When I think about the women who taught me the most about leadership, not all of them held the title.
My grandmother lived in an era when women weren’t expected to have much of a voice. They kept the home. They raised the children. They stayed out of the limelight. And yet, she was a powerful force when it came to shaping people. She did it with a gentle question. A quiet prod. Sometimes by holding up a mirror. Always by setting the example herself. Mostly, she did it through kindness.
She never led from the front, but she inspired us to become better versions of ourselves.
She taught me that leadership doesn’t require charisma or even a title. It requires influence used with care.
In my high school years, I had an English teacher who never yelled, threatened or punished us. This came at a time when a smack was still considered a perfectly acceptable response to an insolent or badly behaved child. She did none of that. Instead, she opened my eyes to literature and the power of the written word. She took me somewhere I didn’t think I wanted to go and then made sure I did the work really, really well.
She taught me that you don’t need to use fear to hold people to high standards. When people feel safe, excellence naturally follows.
One of my dearest friends has held senior global roles at large, well-known corporations. She’s never afraid to guide people towards doing the right thing or push them to do the great work she knows they’re capable of. But she guides more than she tells – drawing on her glass-topped desk to let the concept drop. She is patient. She is supportive. She builds fiercely loyal teams who perform because they want to, and because she has helped them believe they can.
She taught me that the most powerful person in the room isn’t necessarily the loudest.
And then there was one of my own leaders. She constantly challenged me. She knew I was capable of more, and she refused to let me settle for less. She encouraged my sometimes outlandish theories and gave me room to try things that had not been tried before. Some worked. Some failed spectacularly. When they failed, she didn’t make me feel small, stupid or unworthy. Nor did she mollycoddle me. She helped me make sense of everything I’d learned, shake it off, and get right back at it. And when our experiments succeeded, she never claimed the credit.
She taught me that great leaders don’t need to be the source of every answer. They create the conditions in which other people can find better ones.
Perhaps we have held on to a few leadership myths for too long:
- That charisma creates commitment.
- That the loudest voice carries the most influence.
- That high standards require fear and pressure.
- That leaders prove themselves by having all the answers.
The exceptional women in my life didn’t set out to challenge assumptions about women.
They challenged my assumptions about leadership.
Some did it from positions of enormous authority.
Some did it without formal authority at all.
But each, in her own way, left people stronger than she found them.
And perhaps that is one of the truest measures of leadership.