When we feel inadequate in spaces where we are objectively capable, we need to look at the system, not just the self. We’ve pathologized a very human response to exclusion or expecting ourselves to know it all, and we’ve handed that pathology back to the person already working the hardest to contribute valuably.

Growing as a leader, in the deepest sense, is about becoming someone whose interior life has grown large enough to hold the complexity that leadership at this level asks of you. That growth does not happen in moments of certainty. It happens in the in-between spaces with your willingness to stay present to the not-knowing and your trust that something is forming even when you can’t yet see it.

The leaders I work with are remarkable people. They show up, day after day, for their teams, their organizations, and the people who depend on them. And almost without exception, they are carrying more than they name. Underneath the productivity and performance, something else is happening. Something that rarely gets named in team meetings or in performance reviews. And that is loss and the grieving that follows.

I believe that this in-between space, the one that can feel the most uncertain and uncomfortable, is also the one where the most meaningful shifts begin to take place. In my occasional wiser moments, I know that this phase of life is not something to resolve, but something to learn to move within. It is a time to trust that the space between what was and what will be is not empty, but alive with possibility.

What unites the leaders I work with is not geography, but the desire to lead in a way that feels both effective and authentic. Because of my time living and working in Africa and the West, I’ve long been interested in how the beliefs and expectations we carry from our countries and cultures influence how we lead and what might become possible when we expand our definition of ‘good’ leadership.