The Hard Road Made Easier: A 5-Part Model for Emerging Leaders

When someone steps into a leadership role for the first time, it can feel like they're walking a hard, unfamiliar road. That’s exactly the journey we explore in my recent conversation with Martin West.

Martin is the founder of X-Gap, and he’s spent years guiding leaders through the tough moments that shape their growth, and he’s taken that experience and poured it into a new book. Co-authored with Mark Bragg, Hard Road: A Leader’s Journey Begins outlines a five-part model designed to support new and emerging leaders as they step into their own leadership path.

In this blog, we talk about the lessons behind the story, the real-life inspiration for the book, and why those early leadership challenges matter more than we think.

The 5-Part Model for Emerging Leaders

In Hard Road: A Leader’s Journey Begins, Martin West and Mark Bragg introduce a five-part leadership model designed to guide new and emerging leaders through the often messy and challenging early stages of leadership. These lessons were born from tough moments and real observations in the field.

These five areas, when practiced intentionally, can shape a leader’s effectiveness and deeply impact the success of their team.

Let’s walk through each part of the model.

1. Self-Awareness

Self-awareness is where it all begins. And for good reason.

Many leaders unknowingly carry blind spots such as behaviors they don’t recognize but that affect their teams in big ways. These blind spots can quietly hold everyone back. The good news is that identifying them isn’t as hard as it sounds. Often, it just takes the courage to ask for honest feedback.

Start by writing down your top three strengths and three areas where you think you struggle. Then, ask three trusted people on your team (one-on-one and privately) to do the same for you. You might be surprised by what you learn.

Beyond personal insight, this stage also involves team awareness and situational awareness or the ability to read the room, anticipate what’s coming next, and understand how your leadership behaviors are influencing others. 

Self-aware leaders are reflective, humble, and most importantly, coachable.

2. Strong Relationships

Strong teams are built on strong relationships. You can have clear goals and a healthy team culture, but if you don’t have real one-on-one connections with the people you lead, your team’s success might not last.

Martin encourages leaders to regularly check in with their team members, not just about tasks, but about who they are, what motivates them, and how they want to grow.

Schedule one-on-one meetings every six weeks with each team member. Use this time to ask questions like:

• What do you enjoy about my leadership?

• Where do you feel challenged?

• What motivates or demotivates you?

• Where do you see yourself in the next 3 years?

These conversations build trust, and trust creates the space for honest feedback, accountability, and growth.

3. Alignment

Alignment is about creating a shared vision that your team is excited to pursue. And to get there, you need buy-in.

Martin and Mark suggest using four simple but powerful questions to guide your team:

1. Why do we exist? (What’s our purpose?)

2. What does success look like? (Where do we want to be in 1–2 years?)

3. What are our top 3–4 priorities for the next 6 months?

4. What do I personally need to execute to help us succeed?

These questions form the foundation of a clear, motivating game plan. When everyone on the team knows the answers, and feels ownership of them, you create alignment and forward momentum.

4. Discipline

Discipline is about being consistent. And that consistency often shows up in one key place: the weekly team meeting.

Weekly meetings are the anchor point for tracking progress, surfacing issues, and adjusting course as needed. Instead of relying solely on preset agendas, Martin recommends leaving space for real-time discussions, what’s working, what’s not, and what needs to change.

This is where accountability happens in real time. You get to see the team’s behavior, effort, and energy in action. Done well, weekly meetings can become dynamic, engaging, even a little messy, and that’s a good thing. It means your team is alive, thinking, and growing.

5. Coaching

Finally, coaching is where it all comes together. At this stage, leadership shifts from being about you to being about them.

Martin introduces a simple yet powerful tool: the Three-Box Coaching Model:

• Box 1 – Current Performance: Where are they now?

• Box 2 – Future Performance: Where would you like to see them in the future (skills, mindset, behavior)?

• Box 3 – The How: What steps will you take together to help them grow?
  

This model emphasizes progress, not perfection. It’s about walking alongside your team members and supporting them in their development journey.

Coaching brings satisfaction not just from hitting targets, but from seeing people evolve and succeed.

How Do the 5 Parts Work Together?

If you're just starting out, Martin recommends you start focusing on the first two parts: self-awareness and building strong relationships. These are the foundation. Work on becoming more aware of your own strengths, blind spots, and leadership style. Then, invest time in getting to know your team, one person at a time.

At the same time, set a future goal. This is your timeline for tackling step 3: team alignment. Around three months after, you gather your team and work through the four key alignment questions:

1. Why do we exist?

2. What does success look like in 1-2 years?

3. What are our top 3-4 priorities for the next 6 months?

4. What does each person need to execute?

Use the time before your alignment session to grow your self-awareness and build those strong, trust-based relationships.

But if you have to pick two actions to get started with, here’s what Martin recommends:

1. Do the self-awareness exercise.
   Ask for honest feedback from your team, a peer, and maybe your boss. Learn where your strengths are—and where you might be holding your team back without realizing it.
   

2. Get serious about your weekly team meetings.
   Start thinking about how to run productive, meaningful weekly meetings. Make them consistent, engaging, and focused on progress and performance.

Leadership is a living, breathing practice. And these five parts are the rhythm that helps it stay strong. These five parts are ongoing, evolving areas of leadership. You’ll revisit them often, and they grow with you.

Leaning Into Vulnerability

When asked to share one piece of advice for leaders, Martin says be open and be vulnerable.

That might not sound like typical leadership advice, but it’s powerful. Vulnerability, especially in leadership, is courage in action. It means facing up to the conversations you’ve been avoiding. 

Most of us already know what’s holding us back. If we take just a few quiet minutes to reflect, it usually becomes clear. It might be a lack of discipline in a certain area, a strained working relationship, or a lingering conflict that’s gone unspoken. And more often than not, the path forward starts with a single, honest conversation.

Here are my key takeaways from my conversation with Martin:

• Make Time for One-on-One Relationships. Genuinely connect with your team members one-on-one, not just as colleagues, but as real people.

• Coaching Is at the Heart of Leadership. As a leader, your job is about the people you serve. 

• Be Vulnerable and Courageous. Be honest with yourself about what’s holding you back and have the courage to address it.
  

Martin brings a wealth of real-world leadership wisdom to the table, and his book Hard Road Leadership: A Leader’s Journey Begins is a powerful companion for anyone navigating the challenges of leading a team. 

Share your thoughts with us in the comments below.

If you’d like more insights on this topic, you can also tune in to the podcast episode here: The Hard Road Made Easier: A 5-Part Model for Emerging Leaders