Early in my career, success was easy to define. As a young commercial manager, it was about achieving sales targets and improving recoveries. Later it became market share and brand performance. As I reached senior management, success was measured by P&L.

Every promotion simply gave me a bigger number to chase. Then, somewhere along the journey, I realised that results are never entirely yours.

Annual performance can be transformed by a change in regulation, a competitor’s mistake, an economic downturn, a currency movement or simply good timing. Of course, leaders influence outcomes. But they never control all the variables.

Gradually, my definition of success changed.

I stopped measuring myself only by the results I achieved and started measuring myself by the quality of the work I put in; the quality of my thinking, the quality of my decisions, the strength of the team I was building and whether the organisation was becoming more capable than it had been before.

Ironically, I found that focusing less on results often produced better results. Today, when I advise CEOs and entrepreneurs, I encourage them to broaden their own definition of success.

Sometimes success is record profits, sometimes it is surviving an economic crisis and sometimes it is just retaining a great leadership team. Sometimes it is making the right long-term decision even when it hurts this year’s numbers.

As leaders, we should always be accountable for results but we should be careful not to define ourselves solely by them. Results are influenced by circumstances but capability is built by choice.

In the long run, organisations that consistently build better judgement, stronger teams, healthier cultures and greater adaptability usually outperform those that simply chase annual numbers.