that matters neglects the strategic role of the present. I think we should reframe it. Each moment is brief, constantly expiring, and instantly absorbed into the past. Because of that, I think the present should not be treated as a destination, but as a tool. From a Reasoned Leadership perspective, it is the space in which decisions are made that influence everything downstream. This is why I tell my students to be outcome-oriented.

Outcome-oriented leadership understands that the present is a pivot point. Every decision made now carries forward implications. These decisions, small or large, compound into patterns that shape the direction and quality of future results. Cause and effect are real, but we have a choice. We can either focus on what was, or we can focus on what will be. But this requires that a direction (vision) be defined in the first place. In the absence of vision, the present becomes reactive, not strategic. Leaders who lack that clarity will spend their time solving problems from the past rather than building outcomes for the future. Think about that point for a moment.

This is where the Adversity Nexus becomes critical. Adversity is not just a challenge to endure; it is a test of trajectory. Leaders who view adversity as a reference to past pain often become defensive or immobilized. Those who use adversity to recalibrate their direction use the present moment to refine and adjust. In this way, the present becomes both a test and a tool.

The Future is the Point of Leadership

Leadership is ultimately about movement toward a defined future. A leader who cannot articulate what success looks like cannot expect to lead others toward it. Outcome orientation begins with precision. Vague goals produce vague actions, and vague actions produce inconsistent results. The more detailed the vision, the more effective the leader can be in aligning short-term decisions with long-term outcomes, while simultaneously being much more forgiving about the mistakes of the past.

This is not optimism; it’s strategy. Future-focused leadership requires that the leader map backward from the desired result and treat the present as a tactical space for incremental progress. This is how we play the long game and endure the hardships. Each moment is a decision point that either reinforces the path forward or deviates from it. In this model, the future is not a distant hope. It is a direction of travel.

Epistemic Rigidity presents one of the most significant obstacles to this process. When individuals or organizations cling to outdated beliefs or emotional interpretations of the past or present, they often resist change, even when change is necessary. Of course, the result is stagnation, rationalized by nostalgia or trauma. To counteract this, leaders must embrace intellectual flexibility and constantly question the merit of their current approach to ensure it aligns with the outcomes they seek.

Success, in this view, is not a matter of luck or even talent. It is the product of disciplined alignment between vision and action, maintained over time. When a leader defines a clear future and commits to acting in service of it moment by moment, the path forward becomes more predictable. The question shifts from “if” to “when.”

Now, it is also important to recognize that when we create a vision, it immediately becomes something in our past. However, not all visions from the past are obsolete. Some remain relevant because they were designed to outlast the context in which they were conceived. In such cases, the role of the leader is not to discard these visions simply because they originated earlier, but to assess whether the outcome remains valid and attainable. Understand that a vision does not expire merely because time has passed; rather, its relevance is determined by its alignment with current and future needs.

A clear example of this can be found in constitutional frameworks. While authored generations ago, the merit of the vision embedded within such documents continues to shape collective aspirations, even if its full realization is still underway. Leaders must therefore understand where they stand in the trajectory of a vision’s fulfillment. This is to say that the fact that a vision was articulated in the past does not render it outdated. Instead, its longevity may reflect its strategic clarity and enduring merit. In such cases, the task of leadership becomes one of continuation and refinement, not abandonment.

Leadership as Self-Authorship

This is a tough topic for some, but leadership also involves the continuous reframing of identity. Individuals are not defined by their past failures, reputations, or former roles unless they choose to be. Every decision made in the present is an opportunity to author a new chapter. The ability to reinvent, redirect, and reorient is not merely a personal luxury; it is a personal and professional imperative. Leaders who carry the weight of the past into every decision will unintentionally limit their potential and that of their teams.

I would argue that the concept of self-authorship is consistent with the fundamental premise of the Adversity Nexus: that difficulty, pressure, and challenge serve to refine rather than define. In my opinion, adversity exposes weaknesses and opportunities, but it also reveals direction (via Contrastive Inquiry). By understanding that the current moment is only a tool for shaping the future, leaders can actually detach themselves from limiting narratives and move toward more productive outcomes.

Granted, this shift requires discipline. Frankly, this is precisely why I say that leaders should resist the pull of emotional patterns and redirect attention toward what must be accomplished. Leadership in this light is not about personal validation or retrospective coherence. It is about function, direction, and outcome – vision.

Final Thoughts

If you glean anything from this article, let it be that leadership is not a reflection of the past, a celebration of the present, or a waiting game for the future. It is a process of deliberate orientation toward defined outcomes. The past, present, and future are all different domains and shouldn’t be confused with one another. Sure, the past provides us with insight, but it’s really limited when it comes to instruction (unless you’re good at Contrastive Inquiry). Similarly, the present provides us with opportunity, not permanence. True leadership is future-focused. That focus provides clarity, but only if the leader is willing to bust out a pen and clearly define it with specificity and then act in its service with a reasoned perspective of consistency.

I tell my students that there is little difference between life and leadership; if you can do one, you can usually do both. Unfortunately, most people do neither. This lesson is a prime example because we know that most people are either stuck in the past or living for today. Statistically speaking, that leaves few living for tomorrow. You are being saturated with distraction and encouraged to anchor yourself to historical fixation. If you want to lead, you must break free of retrospection and embrace strategic futurism.

I’ll say this another way just to drive the point home. If you want to be a Reasoned Leader, then the question is not really about where you have been, or even where you are. The real question is about where you need to go and what you are willing to do about it right now. My advice: take out a pen and clearly define what you’re version of success looks like.

If you enjoyed this, you might also like my article on the Three Types of Vision.