The Truth About Confident Leadership
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Reflecting on 2025
It's performance review season at Reset and most organizations. It's the time of year when we get to reflect on our goals, strengths, and yes, areas of opportunity. As a business leader, I typically receive feedback indirectly, maybe through exit interviews or when my business partner/spouse brings a particular disruptive habit to my attention.
This week, our team of clinical supervisors met for our monthly meeting. We're working through Brené Brown's new book, Strong Ground, covering a set of chapters each month. This month, we reflected on Brown's definitions of Armoured vs Daring Leadership. I asked the team to assess where we are collectively, as a baseline benchmark that we can return to over the course of the next year.
Well, I was in for a surprise when one of our leaders started talking about me specifically. They (perhaps intentionally or not) didn't address the collective leadership SWOTs, but mine in particular. Oh my, I felt literally in the hot seat - my face flushed, and I noticed a quiet taking over my body. I wasn't prepared for the feedback, and in this response, I noticed something else - an expanded confidence that wasn't there a couple of years ago.
Gaining Confidence
Later this week, one of our long-standing employees asked for a check-in, and during our chat, she asked me something along the lines of, "How do you lead all of us when we're so different, while trying to keep us all on the same page?" She expressed how, from her perspective, it seemed so challenging to lead such a diverse, large group while still staying connected to oneself and the mission. In her question, I was reminded of the feeling I had at that leadership meeting - confidence.
See, I haven't always been a confident leader. In fact, my general self-esteem always felt like an imposter - demonstrating overconfidence to hide a lack of self-trust. Something I have worked on for a decade in therapy is breaking the habit of my need to please others to avoid feeling rejected or abandoned. It has driven me to strive for perfection, fear failure and disappointing others, and see myself as a "screw up" with any mistake I make.
And yet I had to go through something truly awful over the last two years that made me sit with rock bottom - I had to fully experience rejection and abandonment from someone whom I trusted to love me, despite my mistakes and imperfections. I had experienced people leaving me in my life previously - college friends, ex-boyfriends, former employees - internalizing the common "not good enough" and "I did something wrong" narratives to rationalize their departure. And yet, I knew those relationships were more transient, part of a season of my life, full of lessons and nostalgic memories.
From Rejection to Resilience
But the rejection that was so personal and so close hit differently. The aftermath was brutal - months and months of trying to find my way back to a version of myself that wasn't filled with deep shame, despair, and victimhood. See, when you blame yourself or others, you're always the victim, which gets in the way of growth and learning. Despite the years of self-development practices, I still hadn't fully learned that lesson.
I recall in a psychedelic therapy journey, soon after the rupture, the medicine made clear the enormity of my own victim mindset. It was shattering to my ego, and it was asking to be released, transmuted, with redemption on the other side. I literally "birthed" this pain (in the future, I'll share more about this journey on my personal Substack), but by the end, the message was clear: I get to be here, I get to live this life.
Everything wasn't magically healed after that journey, but it did catalyze the transformation I have experienced in the last 18 months. I no longer fear rejection nor let anyone's opinion of me shake my sense of self. I do not drop into shame and victimhood when confronted with a mistake or failure - at least, not as pervasively or quickly. I still can have self-wallowing moments, but I'm much more resilient in seeing the opportunity and meaning on the other side of pain.
Lessons from Leadership
1. Honesty and vulnerability are gifts to your team, not a burden.
With my leadership, I realized this week that there's another opportunity for me that lies in my openness to be honest and vulnerable with my team. While they gave me feedback, it was primarily that I tend to be guarded and share half-truths. I shared with them that it's always been out of protection for them - that I don't want them to carry any of the responsibility for mistakes I make as a leader. After some laughs of "you know how that sounded coming out, right?" (to have a team of therapists as your leaders is a remarkable thing), they made me feel so loved and safe by replying, "We're here for you, too. We want to support you. We're still here, we've all survived, and we stand by you." I felt so lucky, so grateful, so unconditionally held.
2. Confidence is what arrives when we stop choosing control and start choosing trust.
In my deepest despair, I rose and decided to believe in myself, my goodness, and a deeper meaning to it all. I cannot escape the unknowns or other people's disappointment, nor can I protect myself or others from pain. As I've consciously let go of the illusion of control, confidence has emerged. I'll be okay, regardless of what happens. I believe in myself. I believe in what we do. I believe in the integrity of Reset. I believe in our mission and how we treat others. I believe in the good. I believe no matter what happens - even the realization of my greatest fears - I'll still be okay.
3. Resilience comes from witnessing our own strength through our hardest days.
I always knew that conceptually, but now I've felt it. I truly know it experientially.
Where do we go from here?
To sum up this week's edition, I invite you to reflect on where you can lay down self-protection and take note of the times you've survived anyway. Where you've failed and still been okay - maybe even better than OK. Where you've asked for help and found yourself surrounded by love and support. How being brave and vulnerable gave you the gift of love and connection.
As one of my leaders wisely remarked at the end of our meeting, "Heavy is the crown," - but it doesn't have to be. I know that now.
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Conscious Transparency: This newsletter was edited by AI for grammar, spelling, and sentence structure, but every idea, tone of voice, perspective, and word choice was my own. This newsletter is imperfect because a human wrote it. Thank you for your graciousness.
This week’s Tools, Gratitude, Innovation, Feels
Tools: My older son this week had a few rough-gos that resulted in emails home. I read him parts of Dare to Lead (it was on my desk), and we talked about how telling the truth means you’ll be both brave and afraid. I shared how I got myself in hot water so many times as a kid and as an adult for not being honest. We worked on mantras for him to help him through the discomfort of admitting a mistake. I guess the tool I’m talking about is reparenting. It’s hard and necessary, and maybe, I think, the whole purpose of having kids.
Gratitude: I’m beyond grateful for my team of leaders at Reset. These supervisors are the absolute best. Most of them have been by my side for 4+ years, and that’s longer than college, and it blows my mind. Such special relationships, I feel so lucky.
Innovation: I’m going to revisit this topic another time, but this Podcast wasn’t on my radar until two people shared it with me. In the wellness world, there is a lot of noise and despite my general aversion to wellness influencers, this host keeps sharing a message I wish everyone had decades ago: do less. Give it a listen, I hope it liberates you, too.
Feels: We have our first-ever Reset Holiday Party today, and I am so excited to celebrate our fantastic team, connect with their loved ones, and take a deep breath outside the office. I am totally biased, but I think the Reset team is just the greatest <3