Early in my career, I believed leadership meant having the answer. If a problem landed in the room, my job was to solve it, fast and out loud. I was confident. I was often right. And I was missing the point.
Twenty five years of leading people has a way of correcting a person.
What I have learned, slowly and sometimes the hard way, is that the people I lead rarely need me to be the smartest person in the room. They need someone who will sit with them long enough to help them think. A team member working through a hard decision does not need my conclusion handed down. They need good questions, honest reflection, and a leader who believes they are capable of finding the way through, and who will walk with them while they do.
I have watched people discover strengths they did not know they had. I have watched talented people outgrow roles they once loved, and need the freedom to say so. I have watched good people walk through seasons of exhaustion and doubt and come out the other side stronger, not because I rescued them, but because somebody refused to give up on them while they found their footing.
My faith sits underneath all of this. I believe every person is uniquely created by God, with gifts and purpose that deserve to be cultivated, not managed. That is why I have never been able to see people as headcount, or resources, or boxes on an organizational chart. They are people first. They matter beyond what they produce. And when you are entrusted with leading people like that, the work becomes bigger than performance. You are shaping confidence. Character. Judgment. The way a person will someday treat the people they lead.
That belief changes how I correct people, too. When someone on my team gets off track, I do not start with the failure. I start with the person. The conversation begins with what I know is true about them and the good I have seen in their work, and then we talk honestly about where things went wrong. Accountability lands differently when a person knows it comes from genuine concern, and that you see who they are, not just the mistake.
None of this makes me soft on results. I love to compete. Beating a KPI, growing a service line, reaching a level of performance people said we could not reach, that drive is in me and it always will be. But the scoreboard has never been where the meaning is. The meaning shows up years later. It is the former teammate who calls to tell me about a promotion. It is the person who tells me a hard conversation changed the direction of their career. It is watching someone step into a role they once believed was beyond them.
So the older I get, the less leadership looks like having answers. The more it looks like stewardship. Of influence. Of trust. Of people.
Lead with conviction. Show up consistently. Ask better questions. Care deeply. And never underestimate what happens when a person feels genuinely seen, valued, and believed in.