Pre-Trip: Stepping Into a Different Kind of Leadership
As a leader, you should never see yourself as a “finished article.” There is always room to grow, adapt, and reshape who you are becoming. That belief is exactly why, in just a few days, I’ll be heading to South Africa for a Human Centric Leadership Experience, one that promises to be transformational both personally and professionally.
It’s not every day someone like Bruce Perry from Lead with Humanity looks you in the eye and says, “Be ready to be brave, because this experience will change your life.” Those words have stayed with me. They’ve challenged me to prepare not just practically, but emotionally, to step forward with an open mind, a courageous heart, and a willingness to be stretched in ways I can’t yet imagine.
What draws me to this experience is simple: the understanding that the most powerful leaders don’t need titles, they need purpose. And in South Africa, I know I’ll be witnessing leadership in its rawest, most honest form. Not leadership built on hierarchy, politics, or authority, but leadership that rises each day to bring calm where there is fear, courage where there is danger, and hope where there is little else.
I expect to see the best and worst of what it means to lead, and what it means to be human. I’m preparing to confront what some call “the Human Disease”: the instinct to take rather than to give, to protect rather than to serve. And I’m equally ready to meet its antidote, leadership that steadies others even when you are barely standing yourself.
This journey is calling me to be brave. To be curious. To be honest with myself about the leader I am today, and the leader I aspire to become.
⮕ Here’s to growth.
⮕ Here’s to courage.
⮕ Here’s to transformation.
Jo Hayes, Executive Coach
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