I’ve always appreciated behavioral economics for its elegant explanations of human irrationality.

The small nudges. The sunk cost traps. The way we anchor to the first number we hear. It’s all oddly comforting—this idea that we’re predictably irrational. That our quirks can be catalogued and designed around.

But after two decades of working with senior leaders, I’ve come to believe that most behavioral models leave something essential out.

They describe what people do, often brilliantly. But they rarely help us understand who the person is beneath the behavior—and why that matters in the complex world of leadership.

Behavioral insight isn’t the same as self-awareness

Many leadership assessments draw from the language of behavioral economics: “Here’s the bias,” “Here’s the trait,” “Here’s the action you tend to take under pressure.” Useful, yes. But often these tools can reduce leaders to a collection of tendencies. They focus on inputs and outputs, assuming if we can just spot the pattern, we can optimize the result.

But self-awareness isn’t just recognizing your patterns. It’s understanding what those patterns protect. What identity they preserve. What story they’re rooted in.

We don’t lead from behavior—we lead from meaning

I’ve sat with leaders who’ve read every book on cognitive bias and still can’t understand why they blow up in meetings. Or why feedback from their team lands with a quiet sting of shame. Or why certain decisions feel disproportionately heavy.

Because beneath every behavioral tendency is a meaning-making system—a way of interpreting the world, ourselves, and our role in it. And this system doesn’t change just because we spot a bias. It changes when we begin to shift the narrative behind it.

Assessments like the Leadership Circle Profile go deeper

This is why I keep coming back to tools that account for vertical development—not just horizontal insight.

The Leadership Circle Profile, for example, offers a snapshot not just of behaviors but of the internal operating system driving them. It shows how reactive tendencies (like pleasing, controlling, or protecting) are rooted in self-image, identity, and unconscious strategies for staying safe or staying relevant.

And more importantly—it gives language to creative leadership: the kind that flows from purpose, vision, and integrity. The kind that doesn’t just manage behavior, but transforms the context from which behavior arises.

From nudges to narratives

Behavioral economics helps us design environments that support better choices. It’s a powerful lens. But leaders don’t just need better nudges. They need better narratives—about who they are, why they lead, and what’s actually driving them when the pressure mounts.

That’s the work I’m most interested in.

Not correcting irrational behavior. But expanding the self that’s doing the behaving.

Because that’s where real change begins—not with behavior, but with being.