The Missing Link in Leadership Isn't a New Strategy - It's Knowing Who You Truly Are.

Do you feel like you're doing all the right things as a leader - delivering results, making decisions, giving your best and communicating clearly - but you’re just not having the impact you desire?

“When you change the way you look at things, the things you look at change.” – Dr. Wayne Dyer

For a long time, it was thought leadership was something you did when you landed a role to lead a team, an organisation, a community or even a movement; and to get the position you needed a degree, or better yet post-grad qualifications (PHD, MBA, GAIC) and more…

Notwithstanding the credentials, you need to be an extrovert, a master public speaker who is confident in front of a room, and your ability to influence others comes from what you know and how much experience you have in applying what you know.

What if it was just an illusion, a model made up by people who are no smarter than you and me?

Whether you're leading a team, building a business or mentoring others, what you know may give you a broader perspective and advanced insight on a particular field, but great leadership doesn’t exit in what you know, leadership lives in alignment.

Having a long list of credentials, doesn’t make you a great leader.

Being the smartest, most intelligent person in the room, also doesn’t make you a great leader.

The only thing that matters, is alignment - when what you say and do, aligns with who you say you are and the actions you take (or don’t take).

Self-Awareness Is a Mountain with No Top

When a colleague called me out: "you’re not living up to your potential" I was curious. I had everything I wanted - a senior role, working with a great team, in a great organisation, with a great salary, flexible work, married, three kids and a beautiful home. What else could I want?

But he wasn’t talking about what I’d accomplished, he was talking about the impact I was having - more specifically the gap between what I was capable of and what I was doing with my life.

The lesson: No amount of success measured by your position, profile and performance will make any difference if there’s a gap between who you are and what you’re capable of, and how you’re living your life.

In truth, I’d resigned myself to, “this is as good as it gets” - a senior role in a large organisation wasn’t possible as a mum of three kids, “I can’t work full-time without it having a massive impact on my family (or my health) and while I’m committed to leadership and making a difference, clocking-in Monday-Friday, 9am to 5pm (and longer), face-time and beyond, just wasn’t an option”.

Was it true or was it just a belief shaped by our conditioning on what it means to be a leader?

What I discovered wasn’t abstract or airy, it was real, grounded, and practical.

When we lead from who we truly are, everything changes. The real power of leadership doesn’t lie in the position we hold, our profile or even our performance (although we keep living like it does), the real power of leadership live’s in a meaningful connection to our purpose and presence.

Whether we know it or not, we’re all here for a reason - a purpose beyond some personal reward.

That purpose isn’t discovered in what you do or who you are; its found in something far more meaningful, in the impact you have on others - the connection that happens when what you do has an impact on the people around you - be it your family, community, colleagues, employees or customers.

Ironically, it’s found in knowing who you are, and being true to who you are, to have what you say and what you do create an authentic and meaningful connection to the world around you.

It’s been said "The two most important days of your life are the day you are born and the day you find out why." There’s one small problem - we’ve been fooled in thinking we need some major life threatening tragedy to discover our life’s purpose, when in truth, purpose is found in our every day actions.

In every thought, every action and every conversation, our purpose thrives.

This is not some passive response to life, it’s intentional. Just like our stories take us to places we could never imagine, they paradoxically lead us to the discovery of who we really are and why we’re really here.

While there are many paths to connecting with purpose, the path of ‘human design’ gives you insight into your unique DNA - your life’s purpose with no conditioning, just a pure connection to you’re gifted superpowers.

Revealing your human design, isn’t new, it’s familiar. It’s not about becoming someone you think you should be, it’s about removing the external conditioning and comparison of what you could be to create a meaningful connection with who you already are and always have been.

Turns out leadership wasn’t just a dream, it was and always has been my life’s purpose, to be a real, resilient and relatable leader, with five distinct qualities:

• Power – the confidence to own my voice, use it wisely, and lead with intention.

• Socialness – the ability to connect, influence, and build genuine human relationships.

• Experiencer – the capacity to learn through life, not just theory - to adapt, evolve and grow.

• Ambition – the fuel that drives me to rise above the noise and stretch myself beyond the current paradigms of what I already know.

• Concentration – the clarity and focus to do what matters, not just what’s urgent, and to keep going, no matter what.

These aren’t character traits to aspire to, they’re anchors of who I am. They’re the foundations I return to when things get noisy, busy and overwhelming - when the road feels uncertain, ambiguous and uncharted.

Leadership, Is The Way Forward

The more we lead with purpose, the more aligned our life becomes, in our thoughts, emotions, actions, relationships and impact. It begins with self-awareness, and it comes alive when our values, purpose and actions align - when all the conditioning disappears and you are free, to know thyself, and be true to thyself.

Wherever you are on the journey, one simple question can help you connect:

What’s one action you can take to deepen your awareness, to close the gap between where you are and where you really want to be?

Resist the temptation to look for external validation, and look for what brings you joy.

Leadership is not a destination, its a journey.

Its not performative, its progress.

One small step, one minute of reflection, every day goes a long way to ignite your passion, grow your influence and amplify the impact you have in the world.

Kylee x

Want to know more about human design to unlock your leadership potential, book a call with our Lead on Human Design Leadership, Gitanjali Koppikar. Subscribe to The Uncharted Leader Newsletter, Follow us on The Performance Code.

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