Leadership Nobody Teaches

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Most people don't consider themselves leaders. Why should they? They're not running a company, leading a team or climbing the corporate ladder. So leadership feels like it belongs to someone else.

Somewhere along the way, the meaning of leadership has drifted. Just scroll through social media, and you’ll find zero consensus: a sea of quotes, clichés, “I agree” comments and opinions on what it’s not. All of them are surface outcomes of leadership, with limited insight into what’s required of it. Big difference.

“Who sees themselves as a leader?” That’s the question I asked during a speech I delivered. Less than half the room put their hands up, and some half-handed, trying not to commit completely. The remaining: no movement. I felt there was hesitation or confusion, the feeling of being unqualified.

It got me thinking, what image comes to mind when you hear the word leadership? A title, a position, someone in a suit, authority or some form of action or behaviour?

If you can visualise it, the mind is doing what it needs to. But none of those pictures are accurate. The mind doesn't like anything abstract, so it does its best to form an image. More on that in a short while.

The images we form create predictable traps. We allow incomplete understanding to guide us, and we put ourselves at risk:

→ Leading on assumptions
→ Outside expertise becomes ours
→ Outwardly performing but struggling inside

This creates weaker foundations for leading ourselves. Inner conflicts that diminish not just your outer influence but also your inner authority. It's a fast way to prevent yourself from activating your self-leadership.

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Leading begins at home

Leadership began long before we're given a chance to lead. Long before a job title, a team, or a responsibility appears. It started quietly, internally and often unnoticed.

I remember back when I was an Assistant Manager at Subway, and the franchisee rang. “Don’t leave, I’m coming.” My instant reaction was, what did I do?

Turned out my manager had just been suspended for theft. An hour into the conversation, I was standing in as manager. Suddenly, I was responsible for a store, the team and the mess left behind.

I inherited the culture:
→ Manipulate numbers
→ Delegate what you don't want to do
→ Demand effort we haven't modelled
→ Avoid pressure at all costs

Those characteristics weren't taught by the company, so the problem didn’t start in the store. It started way before the title came, at home.

With no training, I became the store manager, then regional manager a year later. Same training, same store challenges. I excelled not because of my "authority", but because I practised commanding myself in every situation that demanded it.

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The worst foot forward

People misunderstand leadership because they focus on the visible parts: how they show up, outcomes, credibility, and status.  On these terms alone, leadership erodes. Here are 3 patterns we've adopted:

1. Needing the tangible

The brain doesn’t handle abstractions well. We prefer things to be tangible, visible and easy to picture. And there lies the trap.

I often use the Wheelbarrow Test to better understand a concept: if you can’t put it inside a wheelbarrow, it’s not an object. It’s a collection of processes working together to make up the word.

Take the word leadership: you cannot physically put it in a wheelbarrow; it’s made up of processes, we just treat it like a noun. I'll show you the processes in a moment, because understanding them helps us develop them consciously.

Today, as we do with leadership, we do the same with many other terms we're trying to experience in life. Purpose. Passion. Personality. It's no surprise people are lost; they are leading only what they can picture and building their lives around incomplete understanding.

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2. Circumstances become direction

When half of the room kept their hands down when asked who associates as a leader, that wasn't a confidence issue. It’s a direction issue.

When people don’t recognise themselves as leaders, inner direction quietly defaults to everything else: circumstances. urgency, whoever speaks the loudest, whatever feels safest in the moment.

Leading at home is no different to leading in business, nor when chaos strikes, not even on holiday. People are constantly making directional choices through uncertainty, self-doubt, conflict, difficult decisions, or growth.

Leadership doesn’t change based on the event, the experience or the location. The processes stay the same, only the environment shifts. Self-leadership moves you from reacting in the back seat to choosing from the front.

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3. Outcomes over inner state

When I observed our Subway managers across the company, the majority were confident in telling others what to do, especially when there were no surprises.

But when pressure hit, when change came, when resistance showed, or when performance dropped in the store, the demand on their teams increased, and nurturing shifted to expectation.

There was less of an expectation of themselves and more of others. External leadership reflects internal leadership, and without conscious awareness, we move through life with the worst foot forward.

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You're leading (unconsiously)

Leadership is made up of processes, and it's the practice of managing them that makes you a masterful self-leader. It's already been shaping quietly since you were born.

But every “leadership skill” the world talks about today is only as strong as the inner machinery behind it. The processes govern. That's the leadership nobody teaches. Take a look that this diagram:

The world may teach communication, decision-making, strategy, influence, people skills, among many topics, but the focus is always on outer skills. What’s rarely taught is the backstage work that makes the skill possible. Take, for example:

Before communication → Meaning is shaped and framed
Before decision-making → Evaluation & perception are filtered
Before influence → Emotional state is regulated

The following processes make up the word leadership:

Perceiving
Reading changes, anticipation, emotional cues, patterns

Framing
Assigning meaning, determining threats or opportunities

Deciding
Shaping direction, internal trade-offs, value-driven choices

Regulating
Experiences, emotions, pressure without collapse

Influencing
Thought, emotion, moving energy, presence

Modelling
Embodiment, conscious behaviour, intentional action

Relating
Forming associations, building connections, and inner trust

Communicating
Thoughts, intentional language, internal dialogue

Facilitating
Managing conditions, anchoring success, thinking with clarity

Adjusting
From clarity, restoring harmony, adapting, recalibrating,

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How often are you actively shaping these processes before taking action? Because you’ve used these processes daily, in and out of your work, often without realising it.

In a tense conversation. In a moment of pressure or doubt. In a disagreement. In a thoughtful message to a friend. In an important decision that needed to be made. When you are celebrating your win for the week. Even speaking to your mum at home.

Strengthening these processes sharpens your leadership everywhere: in life, work, relationships, business, and especially in the moments that demand the most of you.

The world seems to recognise and anchor to only the outcomes, but rarely their mechanics. Occasionally, someone comes along and drops the right insight.

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All Said And Done

Leadership is the constant practise of managing the processes that shape the way we experience reality. They aren't exclusive to the executives, high-performers, or the elites.

You're leading, always, everywhere, each moment.

Take ownership.