Leadership might not live where you think it does
When I ask people to think of a leader, their minds often go first to someone with a title: a manager, an executive, a public figure, or the person formally responsible for making decisions.
Those people may certainly be leaders. But I do not believe a title is where leadership begins, or that formal authority is the only place it lives.
I have seen leadership in the person who asks the question everyone else is avoiding. In the colleague who makes room for another voice. In someone who brings steadiness to an uncertain situation, helps a group understand what matters, or takes the first thoughtful step when others are unsure how to proceed.
Leadership can live in organizations and institutions, but it can also live in families, friendships, neighbourhoods, volunteer groups, classrooms, communities, and conversations between two people.
When we look for leadership only in formal roles, we miss so much of the mosaic and richness of leadership that lives around us. We may miss opportunities to learn from people whose qualities and behaviours have something important to teach us. We may also fail to recognize the ways leadership is already developing in ourselves.
Looking beyond the title
Titles are useful. They tell us who holds authority, who can make certain decisions, and who is accountable for particular outcomes. But a title tells us more about someone’s position than it does about how they practise leadership.
Most of us have encountered someone who held formal authority but did not consistently demonstrate the qualities we value, admire, or appreciate in a leader. Many of us have also known someone with no formal authority whose judgement, courage, generosity, curiosity, or steady presence had a meaningful impact on the people around them.
I do not think this makes roles or authority unimportant. Formal leaders carry particular obligations, and their choices can have considerable consequences. Leadership is also a skill that people in those positions must practise if they are to be effective. I simply do not see position and leadership as interchangeable.
Holding a leadership role does not complete the practice of leadership. Lacking a formal role does not prevent someone from beginning it.
Noticing leadership in everyday life
First, think of someone in a formal role you would typically associate with leadership. What is it about how they lead that stands out to you?
Now think of someone in your own life who does not hold a formal leadership position. This might be a friend, colleague, family member, neighbour, or someone in your community. Perhaps they inspire you, or you have observed something in how they behave that has had an impact on you or others.
What do you notice about these two people? Are there qualities or behaviours they share?
Perhaps they notice what others miss. They may listen carefully, ask great questions, communicate honestly, admit when they are wrong, or remain curious when certainty would be more comfortable. Perhaps they help others contribute, recognize potential, offer a different perspective, or make a difficult situation easier to understand.
The second person may not describe any of this as leadership. They may simply understand it as how they work, participate, care, or contribute.
That is part of what makes everyday leadership easy to miss. It often appears through ordinary behaviours rather than dramatic moments. We may recognize its significance only when we consider its effect on other people.
I believe the same can be true of our own leadership.
You might admire a quality in someone else and then realize that it also appears, in your own way, in how you support another person, navigate uncertainty, raise a concern, share what you know, or help others move forward.
Recognizing that possibility is not about claiming status or assigning yourself a title. It is about paying closer attention to the choices and behaviours through which leadership can be expressed.
Leadership is not simply influence
If leadership can live in everyday situations, does that mean every action is leadership?
I do not think so.
We influence one another all the time, but influence alone does not make an action thoughtful, constructive, or worthy of being followed. Leadership is not simply speaking first, taking charge, appearing confident, or persuading others to agree.
The quality of the practice matters.
For me, leadership includes considering how our actions affect other people, what our choices make possible, and how we contribute to the situations in which we find ourselves. It can involve courage, but also humility. It can require action, but sometimes restraint.
Leadership can also be an act of service. It can mean supporting someone else, creating the conditions in which others can contribute, or making space for another person to lead from out in front. There are moments when leadership means offering direction and others when it means listening long enough for a better direction to emerge.
Looking beyond formal roles should not make leadership so broad that it loses its meaning. Instead, it gives us an opportunity to examine the qualities and behaviours that make someone’s contribution feel like leadership.
What did they notice? How did they respond? What did their presence make possible for others? What did you notice about them, and how did their actions make you feel?
Those questions help us move from admiring leadership as an abstract idea to understanding it as something people practise.
A practice that can develop
At Sobremesa, I approach leadership as a practice rather than a finished identity.
A practice is something we can notice, explore, try, reflect upon, and refine. We do not need to arrive fully formed, and we do not need to wait until someone grants us a particular role.
We might begin by noticing a quality we value in another person. Perhaps it is their willingness to ask difficult questions, their ability to create trust, or the care they bring to making decisions.
Then we can look more closely. What does that quality sound like in conversation? Which behaviours make it visible? How does it affect the people around them?
From there, we can consider how that quality might be expressed authentically in our own lives. The goal is not to imitate another person’s personality or style. It is to understand what we admire and explore how that quality might become part of our own practice.
This is one of the ideas at the heart of Sobremesa: development can begin with what is already present. Our experiences, observations, strengths, questions, and possibilities all give us something to work with.
Leadership development can begin there, not with a title, but with attention.
A few questions to consider
Who comes to mind when you think of leadership, regardless of their title or position?
What qualities or behaviours make you experience that person as a leader?
Where might you already demonstrate some of those qualities in your own life, work, or relationships?
What is one leadership quality you would like to practise more intentionally?
These are the kinds of questions I hope to explore through the Sobremesa Journal.
This will be a space for ideas, reflections, and practical resources related to leadership and careers. My intention is not to offer a collection of easy answers. It is to create opportunities to notice what is happening, consider new possibilities, and connect reflection with practical action.
Leadership may be present in more places, and in more people, than we have been taught to recognize.
It may be worth looking again.
Continue Exploring
Leadership is a practice
Explore the ideas that ground Sobremesa’s approach to leadership development.