Breaking the Loop: How to Grow Beyond Self-Defeating Habits

By Dr. George D. Lunsford, Founder – Strategic Synergy Consulting Group LLC

Diagram illustrating interconnected negative behaviors, highlighting concepts such as entitlement, lack of patience, and blaming others, forming a cycle of unproductive habits.

In leadership, the most dangerous challenges aren’t always market shifts, supply chain issues, or budget constraints. Often, they’re the self-defeating habits leaders bring into their roles — habits that quietly undermine trust, damage culture, and block results.

We’ve all slipped into unhelpful patterns at times — blaming others for failures, avoiding hard work, or letting distractions derail progress. But when these patterns become ingrained, they form what I call the Behavioral Cycle of Avoidance and Immaturity, which can hold leaders — and their teams — hostage.

This cycle often includes:

1. Blaming others for what goes wrong

2. Lack of patience and tolerance

3. Belief in entitlement

4. Need to control others

5. Unawareness of the harm caused

6. Inability to accept consequences

7. Seeking the easy way out

8. Being easily side-tracked

These traits don’t just harm the leader; they cascade through the team, shaping the organization’s culture. At SSCG, we’ve seen this loop derail entire departments — and we’ve also helped leaders replace it with a cycle of accountability, growth, and performance.

Why This Matters for Leadership

Teams don’t quit companies — they quit poor leadership. A leader trapped in the blame–avoidance loop will eventually see rising turnover, falling engagement, and missed targets.

In one client case, a division head regularly shifted responsibility to “corporate” for budget constraints. This mindset trickled down, and the team stopped taking ownership for spending decisions. After a focused SSCG coaching program, the leader learned accountability strategies, the team co-created budget processes, and within one quarter, expenses dropped 12% without cutting key initiatives.

Step 1: Build Self-Awareness

You can’t break what you can’t see. At SSCG, we start with tools like 360-degree feedback, behavioral assessments, and leadership style inventories to reveal hidden patterns.

Leadership example: If you often say, “My team just doesn’t get it,” we help you analyze whether the real barrier is communication, expectations, or your leadership approach — and then build a plan to fix it.

Step 2: Practice Accountability

Accountability transforms leadership credibility. Through our leadership coaching modules, we train clients to model ownership in a way that inspires the same from their teams.

Example from practice: In our “Accountability in Action” workshop, leaders learn to reframe missed deadlines from “They didn’t deliver” to “Here’s how I’ll ensure clarity and support next time.” Leaders who’ve applied this skill have reported noticeable increases in team trust within weeks.

Step 3: Increase Frustration Tolerance

A low threshold for frustration often fuels micromanagement and control. SSCG’s resilience and stress-regulation training teaches leaders how to pause, reframe, and respond effectively under pressure.

One operations manager we worked with reduced meeting interruptions by 60% after learning our “90-Second Leadership Pause” technique — a tool designed to create space between reaction and response.

Step 4: Strengthen Follow-Through

Nothing erodes a leader’s credibility faster than unkept promises. In our consulting engagements, we help leaders implement practical follow-through systems, like visible project dashboards and personal accountability trackers.

When one SSCG client, a sales director, adopted our “Visible Commitments Framework,” her department’s completion rate for initiatives jumped from 63% to 92% in two months.

Step 5: Invest in Targeted Development

You can’t break the loop alone. That’s why SSCG’s coaching, consulting, and training programs are designed to address not just behaviors, but the systems and culture that reinforce them.

We deliver:

• Leadership Coaching – for building emotional intelligence and self-regulation

• Organizational Consulting – to align processes and culture with accountability

• Interactive Training – on conflict resolution, consequence awareness, and performance management

These aren’t generic programs. They’re tailored to your context, your team, and your specific leadership challenges.

Final Thought

You are not defined by your worst habits — but you are shaped by what you do consistently. If parts of this cycle sound familiar, you don’t have to stay stuck.

At SSCG, we’ve helped leaders at every level replace self-defeating patterns with habits that drive trust, performance, and results. The sooner you take action, the sooner you shift from a loop that holds you back to a trajectory that moves you — and your team — forward.

About the Author

Dr. George D. Lunsford is the founder of Strategic Synergy Consulting Group LLC. With over 35 years of experience coaching and mentoring individuals in business, academia, and personal growth, he is a recognized expert in Industrial Psychology and Measurement and Evaluation. Dr. Lunsford’s career spans professorships at leading universities, corporate consulting, and guiding hundreds of clients worldwide toward achieving their potential. His work focuses on improving workplace productivity, strengthening organizational culture, and equipping leaders with the tools to succeed.

Break the Loop. Build the Leader.

At Strategic Synergy Consulting Group, we help leaders identify and dismantle self-defeating cycles, replacing them with systems that create accountability, emotional intelligence, and consistent performance. Whether you need executive coaching, organizational consulting, or leadership training, SSCG can help you transform habits — and results. Let’s start your change today.