Total autonomy is a myth — even for top-performing executives

At 46, I started learning piano.

Last week, my teacher said something simple:

‘Without an objective, you won’t progress.’

She wasn’t a performance coach, a CHRO, or a management consultant. Just my piano teacher.

And she had just articulated something I observe every week with the executives I work with.

The willpower myth

I started last September with enthusiasm, ambition, and a decidedly uneven daily practice routine.

The familiar (reasonable) excuses: no time, urgent call, presentation to finish.

I’m no different from the leaders I work with.

This isn’t a willpower problem. It’s a priority problem.

What gets dropped first are the commitments made to yourself. Because delivering for others — or honouring commitments to them — is always more immediate than making yourself proud.

What I observe in executives

Even the highest-performing executives don’t lack discipline. What they lack is a space where someone watches them move forward — and waits for them.

We’re so conditioned to value autonomy that we systematically underestimate the power of an external structure.

What I observe in sparring partner engagements follows the same pattern early on: they move forward to honour the commitment they made, to avoid ‘disappointing’, to justify the investment.

Not yet fully for themselves.

That’s human. Because making yourself proud is harder than making someone else proud of you.

The metronome

So I accept — for a time — that I need my teacher’s watchful eye. Like an 8-year-old proud to have someone witness her progress.

Because sometimes, an external gaze structures what we can’t yet give ourselves.

It sets the rhythm. It creates a gentle but constant tension. A bit like a metronome.

At the start, the sparring partner is an external framework — a structural support, a standard, a tempo.

Then gradually, the pilot learns to fly solo.

When real autonomy begins

After a few months, it’s no longer about pleasing someone else. Or ticking a box.

It’s because the change has become internal.

That’s where real autonomy actually starts.

Not as a starting point — but as the outcome of rigorous work with a demanding outside perspective.