Widening the path
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“Sorry, but this makes you unserviceable.”
I heard those words at the end of an eye exam. They came from a military doctor and I broke into a whole body sweat.
I had already failed the first two attempts to become an Army aviator. I’d passed the third. Months later, a routine review of my eye exam revealed a degenerative condition I never knew I had.
One exam, one sentence and my career was over.
I had no professional plan B and I ended up working in a call centre for a bank to pay the bills. It wasn’t where I thought I’d be and it was a means to an end.
Years passed. I was promoted through the organisation and one evening I found myself at a hundred-person event at the home of a senior executive. One person stood out. I hadn’t seen him at work before. I’ll call him Andrew.
I offered him a beer and we started talking. Small talk gave way to our professions, and he mentioned, almost casually, that he looked after aviation for the army.
His title was Director General of Army Aviation.
I explained my situation. Our conversation found its way to a single question.
“Do you still want to fly?”
The answer was an unequivocal yes. The next day, I was placed in a rigorous review process. I’d later discover that I was one of very few ever offered that opportunity. The process ultimately didn’t result in me proceeding as a military aviator. But I was shown why. Properly. With clarity and care.
That was enough. More than enough.
Andrew and I have reflected on that chapter since. He delivered something immense to a relative stranger at a party. He didn’t have to do what he did.
But he did.
And it set the tone for how I look at opportunity for others.
The assumption about legacy
Most senior leaders think about legacy as something that comes later.
Something you tend to once you’ve arrived. Once the business is stable, the team is strong, the numbers are where they need to be. Once you’ve earned the right to think about the bigger picture.
That’s rarely how it works.
The leaders who matter most to the people around them aren’t the ones who eventually turned their attention to developing others. They’re the ones who never separated developing others from doing the job itself.
The impact isn’t reserved for the end of the career. It’s accumulated in the middle of it.
In the meetings.
In the decisions that get made in public and the ones that don’t.
In what gets rewarded, what gets tolerated, what gets called out.
In who gets the opportunity and who gets the explanation when they don’t.
Your team is watching all of it. Not always consciously. But they’re building a picture. A picture of what leadership looks like, what it costs, what it permits. And that picture shapes who they become.
You’re not going to get credit for most of it. And that’s the job.
You’re already a role model. The only question is what kind.
Andrew didn’t set out that evening to change someone’s life.
He was at a party. He accepted a beer. He had a conversation.
But he brought something to that conversation that changed everything: he paid attention, he took the situation seriously, and he used what he had to open a door.
Not because it was his responsibility. Because it was possible.
Leaders often assume impact requires intention. That you must be in mentor mode or running a development programme or doing something formally designated as leadership development, for it to count.
Experience tells me it works a different way.
The people around you are drawing conclusions from everything.
The way you handle a setback in a meeting.
The question you ask (or don’t ask) when someone brings you a problem.
The effort you make to learn who someone really is, rather than just what they produce.
Whether you see people as resources or as humans with a direction they’re trying to move in.
You are already a role model. The only question is what kind.
Rewiring instinct
Stress is a close companion for most of us. When the quarter is difficult, the board is restless or when competition shifts faster than the plan accounted for, the instinct is to turn inward. To protect ourselves and prioritise survival.
And that instinct makes sense. Pressure is a narrowing force. It focuses the mind on what’s closest and most urgent. It makes everything feel like a problem to be solved rather than a person to be developed.
But here’s what I’ve seen, again and again. The leaders who do best in periods of real pressure aren’t the ones who manage themselves through it in isolation. They’re the ones who manage themselves by focusing outward.
When you’re consumed by your own situation, the pressure compounds. The mind runs the same loops. The anxiety feeds on itself. There’s nowhere for the weight to go.
The antidote is contribution.
But I want to be careful about what I mean by that. Because the last thing you need is another item on the list.
Contribution doesn’t mean doing more. It means noticing what you’re already doing and understanding that it’s landing.
The things you’re already doing that matter more than you know
You gave someone honest feedback last week. Not easy feedback. Honest feedback. The kind that required you to prepare, to choose your words, to stay in the conversation when it got uncomfortable.
That person is still thinking about it.
You made a decision in a difficult meeting and explained your reasoning out loud — not because you had to, but because it felt right to bring people with you. Someone junior in that room just learned something about how leaders navigate ambiguity. They didn’t tell you. But they filed it.
You took a call from someone asking for advice on their next career move. It cost you thirty minutes. It cost them nothing. And it probably changed the decision they made.
You stayed curious about someone’s work when you could have just nodded and moved on. You asked a second question. They went home that day feeling like what they were doing mattered.
You walked into a room carrying a difficult week and chose not to make it everyone else’s problem. You showed up steady when you didn’t feel it. Nobody commented. But the people who work closest to you noticed and quietly recalibrated what they think composure looks like under pressure.
You introduced someone. A simple email, a casual mention in the right conversation, a name offered at the right moment. You’ve already forgotten it. They haven’t. Doors open from connections like that. Careers turn on them.
None of these are programmes.
They don’t show up on a development plan. And none of them required you to carve out time you don’t have.
They’re just what it looks like when a leader pays attention.
The contribution that matters most at your level isn’t a workshop or a mentoring scheme — though both have their place.
It’s the quality of presence you bring to the moments that are already happening. The decision about whether to stay in a conversation for another two minutes or step away. Whether to share what you’re actually thinking or offer the safe version. Whether to notice the person, not just the output.
That’s where the path gets left open or quietly closed.
What widening the path can look like for you
Olympic freestyle skier Eileen Gu recently about what it means to leave the path more open for women to follow in what is traditionally a male-dominated sport.
She spoke with grace and conviction.
In our world, widening the path looks like taking time after a difficult meeting to talk about what just happened. Not to debrief the outcome, but to help someone understand the dynamics they just witnessed.
It looks like being honest about the mistakes you made at their stage, without dressing them up as lessons you’d planned to learn.
It looks like giving someone a room they’re not quite ready for. And then trusting them enough to stay out of the way.
It looks like being visible about struggle. Not performatively, but honestly. Because the leaders who shape the next generation most aren’t the ones who made it look easy. They’re the ones who made it look possible. There’s a difference.
It looks like telling someone what you see in them before they can see it themselves. Sometimes that’s the thing that changes the trajectory. Not a promotion or a programme, but one person saying: I see where this is going, and I think you should too.
You widen the path when you make it less lonely for the person behind you.
When they can see you navigating something real like a difficult call or a decision without a clean answer, and they see that you’re still standing, still moving, still curious about what comes next.
That’s the gift you’re giving them.
Andrew knew he was helping me. He didn’t know he was showing me a way of being in the world that I’d carry into every leadership role that followed.
The gap between what he thought he was giving and what I actually received is where legacy lives.
The question worth sitting with
Think about the person who had a disproportionate impact on your career.
Not necessarily the one who managed you most carefully or the one who gave you the most structured development. I’m talking about the one whose presence changed something in you and expanded your sense of what was available.
Did they know they were doing it?
Probably not, at least not fully.
They were just being the leader they’d decided to be, doing the job the way they believed it should be done. Showing up with a certain standard, a certain generosity, a certain willingness to open a door.
And it landed. Deeper than they knew.
You’re doing the same thing right now, to someone in your organisation.
Maybe more than one person.
They haven’t told you because they might not even have words for it yet. But you are already part of the story they’ll tell about how they became who they became.
That’s no small thing.
And let’s be honest, it’s the whole thing about leadership.
The question isn’t whether you’re shaping people.
You are.
The question is: Are you leaving the path open, or are you quietly making it harder to follow?
So, who showed up for you the way Andrew showed up for me?
I’d love to hear. Send me an email, I read every one.
From The Partnership Playbook Podcast
Here are this week’s podcast episodes for your walk, commute or workout.
LEADERSHIP MOMENTS
EP 173 - 12 min: The 1-in-4 Rule: How CEOs keep their organisations close to customers. What if the reason your organisation feels slow… is because leadership has drifted too far from the front line? Many companies quietly become insular as they grow. Calendars fill with meetings, decisions become theoretical, and leaders lose proximity to customers and teams. Here’s the solve. Listen on Apple Podcasts | Spotify
EP 171 - 10 min: How to think about build vs buy to win GTM advantage. Sometimes the smartest move isn’t adding more resources, it’s owning the right asset in your market. In this episode, you’ll learn the four types of GTM assets that create real leverage and the three moments when ‘buy vs build’ become a serious strategic decision. Listen on Apple Podcasts | Spotify
CEO INTERVIEW
EP 117 - 52 min: Caroline DeWitte on technology that could power the US for 100 years using spent nuclear fuel rods. What new technology and partnerships play a role in nuclear energy solving the world's biggest energy challenges? Nuclear power has long been misunderstood, but Oklo is changing the game with small, safe, and efficient reactors that recycle nuclear waste.. Listen on Apple Podcasts | Spotify
When you're ready, there are three ways I can help you:
1. CEO Coaching: For CEO’s who want to lead with clarity and grow their business without sacrificing what matters most. A tailored 12-session experience with three interconnected elements: scaling you as a leader, elevating how you lead others, and creating conditions for sustainable business growth.
2. The Partnership Lab: A 6-week experience for founders, CEOs, and GTM leaders who are done with slow growth and stalled conversations. Learn to rapidly qualify and prioritise high-value partners, Install a system that turns conversations into contracts and capture outsized returns from partnerships that scale. Apply to join the next cohort today!
3. Leadership Events: From Cochlear and Lifeblood to military leaders, I have shared inspiring stories and practical frameworks and insights that shift how leaders leverage partnerships for growth. Book me to speak at your next conference, offsite, or leadership event.
Looking for something different? Send me an email.
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