Are You Leading on Autopilot?: How to Spot the Drift Before It Sinks Your Team

Not long ago, I was sitting in a meeting and something felt off. The team was still sharp; reports were solid; numbers were steady, but nothing was on fire!

It hit me that we weren’t leading anymore, we were managing. We were running the same plays that once worked, convincing ourselves we were still winning. Everything looked fine from the surface, but underneath, we were coasting.

The quiet slide from intention to autopilot is what I call the Drift. The Drift doesn’t start with failure, but with success. But it’s not success itself that causes it; it’s the comfort of routines and sticking to the same plays that once gave us success. That same comfort becomes the first stage of decline- a slow leak that won’t just slow your growth, but infect your leadership, distort your vision, and quietly take control of your life before you even notice.

Don’t let yourself start to drift and let comfort creep in. When you feel yourself drifting, stop and course correct around three variables: vision, habit, and decisions.

• Start with vision. Ask yourself… “Do we still know why we are doing this?” When we slip from the “why,” everything is drudgery. This happened to me.  My real estate business was flourishing, but there was just no spark. We began to chase numbers rather than value. So we aggressively started reviewing everything in our business that may have become stale. We evaluated every single process and upgraded our tech stack to the most advanced and best-in-class, ensuring an even better experience for our clients and our agents. That decision placed pride and purpose back in the work.
• Review your habits. The rituals that served you well in the past may no longer be the rituals you need. Ask yourself, “Is this adding value to my growth or am I just doing it because that’s the way I’ve always done it?” You don’t need to overhaul the whole plan. Just make incremental changes. Get up in the morning and have a quick check in. Speak out your little triumphs. These small adjustments cause movement, movement produces momentum, and momentum always beats motivation. Move first, then the energy follows.
• Check your decision making every time you notice you are either dragging yourself forward or you are allowing yourself to be stuck. The uncomfortable decisions, the ones that make your stomach turn, are usually the right ones. I have felt it every time we have revised, restructured, branded, or opened something new. None of it has felt easy. But growth is not supposed to be easy. If it feels easy, it’s probably not growing, just drifting slowly.

Drifting does not just happen to individuals, drifting can take place across entire teams and companies. You can have all the talent. All the systems do not matter. When individuals lose their attachment to why they are doing what they are doing, the spark passes. The pivotal lesson of team building is not to build a team that performs but one that cares.

The best teams I have seen all have one thing in common: they believe in what they are building. When the culture is defined, when individuals buy in the mission, you do not have to push–they push themselves and each other. At Simply Vegas, we learned that the culture drives the numbers, not the other way around. Once we started hiring for value instead of production, the whole world changed. The business grew, but so did the pride. People did not just work here, they belonged.

Drifting does not occur all at once. It creeps in, through the rituals you no longer analyze, the sparks that are no longer noticed, the time that it asks you if you are just tired. I have drifted a number of times in the past, and it always starts out the same way. Things seem well, and I quit paying attention.

The moment you are aware, this corrects itself. You don’t need great courses, only awareness, paired with the willingness to grasp the wheel again.

You don’t need to be a great leader to run from drifting. You need to be able to be aware each time it comes around and grasp the wheel again before it drags you far off course.

The opposite of drifting is not mastering or seeking control, it is awareness. Be aware. Notice when you’re coasting. Reconnect your why to your actions and start steering again.

That is how you grow. That is how you and your company stay alive. That is how you ESCAPE THE DRIFT!

Written by John Gafford. Have you read?
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