The Bravest Leaders I've Met This Month

Recently, I had the privilege of working with ten leaders who voluntarily chose to participate in a 360-degree leadership assessment process. If you've never experienced a true 360 assessment, let me tell you, it is not for the faint of heart.

Participants invite direct reports, peers, supervisors, and their manager to provide feedback on more than 130 leadership behaviors and competencies, including communication, strategic thinking, self-awareness, collaboration, change management, compassion, relationship building, and more.

In other words, they willingly ask the people around them to tell them the truth. Not the polished version. Not the comfortable version.

The real version.

I met with the first four leaders to review their results, and I left feeling incredibly impressed. Not because of their scores, but because of how they approached the process. They were curious. They were open. They were reflective. Most importantly, they were willing to learn. That may sound simple, but it requires an incredible amount of maturity.

One of the reasons leadership is so challenging is that we don't get to lead from our intentions. We lead from how others experience us.

As leaders, we carry a story in our own heads about who we are and how we're showing up. We know our motivations. We know what we're trying to accomplish. We know the pressures we're balancing and the decisions we're wrestling with behind the scenes. But the people around us don't always have access to that story. Instead, they create their own.

Sometimes those narratives are accurate. Sometimes they're incomplete. Sometimes they're influenced by previous experiences, organizational culture, personal fears, uncertainty, or even a difficult leader they once worked for years ago. And whether we like it or not, leadership titles amplify this reality.

The moment someone becomes a supervisor, manager, director, or executive, people begin interpreting their actions through a different lens. A delayed response can become evidence that you don't care. A difficult decision becomes proof that you're disconnected. A short meeting becomes a sign that you're too busy for your team. Meanwhile, the leader may be carrying an entirely different reality.

This doesn't mean employees are wrong. It doesn't mean leaders are wrong. It simply means that leadership exists in the space between intention and perception. In fact, one of the greatest challenges of leadership is learning that you don't solely lead from your intentions, you lead from your impact.

Leadership is navigating the gap between your intentions and other people's perceptions. 

The wider that gap becomes, the more important curiosity, communication, and self-awareness become. We don't get to be the sole author of our leadership story. Our direct reports have a version. Our peers have a version. Our supervisors have a version. And leadership maturity is being willing to listen to those perspectives without immediately defending your own.

That's what impressed me most about the leaders I met with this week. When perceptions didn't align with their intentions, they didn't become defensive. They became curious. They asked questions. They looked for patterns. They explored what others might be experiencing. They focused less on proving their intentions and more on understanding their impact.

And that is why I keep coming back to the same word: brave.

Not because these leaders are perfect. Not because they have everything figured out. But because they were willing to look in the mirror, listen to perspectives that may have been difficult to hear, and continue growing.

To the ten leaders who volunteered to step into this process: thank you. Your willingness to seek honest feedback, remain teachable, and grow in public is a powerful example of what leadership can look like at its best.