“You can’t change people.”
How many times have you heard that? Maybe you’ve even said it yourself after another frustrating meeting, another difficult conversation, another moment when someone’s behavior left you questioning your sanity.
Here’s what I know to be true: You’re right. You can’t change people. Nor is it your responsibility to change people. Striving to do so is an attempt at control and, as we teach at Crisis Ready® Institute, control is a tool of fear.
So, the fact that you can’t change people isn’t actually the problem, nor should it be the focus of your frustration.
The paradigm-shifting question isn’t “How do I change them?” it’s “What’s within me that’s contributing to this pattern?“
Everything on the outside is a direct reflection of what’s on the inside.
When you truly understand this principle—not just intellectually, but in your bones—it shifts everything about how you lead through change, navigate resistance, and create the impact you’re here to make.
How This Actually Works
Here’s the psychological mechanism most people don’t understand: we react most strongly to behaviors that mirror something within ourselves.
For example, if someone does something to anger you, the majority of people will say, “You did this. You made me angry.” Essentially, what they’re saying is “my anger is your fault.”
However, just as you cannot change someone, you cannot “make someone feel a certain way.” If we had that kind of power, imagine how different the world would be—we’d all just make our bosses adore us and our teenagers appreciate us!
Having this mindset of “my feelings and my reactions are someone else’s fault,” is a common approach to deflecting and avoiding one’s own accountability and the real role they play within a given situation.
The Visionary Leader Takes Radical Responsibility
Rather than blaming outwardly, the Visionary Leader understands the deeper truth that everything on the outside is a direct reflection of what’s happening on the inside.
If someone else can’t actually “make” you feel something, then that feeling is being generated within you. Which means your emotional reactions are information about your own inner landscape, not evidence of what others are doing to you.
So instead of pointing fingers, the Visionary Leader turns inward and asks: “What is it about what just happened that made me react so strongly? What’s within me that this anger is shining a light on that I can look within myself to better understand?”
That is the first place to begin and the intensity of your reaction is the clue.
When someone’s behavior creates a strong low frequency emotional charge in you—beyond normal irritation, for example—you can choose to stay in that reaction, or you can choose to see the emotional charge as a gift. A gift emerging to help you notice something within yourself that can be better understood, that can be healed, and ultimately, that can help you show up with more impact as a leader.
This isn’t about taking blame for other people’s behavior. It’s about taking radical responsibility for your own reactions and using your emotions as fuel for your growth and expansion as a leader.
The Visionary Leader’s Advantage
Here’s what makes Visionary Leaders different: instead of immediately focusing on changing others, Visionary Leaders start by looking inward.
They ask: “What is this situation teaching me about myself?” This is never about self-blame or self-criticism. It’s about radical responsibility that leads to radical empowerment and deeper presence, and therefore, deeper relational capacity.
When you do the inner work first, something remarkable happens. You stop taking other people’s reactions personally. You can distinguish between what’s yours to heal and what’s theirs to own. You show up from a place of clarity rather than reactivity.
And here’s the quantum leap: when you shift your internal state, the entire dynamic changes. You’re no longer reactive or defensive. You’re calmer, more present, more curious. This shift in your energy and presence naturally changes how others respond to you. Conflict becomes conversation. Resistance becomes collaboration. Not because you manipulated them, but because you changed the energetic container of the relationship.
This is where change happens. This is a part of what I mean when I say, “the Visionary Leader knows that meaningful change is created from the inside out.”
Putting this into practice and developing this skill
So, how do you apply this skill to strengthen your resonance as a leader? The next time you feel triggered by something someone else says or does, try this approach:
- Pause before reacting – you can do this by taking several deep breaths
- Notice the feeling – anger, frustration, defensiveness – without judging it
- Breathe with it – give yourself a moment to feel what’s present
- Ask gently: “What is this emotion trying to tell me?”
- Get curious: “What within me is being activated right now?”
- Do the inner work: Sit with what comes up, journal about it, or simply acknowledge it with compassion
- Then respond from this new place of awareness
Doing the inner work first doesn’t mean everything is about you. Sometimes people genuinely have performance issues. Sometimes boundaries need to be set. Sometimes difficult conversations are necessary.
But when you do your inner work first, you can distinguish between what’s yours to heal and what’s theirs to own. You can tell the difference between ‘This person is activating an old wound within me that I need to address’ and ‘This person has a genuine performance issue that needs direct action.’
The inner work gives you clarity to respond appropriately instead of reacting from your trigger.
Why This Changes Everything
When you master this approach, you become the leader who doesn’t just manage resistance, you transform it. You become more resonant, more magnetic, more grounded, more trustworthy. Your capacity expands and people feel safer around you because you’re not projecting your unhealed patterns or wounds onto them.
You stop wasting energy trying to control others and start directing that energy toward what you can actually influence: your own growth, your own presence, your own capacity to create change.
The Ripple Effect
This isn’t just personal development, it’s leadership evolution. When you model this level of self-awareness and radical self-responsibility, you give others permission to do the same. You create cultures where people look inward before pointing outward. You build teams that solve problems instead of assigning blame.
Imagine if every leader did this work. Imagine if every difficult conversation started with “What’s my piece in this?” instead of “Why can’t they just…”
The world would transform. And this transformation starts with you.
All you have to do is decide to do it.
My Invitation to Help You Get Started: The Mirror Practice
This week, notice what triggers you. Instead of immediately focusing on changing or blaming others, pause and ask: “What is this showing me about myself?” Then do the inner work that’s being revealed.
This is about self-empowerment. When you understand that change begins within, you reclaim your power to actually create the transformation you want to see.
The most powerful leaders aren’t those who never face resistance. They’re the ones who use every challenge as fuel for their own evolution. They then take that growth and create meaningful change from the inside out.
Ready to dive deeper into this transformational work?
The Crisis Ready® Certification is where leaders learn to master both the inner work and the practical skills to create meaningful and lasting change. We explore the science of possibility leadership, the neuroscience of transformation, and how to truly lead change from the inside out.
This is your pathway to stepping into the highest potential of your leadership abilities.
→ Explore the Certification: https://crisisreadycertification.com
Founder and CEO of the Crisis Ready Institute, Melissa Agnes is the author of Crisis Ready: Building an Invincible Brand in an Uncertain World, and a leading authority on crisis preparedness, reputation management, and brand protection. Agnes is a coveted keynote speaker, commentator, and advisor to some of today’s leading organizations faced with the greatest risks. Learn more about Melissa and her work here.
