I have conversations with ambitious, talented mid-managers who are striving to leadership level, and sometimes it feels like leadership is the destination.
You work hard, build your expertise, gain visibility and eventually secure the recognition and the job title. From the outside, the promotion appears to confirm that you have arrived.
Yet the reality of leadership is rarely so neat and tidy.
The more senior you become, the fewer straightforward answers there are. You are expected to make decisions with incomplete information, manage competing expectations and create confidence for others, often without having those confidence foundations in place yourself.
Leadership is not the moment you finally become the job, in fact it is an apprenticeship that continues throughout your career from your earliest job roles.
This was a core idea that emerged from my recent podcast conversation with Helen Brocklebank, Chief Executive of Walpole, the official sector body representing more than 250 British luxury brands.
Success and alignment are not the same thing
Earlier in her career, Helen achieved a long-held ambition to run her own business. Commercially, it was successful, personally however, the experience was making her deeply unhappy.
That is an uncomfortable leadership tension: what do you do when the goal you worked towards no longer fits you?
Ambitious professionals are often encouraged to persevere, and resilience becomes associated with grit, pushing harder and finding another way to make the plan work.
Sometimes that is necessary, but at other times, real self-leadership means recognising that success on paper is not the same as alignment.
Walking away from a path that no longer suits your strengths or values is not necessarily failure, but can be evidence that you understand yourself more clearly.
Before you decide whether to persevere or change direction, ask: Am you struggling because this is difficult, or because it is fundamentally misaligned for you?
Is the work stretching your capabilities, or steadily eroding your energy?
Does the environment and context allow you to contribute at your best?
These questions matter particularly for high achievers approaching a promotion or career crossroads, because the next logical move is not always the right one.
Preparing for a new leadership role, but unsure how to get ready?
Know yourself before you lead others
Helen’s central advice was simple: know your values and understand your strengths.
This can sound obvious, yet many capable leaders spend more time studying the organisation, market and stakeholders than understanding how they themselves operate.
When you lack that self-awareness, you may pursue roles based on status rather than fit. You may copy leadership behaviours that worked for somebody else. You may also find it harder to communicate with conviction because your leadership presence is built around expectation, rather than your true identity.
Knowing yourself does not mean becoming rigid or refusing to adapt, but gives you a stable centre from which you can choose to adapt intentionally, which is especially important when leading across cultures.
Different environments reward different communication styles, attitudes to hierarchy and approaches to decision-making, so cultural Intelligence allows you to adjust your behaviour without losing the sense of who you are.
Leadership communication starts with listening
I know from my work that many emerging leaders focus heavily on how they speak, and want to sound more authoritative in meetings, share their ideas confidently with senior stakeholders and express their views with greater impact.
These capabilities matter, but powerful communication starts before you speak, it starts with listening.
Helen leads an organisation representing hundreds of brands with different histories, priorities and commercial interests. Her role is not to give every stakeholder exactly what they want, but to listen carefully enough to identify the common thread, then communicate a direction people can understand and support.
That is strategic influence. This requires the patience to hear competing perspectives, the judgement to distinguish individual preferences from shared priorities and the clarity to create a compelling collective narrative.
So, influence is not simply demonstrating that you have the strongest argument, it is showing that you understand the wider context and can connect people around what matters.
Want to strengthen your human skills for leadership?
The Human skills becoming more valuable to leaders
Helen also spoke about the importance of creativity, storytelling, and learning through reading and a rich cultural life.
These may appear separate from commercial leadership, but they strengthen precisely the capabilities leaders need in complex environments.
Reading fiction develops concentration and perspective-taking while exposure to art and culture stimulates different ways of thinking. Both support storytelling, helping leaders become sense-makers, explain strategy and bring people with them.
As AI accelerates information processing, the distinction will not come from trying to process more information than the technology, but instead from interpreting complexity, exercising judgement and communicating a meaningful direction.
What could change if leadership was an apprenticeship?
Treat every role as an apprenticeship
You do not need to wait for the leadership title to begin leading- you can notice what needs doing, contribute beyond the boundaries of your formal responsibilities or help somebody else succeed.
You can observe leaders around you, and decide which behaviours you want to carry forward, and just as importantly, which you do not.
Every role can become preparation for the next one. Every challenging conversation can teach you something about courage. Every person you encounter may have something to teach you, even if they never formally become your mentor.
Leadership development is not only contained within a programme or announced in neon lights. Much of it happens quietly, through the choices you make and where you pay attention each day.
Questions to reflect on
How clearly do you understand the strengths and values that underpin your leadership?
Are you pursuing your next move because it genuinely fits you, or because it appears to be the expected path?
What is your current role, challenge or relationship teaching you as part of your leadership apprenticeship?
I explore these ideas further in my podcast conversation with Helen Brocklebank, ‘Leadership is an Apprenticeship with Helen Brocklebank‘.
You can also explore more strategies and tools around influence, visibility and impact in my book, Become a Global Leader.
If you are preparing for a bigger role, navigating a career crossroads or questioning how to lead with greater influence and authenticity, book a clarity call with me to explore the support that would help you move forward.
