I have always been someone who finds comfort in structure. My mind instinctively organises, sequences, and clarifies. It looks for patterns, builds frameworks, and moves, often quickly, toward resolution. In many ways, this has served me well in leadership. It allows me to bring coherence to complexity and direction to ambiguity. But over time, I’ve come to realise that this same strength carries a quiet risk: a bias toward pace, toward answers, and toward order - sometimes at the expense of broader understanding.
This past year offered me an unexpected and deeply significant circuit breaker.
Through my involvement in the AIS National Flagship program, I was given the rare gift of time and space to sit with the concept of the authentic self. Not as a theoretical idea, but as a lived inquiry. It asked more of me than professional reflection - it required personal excavation. It was, without question, the most I have ever learned about who I truly am.
And what I discovered has stayed with me.
I began to notice how quickly I move to structure in moments that might actually require stillness. How my instinct to “bring shape” can unintentionally limit the emergence of other perspectives. How my clarity, while often valued, can sometimes feel like closure to others before they have had the chance to fully enter the conversation. That realisation has not been entirely comfortable.
If I’m honest, I am hard on myself. Deeply so. Reflection, for me, can sometimes tip into critique. I hold a high bar, and when I notice a misstep or a pattern I want to shift, I feel it sharply. But what the past year has taught me is that reflection is not about judgment, it is about attunement. It is about noticing, without flinching, and then choosing differently.
So I have been practicing something that does not come naturally to me: slowing down. Slowing my thinking. Slowing my responses. Slowing the urge to resolve. And, importantly, actively inviting other voices into the space before I shape it.
This has required me to sit more comfortably in what I would once have seen as “mess.” The unfinished thought or the divergent view or perhaps the conversation that takes longer than feels efficient. There is a kind of discipline in allowing that mess to unfold - not rushing to tidy it, not fearing what might emerge, but trusting that something richer is being built in the process.
It has also required me to consider, more intentionally, how others experience me. A highly structured mind can feel reassuring to some, but to others it can feel overwhelming, even constraining. That awareness has been quietly transformative. It has shifted my focus from simply being clear, to being accessible. From being decisive, to being inclusive in how decisions take shape.
Interestingly, as I have been writing and reflecting, a memory resurfaced - one I hadn’t consciously revisited in years.
A comment from my Year 10 history teacher:
“Just focus on doing your work properly and you’ll land somewhere comfortable. Not everyone needs to be exceptional.”
At the time, I don’t remember it landing heavily. It felt like a passing piece of advice, perhaps even a reassurance. But looking back now, I wonder if it embedded itself more deeply than I realised. I think my subconscious revolted against the sentiment because somewhere along the way, I seem to have built a quiet counter-narrative.
A drive not just to do things properly, but to do them exceptionally. A tendency to push, to refine, to elevate - sometimes beyond what is required, and often beyond what is sustainable. And perhaps, if I’m honest, a resistance to the idea of “comfortable.” There is nothing inherently wrong with striving. But unchecked, it can narrow our field of vision. It can make us less patient, less open, and less willing to sit in the ambiguity that meaningful leadership so often demands.
What I am learning now is that exceptional leadership is not found in the speed of our thinking or the precision of our structures alone. It is found in our willingness to notice ourselves - honestly and often. To recognise the patterns that serve us, and those that quietly limit us. And to make deliberate, sometimes uncomfortable, adjustments.
For me, that adjustment is this: to hold my structure more lightly. To create space within it for others to think, to challenge, and to contribute. To resist the pull toward immediate clarity and instead allow insight to emerge more collectively. And to extend to myself the same generosity I am learning to extend to others.
Reflection, I am realising, is not a destination. It is a discipline. One that asks us to remain curious about who we are becoming, even, and perhaps especiall, when we think we already know.
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