Are You Leading—or Just Taking a Walk? Why Recognizing Leadership Isn't as Simple as We Think

One of the ideas I heard repeatedly as I was growing in leadership was this: if you're truly a leader, your leadership will make room for itself.

The advice was simple. Don't walk into a room announcing yourself as a leader. Just start doing the work. Take responsibility. Solve problems. Help people. Step into the gaps. If you have leadership ability, people will notice. You'll naturally rise to the top.

There is a lot of wisdom in that advice, and I still believe it's true in many situations.

But over the years, I've come to realize that it quietly assumes something that isn't always true—that everyone has an equal opportunity to have their leadership recognized.

Most of the people who taught me about leadership were men. Many of them were exceptional leaders whom I still respect and learned a great deal from. But they were also leading in environments where men were generally expected to lead. In some of those settings, they were the only ones permitted to lead.

For women, the experience was often different.

A woman who demonstrated those same qualities was just as likely to be described as difficult, intimidating, or overbearing. The very behaviors that were celebrated in one person could become liabilities in another simply because of who was displaying them.

That was the culture I lived in for much of my life.

Without realizing it, I learned to evaluate myself through that lens. Those questions rarely sounded obvious in my own mind. They showed up in much smaller ways.

If a question was asked in a meeting and I immediately had an answer, I'd tell myself not to be the first to respond. Don't be the one with three ideas already forming. Wait. Let other people speak first.

Other times, I found myself downplaying my own experience. Even after years of leading teams or navigating organizational challenges, I hesitated to present myself as qualified because I didn't have a particular degree or credential that seemed to carry more weight. Instead of owning what I knew through experience, I focused on what I lacked on paper.

Looking back, I don't think those habits came from humility. I think they came from learning, over time, to make myself just a little smaller.

One conversation has stayed with me for years.

I was in a room where leadership qualities were being discussed, and much of the conversation centered on characteristics that were described as masculine. I spoke up and said that I actually led in many of those same ways. I shared many of those same qualities.

One man looked at me and said, "Well, yes...but you're an exception. You lead more like a man."

I don't think he intended it as an insult. In his mind, it was probably a compliment.

But I've thought about that comment many times since then, and I keep coming back to the same conclusion: leadership doesn't have a gender.

In fact, the longer I've reflected on that experience, the more I've realized the issue isn't really about gender at all.

Gender was simply the lens through which I first noticed a much larger problem.

We are constantly deciding who we expect to be leaders before we've ever observed whether they actually lead.

Sometimes it's gender. Sometimes it's age. Sometimes it's education, personality, department, job title, or years of experience. We create categories in our minds, and then we unconsciously look for leadership only within those categories.

Take a school district, for example.

Think about the custodial department. Keeping a school functioning every day requires planning, coordination, communication, anticipation, problem-solving, and the ability to work with a wide variety of people. Someone is setting priorities. Someone is building trust with a team. Someone is anticipating problems before they become crises.

That is leadership.

Yet those roles are often viewed as "non-professional."

I saw similar classifications when I worked in school administration. Looking back, I think those labels did more than categorize positions. They subtly communicated where leadership was expected to exist—and where it wasn't.

Once we've decided who isn't a leader, we often stop noticing the influence they're already having.

One of my mentors used to say, "If you are going in a direction, and no one is following you, you're not leading. You're just taking a walk."

I've always appreciated that picture because leadership creates movement. It changes people. It builds trust. It takes others somewhere they wouldn't have gone alone.

But perhaps the greater challenge isn't simply becoming better leaders.

Perhaps it's becoming better at recognizing leadership where it already exists.

Somewhere in your organization, someone is already earning trust. They're solving problems before anyone notices them. They're bringing people together. They're making the team healthier simply because they're part of it.

They may not have the title.

They may not have the credentials.

They may not fit the picture you've always had in your mind of what a leader looks like.

But they're leading.

Who are you overlooking because they don't fit your picture of what a leader looks like?

I'd love to hear your thoughts. When have you seen leadership overlooked because it didn't fit people's expectations?