Beyond the Boardroom: How Personal Mentorship Fuels Leadership Growth
With Excerpts from Lives Lost and Leadership Found
Can leadership emerge from loss? For me, the answer is yes. Some of the most important leadership lessons I’ve carried into my career didn’t come only from a classroom, a boardroom, or a formal mentor. They came from the women who played important roles in my life.
In my essay for Lives Lost and Leadership Found: Lessons from Special Somebodies, I share how my mother’s and sister’s influence continues to ripple through my personal and professional life today. While I remember my mother as a brilliant painter, she was also an informal teacher and philosophical guide who encouraged everyone she met to see the world differently.
Being taught these lessons from such an early age revealed to me the true value of relationships, having empathy, and being resilient in the face of everyday challenges. In this article, I’ll share brief excerpts from my contribution and provide some “food for thought” to integrate these powerful concepts into your own life.
A Shift in Perspective
When we talk about mentorship, we often focus on skill development. We look for mentors who can help us navigate a successful career path, build expertise, or reach the next milestone. But the mentorship I received from my family members was something more.
I can still hear my mother repeating the phrase, “Don’t focus on the obvious. Focus on the non-obvious.” This seemingly small piece of wisdom has guided me through the innovative work I’ve dedicated decades of my life to.
And this same mindset can be applied to your leadership practice, too. Consider a challenge you’re currently facing. In its simplest form, what does it really boil down to? Now, look beyond the obvious. Is there a way to reframe the challenge? Getting into the habit of pausing and reflecting on this can uncover surprising opportunities for growth and change.
Related: Navigating Uncertainty, Economic Shifts, and Consumer Trends With Agility
Lessons in Resilience
Resilience is one of the most important qualities a leader can cultivate, but it isn’t learned from a textbook or a leadership seminar. It’s forged through life’s most difficult moments. My mother and sister both battled breast cancer with courage, grace, and unshakable determination.
In my essay for Lives Lost and Leadership Found: Lessons from Special Somebodies, I write:
“During the five years my mother battled cancer, she remained focused on preparing us for life without her. She worked tirelessly to make sure we were all taken care of, both during her illness and beyond her passing.”
That kind of foresight, strength, and care left an indelible mark on how I approach leadership today. It isn’t about pretending challenges don’t exist. It’s about facing them head-on and finding meaning in the hardship. It’s about being present and adapting.
When considering your current situation as a leader, is there a challenge you’ve been avoiding? Ask yourself why, then consider what your life may look like a year from now if you continue to push this issue to the back of your mind. Will it simply resolve itself? The answer is probably not.
But there’s good news too. Being resilient doesn’t require you to figure everything out today. What it does require is identifying the next step you can take to move forward – however big or small that may be.
Related: Resilient Leadership Lessons for the Modern Workplace
Who Mentored You Off the Clock?
While I can’t give away everything I shared in my essay for Lives Lost and Leadership Found: Lessons from Special Somebodies – we would like you to read the book, after all – I would like to encourage you to consider who the “unofficial” mentors are in your life whose influence shaped you as a leader. Was it a parent, a sibling, a friend, or someone else whose perspective you still carry with you today?
We all have “special somebodies” whose guidance continues to impact the way we live and lead. If you’re fortunate enough to still have a mentor like this in your life, reach out to them. Keep them close. This type of connection is rare, and as so many of the stories in Lives Lost and Leadership Found: Lessons from Special Somebodies reveal, sometimes we don’t fully recognize the extent these people have shaped us until they’re gone.
Related: 5 Tips to Become a Resilient Leader
Pre-Order Your Book Today and Join Our Virtual Launch Event
Through personal essays, research on the neuroscience of grief, and survey insights from 150 leaders, the collection of stories in Lives Lost and Leadership Found: Lessons from Special Somebodies shows how loss can deepen our capacity to lead with empathy, resilience, and humanity. I hope this book will inspire you, as it did me, to reflect on your own “special somebodies” and the ways their legacies live on in your leadership.
You can learn more about the book and order your copy here. For an additional 20% off, make sure to use the code 25EFLY3 at checkout before the official book launch on October 6th.
I’m also thrilled to share that I will be speaking at the Special Somebodies Summit & Launch Event on October 7th from 11:00 am – 3:30 pm ET. This live Zoom event brings together contributing C4C authors for an afternoon of storytelling and leadership insights. Attendance is free, but space is limited, so register today.
