Lessons In Leadership Part 6
You can’t lead the mission if your soul never left the boardroom.
Not All Leaders Lead
At Rea
Bana National Institute , leadership didn’t always wear the same
shoes. It walked in different strides. Sometimes steady. Sometimes swift.
Sometimes in circles.
There
were the architects—those who drafted futures with quiet conviction. They
didn't seek the spotlight; they lit it for others.
There were the igniters—those who arrived like thunderstorms. Sudden.
Disruptive. Necessary.
There were also the keepers—steady hands who protected the flame of the
mission. They carried the weight so others could rise.
And
then… came the curators of applause. Polished. Persuasive. Magnetic. Those who
could breathe oxygen into a room but leave it emptier than before.
They led with volume, not vision. With presence, not purpose.
But perhaps the hardest to notice—the most
quietly dangerous—were the drifters. Not destructive. Not rebellious. Just...
detached. Moving through motions like clockwork, slowly dulling the energy
around them.
They weren’t against the mission. They just weren’t with it.
🧊 The Chilling Stillness
Even among the fire and thunderstorms, there
is always an ice—a presence so cold, so still, it doesn’t scorch or shatter. It
simply freezes everything it touches.
That was Barbra.
She didn’t arrive with the clamour of ambition or the sparks of disruption. She seeped in—quietly—like rust on iron, like a dimming bulb that no one remembers was ever bright.
Barbra, or “Barbie” to those who tried to love her into leadership, was not new to the organisation. She had risen through the ranks: once a beloved community worker, now a regional director. Her name appeared on every memo. Her signature graced compliance forms. And yet, if you walked through her region, you’d struggle to find her fingerprint on anything that mattered.
The organisation wasn’t just another institution. It was a legacy institution, managing projects that crossed every boundary; from research, education, social protection, systemic reform, to advocacy. It worked at the intersection of rights, dignity, and with vulnerable communities. Leadership here wasn’t just a role, it was a calling. But Barbra wore her leadership like a borrowed coat: neat, necessary, but never hers.
Leadership Without Lift
Imagine this: Sam hires Jack to build a
house. Jack shows up each day, on time, with working tools in hands. But, each day, he forgets the most
important thing: The Plan. No blueprint. No architectural design. The team
works hard, but they’re building blind.
That was Barbra. She had the team. She
had the tools. But not the plan—the passion, the purpose, the fire that gives
shape to every structure.
Leadership is not a parking spot in the organisation. It is movement. Momentum. A heartbeat pulsing through every policy
and project.
But Barbra’s compass pointed only to
payroll deadlines and government bonuses. Her north star was survival, not
mission.
And when your only focus is preservation, you miss every constellation
that guides the work forward.
When the Stillness Starts to Ache
The damage wasn’t immediate. It never is. Decay
is patient—it creeps in like fog until you can’t see the door you came through.
At first, things seemed fine. But it was the
wrong kind of quiet. Not peace, but pause. Not order, but inertia. Barbra’s
region moved in circles. The pulse was faint. And no one: not staff, not
partners, not even the communities, could quite hear a heartbeat.
The Drift
She introduced no new projects. No fresh
ideas. While other regions launched forward, hers bobbed gently in the
shallows, like a forgotten canoe, tied up and waiting for a wind that never
came.
Staff stopped asking questions. Not because
they found answers. But because they stopped believing they ever would. Hope
began to dry at the edges.
The Ones That Got Away
Opportunities don’t always knock. Sometimes
they whisper. But Barbra’s doors stayed half-closed, her responses half-late,
her interest half-hearted. An international agency reached out with interest in
her region. She hesitated. Stalled. Overthought.
The same agency later partnered with another regional director, one who moved with urgency. The result? A flagship project that became the pride of that region. Barbra, meanwhile, was still redrafting her approach.
Where a Voice Was Needed
Advocacy is not neutral ground. When
injustice speaks, silence is complicity. Barbra wasn’t confrontational. But in
advocacy, that’s not a virtue, it’s a void. When her region faced issues like
child trafficking, stakeholders looked to her for leadership. She blinked. The
National Office had to intervene, handling the media, the crisis, the fallout. Policy
windows cracked open in her region from a project initiative. She missed the
breeze. Barbra didn’t speak up when it mattered. And in rooms where voices
changed laws, she whispered.
A Pulse Without Reach
Community work is not paperwork. It’s presence. It’s voices, hard questions, trust. But Barbra’s work felt like a photo-op. Events happened. Reports were filed. But the smiles were hollow, the impact invisible. There were no stories, just summaries. No resonance, only records.
The Quiet Exodus
And then, the most heartbreaking shift.
People
began to leave. Not with loud complaints. But with quiet resignation. They
transferred to other regions. Resigned. Faded into silence like chairs in a
room no longer used. They weren’t angry. Just tired. Tired of lighting candles
where the switch was never flipped. Tired of giving what wasn’t being matched.
And Barbra? She stayed. Still. Perhaps unaware. Perhaps unwilling. Either way—unchanged.
🪞 When the Fog Reached the Boardroom
You
can ignore a slow drip, until the floor begins to warp. That’s what happened. Barbra’s
stillness, long dismissed as “just her way,” became something riskier. Opportunities slid.
Partnerships cooled. Morale faded. And the whispers that once lived in
corridors began showing up in board minutes.
The
board looked closer. And when they did, they didn’t find defiance. They found
indifference, with a title.
So the review began. Quiet. Deliberate. Clear. And when the truth rose, so did the courage to act. Barbra was offered a dignified exit. She nodded, like someone who already knew.
The Fire We Choose
When I later stepped into leadership at the organisation, Barbra’s story remained a mirror.
Not of failure, but of forgetting. Forgetting that leadership is not a presence
on paper.
It’s a flame in motion. We redefined performance. Yes, we kept metrics. But we
added something harder to track, yet easier to feel:
Presence. Passion. Purpose.
Because without them, a title is nothing but
a hollow crown. Polished, perhaps— But unable to carry the weight of what
leadership truly demands.
Barbra’s story was not about what was lost. It
was about what must never be forgotten: That showing up is not the same as
stepping up.
And no matter how beautiful the fireplace is, if there’s no fire, it won’t warm
the room.