Some of you were exceptional. Some of you were not. But all of you have contributed to the professional I am today.
I've been reflecting recently on my career, the organisations I've worked for, the people I've worked alongside and the many managers and leaders I've encountered along the way. And I've come to the conclusion that I probably owe quite a few people a thank you.
Some of the organisations I've worked for have been fantastic. Others, if I'm being fair, have been considerably less so. I've worked with managers who inspired me, leaders who encouraged me, colleagues who challenged my thinking and people who recognised potential in me that perhaps I hadn't yet recognised in myself.
I've been trusted with opportunities, encouraged to take risks, given room to make mistakes and supported to develop both personally and professionally. I've also experienced leadership that left me questioning decisions, behaviours and sometimes the very principles that organisations claimed to stand for.
Not every experience was positive. Not every decision was fair. And not every lesson was one I would have chosen to learn.
But looking back, I recognise that every experience has contributed something. Together, they've created a tapestry of experience, knowledge, confidence and resilience that continues to shape how I think, work and approach leadership today. And perhaps, rather unexpectedly, I owe all those people a thank you.
We learn from the best. But we also learn from the worst.
Some of the most valuable lessons throughout my career have come from people whose leadership I admired. Those who demonstrated integrity, even when doing so was difficult. Those who took the time to listen, genuinely valued different perspectives and recognised that having a senior job title didn't automatically mean having all the answers. Those who gave people confidence, created opportunities and understood that developing others was as important as delivering results.
I've been fortunate to encounter people like that. And their influence has stayed with me long after our professional paths went in different directions. But I've also learnt a considerable amount from leadership approaches I wouldn't want to replicate.
From decisions that appeared disconnected from the people they affected. From occasions when communication could have been better, when challenge wasn't welcomed or when organisational values didn't seem to translate into everyday behaviours.
Those experiences taught me something too. Sometimes they reinforced what I already believed. Sometimes they challenged my assumptions. And sometimes they made me think very carefully about the sort of leader I wanted to become.
There is a difference between being grateful for poor leadership and recognising that you've learnt something from experiencing it.
I wouldn't suggest that difficult experiences are somehow necessary for professional development, or that poor leadership should be excused because someone eventually learnt from it. Some experiences simply should have been better. But I can acknowledge the lessons they provided without pretending they were positive at the time. And I suspect many of us could say the same.
This became more than a personal reflection
In 2022, I completed my MBA dissertation at Keele University, exploring the question: Should Authentic Leadership Be the Desired Leadership Model in the Social Housing Sector?
Although my research focused on social housing, the questions I was exploring went much further than one particular sector. What do people actually expect from their leaders? What behaviours create trust and confidence? How do our experiences influence what we believe good leadership should look like? And perhaps most interestingly, how do the leaders we encounter shape our own approach to leadership?
As part of my research, I interviewed people from different perspectives across social housing, including chief executives, directors, heads of service, employees, customers and other stakeholders. I wanted to understand leadership not simply from the perspective of those holding senior positions, but also from those experiencing the consequences of leadership decisions.
One of the findings that particularly stayed with me was the influence of previous leadership experiences. Participants spoke about leaders they admired, people who had mentored them and managers who had encouraged their development.
But they also spoke about negative leadership experiences. In fact, negative leadership emerged as a particularly significant influence on how participants understood and perceived leadership. People could often describe very clearly the behaviours they didn't want to experience again, or demonstrate themselves.
And that interested me. Because it suggested that our understanding of leadership isn't shaped only by formal training, leadership theories or the examples we aspire to follow.
It's also shaped by the behaviours we experience, the decisions we witness and the way people make us feel.
My research explored authentic leadership, including the importance of self-awareness, transparency, balanced decision-making and ethical values. It also reinforced the importance of reflection, adaptability and continuing to learn from experience.
The research was based on a relatively small qualitative sample, so I wouldn't claim that its findings represent everyone working in social housing. But the experiences participants described resonated strongly with my own professional journey. And they continue to influence how I think about leadership today.
Leadership is something we experience before we necessarily understand it
Most of us encounter leadership long before we receive any formal leadership training. We experience it through the way our managers communicate. Through the opportunities we're given. Through the way mistakes are handled. Through whether we're encouraged to challenge decisions or expected simply to agree. Through how people behave when things go wrong. And through whether the values displayed on an organisation's website are reflected in how its people are actually treated.
We learn what trust feels like when somebody places their confidence in us. We learn the importance of fairness when we're treated fairly, and sometimes when we aren't. We learn the value of being listened to when somebody genuinely takes the time to understand our perspective. We learn about accountability when we see people take responsibility for their decisions. And we learn about integrity when we witness people doing the right thing, particularly when it would be easier not to.
These experiences don't simply disappear when we move to another organisation. We carry them with us. Sometimes consciously. Sometimes without even realising it.
A conversation with a manager fifteen years ago might still influence how we approach a difficult discussion today. A leader who once believed in our potential might have given us confidence that has lasted throughout our career. And an experience of poor leadership might have made us particularly conscious of how our own decisions affect others.
Perhaps our leadership approach is, in part, a collection of everything we've experienced from the people who led us before.
The people who taught me weren't always the people with leadership titles
Another thing I've come to appreciate is that some of the most influential people throughout my career haven't necessarily held senior positions. They've been colleagues. Frontline employees. Customers. People who have challenged my assumptions, shared their experiences or helped me understand situations from a different perspective.
Some have taught me about compassion. Others about resilience. Others about the importance of listening before forming a judgement. And many have reminded me that the consequences of organisational decisions are experienced by real people, not simply recorded in performance reports or discussed around Board tables.
Working in housing and the charity sector has reinforced that for me repeatedly. You can understand governance, strategy, performance and organisational structures. You can have qualifications, experience and professional knowledge. But none of those things removes the need to understand people. And sometimes the most important lesson comes from someone who has never considered themselves a leader at all.
Every experience adds another thread
When I think about my career, I don't see a neat progression of job titles, employers and qualifications. I see experiences. The opportunities that stretched me. The managers who encouraged me. The colleagues who supported me. The decisions I agreed with. The decisions I challenged. The mistakes I made, (and believe me, there have been many!). The things I got right. The difficult situations I had to navigate. And the people who helped me find the confidence to trust my own judgement.
Some experiences gave me knowledge. Others gave me perspective. Some built confidence. Others tested resilience. And some fundamentally changed how I understood leadership, organisations and the responsibility that comes with influencing other people's working lives.
Individually, each experience might seem relatively insignificant. But together, they've woven something much more substantial.
A tapestry of experience, knowledge, confidence, resilience and professional judgement.
One that continues to develop with every new organisation, relationship, challenge and opportunity. And one that no qualification, however valuable, could ever have created on its own.
So, thank you
To the employers who gave me opportunities, sometimes before I had all the experience, thank you.
To the managers who recognised my potential and encouraged me to develop, thank you.
To the leaders who demonstrated integrity, fairness and compassion, thank you.
To those who challenged my thinking, questioned my assumptions and encouraged me to see things differently, thank you.
To the people who trusted me with responsibility and gave me room to make mistakes, thank you.
To the colleagues who shared their knowledge, offered support and made difficult days easier, thank you.
To the customers and people using services who helped me understand the real impact of organisational decisions, thank you.
And to those whose leadership approaches I wouldn't necessarily choose to follow, I recognise the lessons those experiences gave me too. You helped me understand what I valued, what I believed good leadership should look like and, importantly, what I would want to do differently.
Not every experience was enjoyable. Not every professional relationship was straightforward. And not every chapter ended as I might have hoped. But collectively, they have shaped the person and professional I am today.
And for that, I am grateful.
But there's another side to this reflection
Writing this has made me think about something else. Throughout my career, I've spent a considerable amount of time learning from other people's leadership. Observing it. Experiencing it. Questioning it. Studying it.
And trying to apply those lessons in my own work.
But just as other people have influenced me, I recognise that my own actions, decisions and behaviours will have influenced the people I've worked alongside and those I've had the privilege of leading.
Some of those experiences will hopefully have been positive. Others may have taught lessons I never intended. Because none of us gets leadership right all the time.
We make mistakes. We misjudge situations. We sometimes fail to communicate as well as we should. And occasionally, with the benefit of hindsight, we recognise that we could have handled something differently.
I certainly don't claim to have always got everything right. But I hope I've continued to learn. To listen. To reflect. To challenge my own assumptions. And to recognise that leadership isn't simply about what we intend, but also about how our actions are experienced by others.
That's quite a responsibility when you think about it. Because ultimately, our leadership legacy isn't determined solely by the job titles we've held, the organisations we've worked for or even the achievements we're proudest of.
It's also reflected in the experiences people carry away from working with us. The confidence we helped them build. The opportunities we created. The way we treated them when things were difficult. The example we set. And perhaps even the things they decided they would do differently.
Every experience has contributed another thread to my tapestry.
I am still learning, still reflecting and still developing my understanding of what good leadership looks like. And I hope I always will be.
Because perhaps one of the most important lessons I've learnt is that leadership is never something we finish learning.
So, to everyone who has contributed to my professional journey, thank you.
You may never realise the influence you've had, the lessons you've taught or the part you've played in shaping the person and professional I am today. And perhaps that is the greatest reminder for anyone in a leadership position.
The people we lead today may still be learning from our example many years from now.
Which leaves me with perhaps the most important question of all:
What do I hope people who have worked for me will say they learnt from my leadership, ten or twenty years from now?