Insights · A Different Experience

What Losing 123 Pounds Taught Me About Leading People

By Dave O'Riordan · 5 min read · Last checked 2026-10-25

Pacing, consistency, honest measurement, rest, and running with other people. The road from 305 to 182 pounds turned out to be a leadership course in disguise.

People ask me about the running all the time now. How did you lose the weight? What are you eating? How many miles this week? I'll happily talk about all of it for as long as you'll let me. But somewhere along the way I noticed something I didn't see coming. Nearly everything that changed my body was also quietly changing how I lead people.

I didn't lace up looking for leadership lessons. I laced up because at 305 pounds I was tired of being tired. Somewhere between 305 and 182, though, the road taught me more about leading a team than most of the training courses I've sat through over the years.

My biggest weakness as a runner has a name, and my coach knows it well. Positive splitting. I'd go out too fast, feel like a champion for three miles, then spend the next ten paying for it. For months he's been drilling the opposite into me: even pacing, negative splits, hold something back early so there's something left at the end.

I've watched plenty of leaders run a project the way I used to run a race. Big launch, everyone fired up, the whole team flat out in week one. By week six the energy's gone and the thing limps home, if it gets home at all. If you can't pace a team, you'll burn through good people the same way I burned through my own legs. Start steady and build into it. Nobody should be asked to sprint a marathon.

Nobody drops 123 pounds over a weekend. I wish they did. For me it was hundreds of 4:15 alarms I didn't want to hear, easy runs that felt like they weren't doing anything, and turning down the same foods on some random Tuesday when nobody was watching.

Teams get built the same way. I used to think transformation came from the big moments, the speech or the offsite or the announcement everyone remembers. It doesn't. It comes from the one to one you never cancel and the standard you keep even when it's inconvenient. It comes from following through on the small promise you could easily have let slide. Do the unglamorous thing on Tuesday, do it again next Tuesday, and one day you'll look at the old photo and barely recognise it.

Measure it, but don't worship it

I weigh myself. I track miles, heart rate and sleep. I've spent my career in operational excellence, so data is in my blood, and those numbers told me what was working and what wasn't.

The scale can also lie to you on any given morning. Water, inflammation or one bad night can push the number up for reasons that have nothing to do with the work you put in. Had I quit every time it went the wrong way for a week, I'd still be at 305.

I see leaders do the same thing with dashboards. One rough week and the strategy goes out the window, or one good week and everyone eases off. Treat the data as a compass and watch the trend over time. A single reading shouldn't get to rewrite the plan.

This one took me longest to accept. Where I come from, rest looked a lot like laziness. Then I learned that sleep is the biggest lever I have for recovery, bigger even than the training. When I sleep well, everything works. When I don't, nothing does.

I've seen organisations run their people the way I used to run myself, with no recovery and no margin, and then act surprised when their best people break or walk out the door. Performance gets built during the recovery. If the people you lead are running on empty, giving them room to breathe is both the kind thing and the smart thing to do. I've been the exhausted one and I've been the rested one, and I know which of the two turned up ready to work.

I had people keeping me honest the whole way. A running buddy who kept showing up. A family that changed the whole rhythm of the house to make room for this. People who believed I'd get there on the mornings I wasn't so sure myself.

Every team I've led has worked the same way. The leader doesn't need to be the hero pulling off the impossible single-handed. The job is building a place where ordinary people can do extraordinary things together, and most of that comes down to accountability, encouragement and turning up.

The race we're actually running

On long runs I often think about that line in Hebrews about running with perseverance the race marked out for us. I love that it doesn't say sprint. It says keep going, stay in your lane, and finish.

Leadership has far more to do with that kind of perseverance than with the highlight reel. It's pacing, consistency, recovery and the people running alongside you, plus a quiet decision you make hundreds of times over to keep going.

I started running to change my body. Somewhere around mile 400 it started changing everything else too. Whether you're leading a team or just trying to lead yourself a bit better this week, if any of this lands with you, I'd genuinely love to hear about it. My inbox is open, and I mean that.

Stay curious, and stay anchored. Sometimes God calms the storm. Sometimes God calms the sailor.

Dave O'Riordan leads The ADX Group — continuous improvement, critical thinking and AI readiness for organisations. Request a discovery call or see the services.