Today started with a normal corporate ritual. A strategic planning session presenting to the executive team. After the session one of the senior executive leaders pulled me aside, we had a short, but insightful conversation. That conversation then steered into deep thought for me. A thought, I’m now sharing with you.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
After I had presented the biggest problems we needed to solve and how we would get there, he told me the presentation was clear, structured, and had directly shaped strategic thinking. The work had landed. The outcome I actually care about, had happened. The organisation now UNDERSTOOD and aligned on the problem to be solved.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
From that point onwards, we did what people in that moment always do: we decompressed into shop talk.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
We moved into a strangely specific debate that anyone who has worked in product, consulting, or strategy will recognise immediately:<\/p>\n\n\n\n
PowerPoint vs Miro.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n He joked that my deck felt familiar \u2014 the consulting kind of familiar. We both had that background. The place where you learn to think in slides, where structure is a discipline and not decoration, where a presentation is not information but an argument. PowerPoint, in that world, isn\u2019t a tool. It\u2019s a thinking method and a convincing narrative.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Then, I admitted something: I don\u2019t like building ideas and then presenting in Miro.<\/p>\n\n\n\n He laughed and said Miro isn\u2019t really a presenting tool. It\u2019s a collaboration tool.<\/p>\n\n\n\n That distinction mattered more than it sounds.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Because at that point I shared that I don\u2019t actually use group sessions the way most people use them.<\/p>\n\n\n\n I don\u2019t ideate in real time with a group.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Not because I dislike collaboration. While people are brainstorming solutions, I\u2019m watching:<\/p>\n\n\n\n I\u2019m not generating ideas yet. He paused and said: Then he asked a question that I wasnt expecting and dramatically shifted the conversation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cHow has that impacted your career?\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n And then he told me his own story.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Earlier in his career he had presented analysis without giving a recommendation. He believed the role of the analyst was to show the truth and let leadership decide. But what leadership saw was something else: a lack of executive presence. A lack of leadership signal. In their minds, a leader doesn\u2019t just explain reality \u2014 a leader tells people what to do about it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n It affected how he was perceived.<\/p>\n\n\n\n He learned: organisations don\u2019t only evaluate correctness. I realised I had never really thought about that question.<\/p>\n\n\n\n I told him, honestly, I would have had to care about promotion to notice whether it affected my career.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Even if it did, I didn\u2019t track it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n I care about whether the work changed the decision. I said the same thing to him, as I say to all my leaders:<\/p>\n\n\n\n I care more about getting the job done than talking for the purpose of alignment in the hope of getting the job done.<\/p>\n\n\n\n That doesn\u2019t mean alignment doesn\u2019t matter to me. Its just not the role I want to play in the organisation. That role (in my view) is delegated to my manager and that set up, suits me just fine. Yes, I could do the influence part, but frankly being patient with people who are in risk delegation mode over impact improvement mode drains the hell out of me.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Having said that. I\u2019ve also been fortunate. I\u2019ve had leaders who actively amplified my voice \u2014 often when I didn\u2019t want them to. They would pull me into rooms I wasn\u2019t trying to enter. They interpreted my thinking as leadership even when I wasn\u2019t attempting to demonstrate leadership.<\/p>\n\n\n\n But I also realised something else.<\/p>\n\n\n\n That was often the moment I started considering leaving.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Not because I disliked responsibility.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Because I wasn\u2019t interested in playing what I privately think of as leadership theatre<\/strong>. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Large organisations run on coordination.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Not intelligence. Coordination.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The hardest problem inside a big company is not figuring out the right answer. It\u2019s getting hundreds of people to move in the same direction at the same time. So leadership signals evolve around behaviours that make coordination possible: confidence, framing, early direction, visible ownership.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The system is logical.<\/p>\n\n\n\n But it creates a quiet tension.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Some people think out loud. The first group helps groups move faster. Organisations tend to reward the first more consistently, because speed is visible and correctness is only visible later.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Neither group is wrong.<\/p>\n\n\n\n They are optimising different risks.<\/p>\n\n\n\n A startup fears being wrong about reality. That single difference explains a lot of what we classify as having \u201cexecutive presence.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n Personally, I’m looking for a leader that can balance both. I believe a great leader can make them coexist.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The executive wasn\u2019t telling me I needed to change.<\/p>\n\n\n\n He was revealing a truth: leadership perception forms before the final answer exists.<\/p>\n\n\n\n My instinct has always been: understand \u2192 structure \u2192 recommend.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The leadership signal often happens earlier: orient \u2192 reassure \u2192 decide.<\/p>\n\n\n\n That doesn\u2019t mean one is better. I still don\u2019t enjoy real-time ideation sessions. I still prefer forming a view after observing the system, not during the noise of it. And I still don\u2019t measure my work by whether I looked like a leader while doing it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n I measure it by whether the decision improved.<\/p>\n\n\n\n But I now better understand what others are seeing in those moments.<\/p>\n\n\n\n They\u2019re not watching who is smartest in the room.<\/p>\n\n\n\n They\u2019re watching who helps the room know where to go when nobody is certain yet.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Not everyone wants the same relationship with leadership.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Some people want to lead organisations. Both are valuable.<\/p>\n\n\n\n But they are not the same skillset, and confusing them creates quiet career anxiety for a lot of capable people who assume they\u2019re doing something wrong when they\u2019re actually optimising for a different goal.<\/p>\n\n\n\n For me, the conversation didn\u2019t change how I want to work.<\/p>\n\n\n\n It changed how I interpret what I\u2019m observing around me.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Sometimes leadership is decision authority. And sometimes it\u2019s the person in the room who is still trying to understand the problem while everyone else is racing toward the solution.<\/p>\n\n\n\n I\u2019m still that person.<\/p>\n\n\n\n I just understand now why organisations react the way they do to it \u2014 and why the same behaviour that builds trust in one context can look like hesitation in another.<\/p>\n\n\n\n That\u2019s the chaos part.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The constant part is this: Today started with a normal corporate ritual. A strategic planning session presenting to the executive team. After the session one of the senior executive leaders pulled me aside, we had a short, but insightful conversation. That conversation then steered into deep thought for me. A thought, I’m now sharing with you. After I had presented … Continue reading The Day a Compliment Turned Into a Leadership Conversation<\/span>
Because I use those sessions to diagnose the problem<\/strong>, not solve it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n
I\u2019m trying to understand what the room believes reality is<\/em>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cSo you\u2019re a deep thinker.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
They evaluate direction-setting.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Not whether the decision changed my title.<\/p>\n\n\n\nThe Corporate Paradox<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
Not even strategy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Some people think first, then speak.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The second group sometimes helps groups move correctly.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
A corporation fears organisational misalignment.<\/p>\n\n\n\nWhat I Ultimately Learned From the Conversation<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
It means they serve different organisational needs.<\/p>\n\n\n\nWhy This Matters<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
Some people want to solve problems inside them.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Sometimes it is influence.
Sometimes it is simply the person willing to speak first.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I\u2019d still rather improve the decision than improve the perception that I improved the decision.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"