The first course asked whether I manage or lead. The second asked why I lead at all. This one asked the question that's hardest to dodge: what is my leadership actually doing to the people around me?

Not what I intend. What lands.

That's the shift LS103R forced. It's easy to measure yourself by your intentions — I meant to be encouraging, I meant to be supportive, I meant to be fair. Impact doesn't care what you meant. Impact is what your team walks away feeling after you've left the room.

So for three months, I've been paying attention to the wake I leave.

Here's what I found. When I stopped to really listen, people came back with more the next time. When I named specific things they did well, I'd see them stand a little taller for days. When I handed over real responsibility, they didn't just complete the task — they started bringing me ideas I hadn't asked for. That's impact. It compounds. A small act of trust on Monday shows up as initiative three weeks later.

But impact runs both directions, and that's the part the course made me sit with. A rushed reply, a distracted "sounds good" when someone needed my full attention, a moment where I let my own stress set the temperature of the room — those land too. They leave a wake just as surely as the good moments do. My team feels my bad day whether I name it or not.

The lesson wasn't "be positive." It was "be aware." My leadership is happening to people whether I'm paying attention or not. The only choice I have is whether I'm intentional about the mark I'm leaving.

Three months in, I ask a different question at the end of a hard day. Not did I get through my list — but what did the people around me feel today because of how I showed up?

That question has changed more than any technique I could name.