The time I interviewed for my first role in the corporate world was a different time. The concept of appropriate language and behavior wasn't really defined in the way it is today. There were things that were said, questions that were asked, that perhaps wouldn't be considered acceptable now.
One of the first things I was asked was how I was going to manage holding down a full-time job with a six-month-old baby.
I remember the question clearly.
I also remember how it made me feel.
I felt like a liability.
Not because I wasn't capable of doing the job. Not because I lacked ambition or commitment. But because I was a new mother. I distinctly remember feeling that I had something to prove before I had even started.
And then there were the looks at the wristwatch. Every time I walked into the office. I would have spent the night before struggling to calm a colicky baby with very little sleep. Yet I would arrive at work and feel that I was being measured against a standard that didn't take any of that into account. After all, it wasn't meant to be anybody's concern and there really was no discussion about personal circumstances at the workplace. Those looks may have seemed insignificant to the person making them. They weren't insignificant to me. When you are already questioning whether you are doing enough, or good enough; a glance at a watch can become very loud. And slowly, almost without realising it, I began to doubt myself.
Was I really doing enough? Was I capable of this? And rather extreme - Was I completely useless? I don't remember anyone sitting me down and telling me that I wasn't good enough. It didn't need to be said. Sometimes people communicate far more through a look, a gesture or a reaction than they ever could with words. I became defensive. Most of the time, I think I wore it quite well. There was a show of nonchalance whenever a look or a comment landed. As though it didn't matter. As though I hadn't noticed.
But I had.
Looking back, I can see that the person I was becoming at work wasn't really who I was. I wasn't naturally defensive. I wasn't someone who wanted to walk into a room wondering what people thought of me or whether I had done something wrong. But when you constantly feel that you are being judged, you start protecting yourself.
And sometimes protection doesn't look like vulnerability.
It looks like indifference.
It looks like confidence when you're actually uncertain.
It looks like pushing back when what you really want is to be understood.
It looks like saying, "I don't care," when you care very much.
Perhaps one of the best things to have come out of that experience, though, was that I worked incredibly hard to prove that I was worth my cost. I wanted the work to speak for itself. Feedback from the clients I dealt with mattered enormously to me. So did the way I approached my work. I took time over weekends to learn the job, to understand the things I didn't yet know and to become better at what I had been given the opportunity to do.
And somewhere along the way, I also learned that you don't have to do everything alone. I sought out supportive colleagues who helped me understand the role. Some of those people became some of the best friends I have made at work. More than that, many of them still are today. That experience definitely influenced the kind of leader I became. I learned to be kind without being a pushover. That distinction became important to me. I learned that you can have high expectations of people and still care about them. You can hold someone accountable without making them feel small. You can challenge someone without making them feel that they have failed.
Perhaps more importantly, I started paying attention to what might be happening beyond the desk.
Who was struggling but wasn't saying so?
Who needed a little more support?
Who had something going on in their personal life that was affecting how they showed up at work?
I didn’t always get it right, but I became much more conscious of looking beyond the work in front of me and seeing the person doing it. And then there were the people who were capable of so much more but simply weren’t being given the opportunity to stretch. I became fascinated by those people. Sometimes capability isn’t obvious because confidence isn’t there. Sometimes someone has never been given the chance to try. Sometimes people become so accustomed to being overlooked that they stop putting their hand up. I wanted to notice them. I wanted to give people opportunities that someone had once given me. Because I knew what it felt like to be underestimated. Looking back at my time as a leader, there was a person who wasn’t part of myteam and was on a performance improvement plan, it seemed like a routine issue.I saw something else. A person who looked like he had lost his spark.And for some reason, I had a feeling about him. I was moving on from the role I was in, and I remember thinking that he could be a great successor.
It probably didn’t make much sense to everyone else. After all, he was on a performance improvement plan. Why would I see him as someone with the potential to step into my role?
But I wasn’t looking only at what had happened. I was looking at the person underneath it. So one day I simply went up to him and asked whether he thought the role I was doing was interesting at all. He thought it was great. He liked that it involved dealing with people and said that the satisfaction of seeing a happy client must be such a fulfilling experience. I agreed with him. Then I asked him if he would like to shadow me for a while and see whether it was something he might like to take on at some point.He hesitated. So I told him there was no pressure. I would give him the time he needed to thinkabout it.
And I did.
By the following week, I was almost convinced that he had abandoned the ideacompletely. I couldn’t fault him if he had. It was potentially an overwhelming responsibility, particularly at a time when his confidence had clearly taken a knock. He had also been considering moving into a different role in another team. So it was a very pleasant surprise when he came to see me. He had made his decision. He told me that, in the end, it was a “no brainer” to work with a person who wanted to support him.
I remember that.
Not because I thought I had done something extraordinary. But because I realized that sometimes people don’t need someone to fix them. Sometimes they simply need someone to see something in them that they have temporarily stopped seeing in themselves—and then give them the space and support to decide what they want to do with it. More than a decade later, I spoke to him again. He has moved from strength to strength. His career has reached a point where he isn’t looking for more. He isn’t chasing the next title or the next promotion. He has reached the pinnacle of seniority in his career, and what seems to matter to him now is simply to be
To be present.
To give his best to the family he adores.
To do his work well.
To live a good life.
And the thing that struck me most was that he was still the same person underneath it all.
Warm
Sensitive.
Genuinely kind.
The very qualities I had noticed in him all those years ago were still there.Clearly they had never been the things he needed to change.Perhaps what he needed was simply the opportunity to believe that those qualities could coexist with being successful.What I have learnt through all of this is that truly, there is no one who cannot learn, grow and, most importantly, evolve.Sometimes we just need someone to see it.To notice the spark that might light the fire.And that spark is different for every person.For one person, it might be recognition. For another, responsibility. Someone else might need encouragement, trust, challenge or simply the feeling that someone believes they are capable of more.There should be no judgement around what it takes to ignite that spark. And there certainly shouldn’t need to be justification for it.We are all different. What motivates one person may leave another completely cold.What looks like ambition to one person may look like pressure to another. What feels like success to one person may mean very little to someone else.Perhaps our role as leaders is not to have all the answers.Perhaps it is to get curious about people.
To see them.
Not just the role they occupy, the mistake they made, the target they missed or theconfidence they appear to lack.
The person.
I have evolved.
Because people evolve.
The defensive young mother who walked into that first corporate role wondering whether she was a liability could never have known what those experiences would teach her about leadership. She certainly couldn’t have known that one day she would find herself looking at another person and thinking, there is more here. Perhaps that is what leadership has taught me most about being human. We are all works in progress. We all have moments when our confidence disappears, when we get things wrong, when we don’t quite know where we fit or what we are capable of. And sometimes, all it takes is for someone to see the possibility of who we might become before we are able to see it ourselves. Maybe that is leadership. Not simply getting the best out of people. But seeing people well enough to know that there is more in them than the moment you are looking at. And having the humanity to give them the chance to find it.
Warmly,
Haya