Why Good Leaders Think, But Great Leaders Think About How They Think

Metacognition is the skill nobody teaches you. And it’s the one that separates good leaders from great ones.

There’s a difference between a good leader and a great one.

And it’s not what most people think.

It’s not intelligence. It’s not charisma. It’s not experience.

It’s metacognition.

The ability to think about how you think.

To observe your own mental processes. To understand how you learn, how you reason, how you make decisions.

And then to improve all of it.

Most leaders never develop this skill. They’re good thinkers. They process information, make decisions, solve problems.

But they never step back and examine the thinking itself.

They never ask:

• How am I thinking about this?
• What assumptions am I making?
• What biases are influencing my judgment?
• How could I think about this better?

And that’s why they plateau.

They get good. But they never get great.

Because greatness requires metacognition.

What Metacognition Actually Is

Metacognition is simply thinking about thinking.

It’s the ability to observe your own mental processes from the outside. To see your thinking as an object you can examine, evaluate, and improve.

It’s the difference between being in the river and standing on the bank watching the river.

Most people are always in the river. They’re swept along by their thoughts, their assumptions, their habitual ways of seeing the world.

They never step back. They never observe. They never evaluate.

The metacognitive thinker steps back. They watch the river. They see the currents, the eddies, the patterns.

And then they decide how to navigate it.

Why This Matters for Leadership

Here’s the connection:

Good leaders think.

Great leaders think about how they think.

Good leaders solve problems.
Great leaders examine how they’re approaching the problem and whether that approach is the best one.

Good leaders make decisions.
Great leaders examine the assumptions behind their decisions and whether those assumptions are valid.

Good leaders learn from experience.
Great leaders examine how they’re learning and whether they’re extracting the right lessons.

The difference isn’t in the thinking.

It’s in the awareness of the thinking.

And that awareness—that metacognitive capacity—is what allows great leaders to keep improving when good leaders plateau.

Because you can’t improve what you can’t observe.

What I Learned From the Mat and the Jobsite

I’ve been training martial arts since 1985. I’ve been in construction since 1986.

And in both worlds, I’ve seen the same pattern:

The guys who got good were the ones who worked hard. Who showed up. Who put in the reps.

But the guys who got great were the ones who thought about how they were training.

They didn’t just drill techniques. They examined why the techniques worked. What principles they were based on. How they could apply those principles in different situations.

They didn’t just do the work. They examined how they were doing the work. What was working. What wasn’t. What they could do differently.

They were metacognitive.

And on the mat, that’s the difference between a guy who’s been training for twenty years and is still making the same mistakes—and a guy who’s been training for five years and is already thinking like a black belt.

It’s not time on the mat. It’s quality of thinking about the time on the mat.

It's one reason why I often think about this quote from Abraham Lincoln.

The 8 Habits of Metacognitive Leaders

Here’s how you develop metacognition. Like any skill, it’s built through deliberate practice.

These are the eight habits:

Habit 1: Determine Your Learning Style

Before you can think about how you think, you need to understand how you learn.

Are you a visual learner? Auditory? Kinesthetic? Reading/writing?

Most people have never seriously examined this. They just absorb information however it comes and wonder why some things stick and others don’t.

The metacognitive learner asks: How do I learn best?

Then they deliberately structure their learning to match their style.

If you’re kinesthetic, you need to do things, not just read about them. If you’re visual, you need diagrams, maps, and images. If you’re auditory, you need to talk through ideas, not just write them down.

Knowing your learning style isn’t just self-awareness. It’s leverage.

It means you can learn faster, retain more, and apply better—because you’re learning in the way that works for your brain.

How to practice it:

Reflect on the last three things you learned well. How did you learn them? What made them stick? Look for the pattern.

Habit 2: Find Deeper Meaning in What You Read

Most people read for information. They skim the surface. They collect facts.

The metacognitive reader reads for understanding.

They ask: What is this really saying? What’s the underlying principle? How does this connect to what I already know? What does this change about how I see the world?

They’re not just consuming. They’re processing.

This is the John Stuart Mill method of inductive logic.

Coupled with how his father taught Mills to learn as a child, it a great 1-2 knockout punch of deeper learning.

1. Read a passage.
2. Reconstruct it from memory—not the words, but the structure.
3. The argument.
4. The implications.

If you can’t do that, you haven’t understood it. You’ve just read it.

How to practice it:

After reading anything—a book, an article, a report—write one sentence that captures the core idea. Not a summary. The core idea. The one thing that matters most.

If you can’t do it, read it again.

Habit 3: Write Organized Plans

Writing forces clarity. And clarity is the foundation of metacognition.

When you write a plan, you’re externalizing your thinking.

You’re taking what’s in your head—often vague, disorganized, half-formed—and forcing it into structure.

And in that process, you discover what you actually think. What you actually know. What you actually don’t know.

The act of writing reveals the gaps in your thinking.

Not just any writing. Organized writing. Structured writing. Writing that has a clear purpose, a clear argument, a clear plan.

Because organized writing requires organized thinking.

And organized thinking is metacognition in action.

How to practice it:

Before any significant project, decision, or conversation—write a plan. Not a to-do list. A structured plan with a clear goal, the steps to get there, the potential obstacles, and how you’ll handle them.

Then review it afterward. What did you get right? What did you miss? What would you do differently?

Habit 4: Ask Yourself Open-Ended Questions

Closed questions shut down thinking. Open questions open it up.

Most people ask themselves closed questions:

“Did I do a good job?” Yes or no.

“Was that the right decision?” Yes or no.

“Am I on track?” Yes or no.

These questions don’t generate insight. They just generate answers.

The metacognitive thinker asks open-ended questions:

“What could I have done better?”

“What assumptions was I making when I made that decision?”

“What am I not seeing about this situation?”

“What would someone who disagrees with me say?”

These questions generate thinking. They force you to examine your assumptions, your blind spots, your reasoning.

How to practice it:

At the end of each day, ask yourself three open-ended questions about your work, your decisions, your interactions.

Not “Did I do well?” But “What did I learn today? What would I do differently? What am I still not understanding?”

Habit 5: Ask for Feedback

Metacognition requires an accurate picture of your own thinking. And your own picture is always incomplete.

Because you can’t see your own blind spots.

That’s why feedback is essential. Not just performance feedback. Thinking feedback.

Not just “Did I do a good job?” But “How am I approaching this? What am I missing? What assumptions am I making that might not be valid?”

The metacognitive leader actively seeks this kind of feedback.

They ask their team: “What am I not seeing?”

They ask their mentors: “Where is my thinking flawed?”

They ask their peers: “What would you do differently?”

And they listen. Without defensiveness. Without justification.

Because the goal isn’t to protect their ego. It’s to improve their thinking.

How to practice it:

After any significant project or decision, ask one person you trust: “What did I miss? What could I have thought about differently?”

Then listen. Don’t explain. Don’t justify. Just listen and take notes.

Habit 6: Self-Evaluate

Feedback from others is essential. But so is feedback from yourself.

Self-evaluation is the practice of honestly assessing your own performance, your own thinking, your own decisions.

Not to beat yourself up. Not to inflate your ego. But to get an accurate picture of where you are and where you need to improve.

The metacognitive leader asks:

“What did I do well? What did I do poorly? What would I do differently? What does this tell me about how I think?”

And they’re honest.

Not brutally self-critical. Not defensively self-protective.

Honest.

Because honest self-evaluation is the foundation of improvement.

How to practice it:

After any significant event—a meeting, a project, a conversation—take five minutes to self-evaluate.

What went well? What didn’t? What would you do differently? What does this reveal about your thinking?

Write it down. Don’t just think it. Write it.

Habit 7: Focus on Solutions

Here’s where metacognition meets leadership:

The metacognitive leader doesn’t just identify problems. They examine how they’re thinking about problems.

Are they focusing on the problem or the solution? Are they looking for who to blame or what to fix? Are they thinking about what went wrong or what to do next?

Because how you think about a problem determines what solutions you see.

If you’re focused on the problem, you see more problems. If you’re focused on the solution, you see more solutions.

The metacognitive leader deliberately shifts their thinking toward solutions.

Not by ignoring problems. But by examining them long enough to understand them, then pivoting to: “What can we do about this?”

How to practice it:

When you encounter a problem, give yourself two minutes to understand it. Then ask: “What are three possible solutions?”

Not the perfect solution. Three possible solutions.

This forces your brain to shift from problem-mode to solution-mode.

Habit 8: Journal

Journaling is the master habit of metacognition.

Because journaling is thinking on paper.

It’s the practice of externalizing your thoughts, examining them, and making sense of them.

When you journal, you’re not just recording what happened. You’re processing it. You’re asking: What does this mean? What did I learn? What would I do differently? What patterns am I seeing?

You’re thinking about your thinking.

And over time, that practice builds metacognitive capacity. You get better at observing your own mental processes. Better at identifying your assumptions and biases. Better at seeing patterns in your thinking.

Better at thinking about how you think.

How to practice it:

Write for ten minutes every day. Not about what happened. About what you’re thinking and why.

Ask yourself: What am I assuming? What am I missing? What patterns am I seeing? What would I do differently?

Don’t edit. Don’t polish. Just think on paper.

The Compound Effect of Metacognition

Here’s what happens when you practice these eight habits consistently:

Your thinking improves.

Not just in one area. In everything.

Because metacognition is a meta-skill. It improves all your other skills.

Your learning gets faster. Your decisions get better. Your communication gets clearer. Your leadership gets more effective.

Because you’re not just thinking. You’re thinking about how you think. And improving it.

And that compounds over time.

The leader who practices metacognition for a year is dramatically better than the leader who doesn’t.

Not because they worked harder. But because they thought better.

The Challenge

Here’s what I want you to do this week:

Pick one of these eight habits and practice it deliberately for seven days.

Just one. Don’t try to do all eight at once.

Pick the one that feels most foreign to you. The one you’ve never done. The one that makes you slightly uncomfortable.

Because that’s the one you need most.

Practice it every day for seven days. Then reflect: What did you learn? How did it change your thinking?

Then add another habit. And another.

Build the practice over time.

Because metacognition, like any skill, is built through deliberate practice.

The Truth About Great Leadership

Good leaders think.

Great leaders think about how they think.

And the difference between the two isn’t talent. It’s not intelligence. It’s not experience.

It’s the practice of metacognition.

The habit of stepping back. Observing your own thinking. Examining your assumptions. Identifying your blind spots. And deliberately improving how you think.

That’s what separates good from great.

And it’s a skill you can develop. Starting today.

Which of these eight habits will you start with?