I want to talk about leadership.

Because after many years working across different corporates, building what looked like a strong career from the outside…I struggled. I struggled with confidence. I struggled with knowing who I was. And I struggled inside the leadership environments I was part of.

The leadership model I grew up in got results. But it didn’t always bring out the best in people.

Pressure was normal. Targets. Numbers. Constant demand for more. More margin. More speed. Shorter lead times. The engine always needed more.

And over time, that created a culture where nothing ever quite felt good enough. You never felt like you were winning. You never felt like you had done a great job. You were always chasing. The bar just kept moving.

And with that came stress. Pressure. And behaviours that weren’t always healthy. If something went wrong, there was blame. Whose fault was it?

Leadership was about being tough. Not showing emotion. Not cracking. Holding it together no matter what.

Empathy wasn’t prioritised. Strength was defined as being hard. But there was something else going on underneath all of this.

The system itself was building insecurity. We were constantly being compared to each other. Performance reviews. Tick boxes. Data sets. Measured against criteria that didn’t always reflect who we really were or what we were naturally good at.

And then ranked. Compared. Positioned against one another. And I often found myself thinking… What about individuality?

What does that do to people? Because instead of bringing out the best in individuals, it often created something else. Competition. Division. Insecurity.

You start to question yourself. Am I good enough? Why don’t I fit this mould? Why am I being measured against something that doesn’t feel like me?

And yet we accept it as normal. But human beings aren’t standardised. We are all different. Each of us with our own strengths, our own way of thinking, our own energy. Each of us with something unique to offer.

And I’ve often thought - what if instead of trying to make everyone fit the same system, we focused on helping people find and shine in what they’re naturally brilliant at? What if we actually valued difference?

Because when you don’t, something else happens. People don’t always show up as their best selves. Sometimes people become difficult. Defensive. Competitive in unhealthy ways. Sometimes people feel threatened and act from that place. And I’m sure many people reading this will recognise this.

Moments where someone’s behaviour makes your working life incredibly hard. Moments where you go home questioning yourself. Wondering what you’ve done wrong. Wondering how to navigate it.

And then there are those who feel they have to step over others to succeed. To prove themselves. To survive.

And I don’t believe most people are inherently like that. I believe the system brings out those behaviours. Because when you create a culture built on pressure, comparison and insecurity you don’t always get the best out of people. You get something else.

And that’s what I started to question. Because for a long time, I thought it was me. Why didn’t I fit? Why didn’t I want to lead like that? Why did something always feel off?

And then I realised something important.

It wasn’t me. I just didn’t fit the system. And maybe the system was the thing that needed questioning.

I started to ask myself: Is this really the only way to lead?

The systems we live inside shape who we become.Which means if we want a different future, we have to build different systems.

This is the fourth in my series Truths From Inside the System - reflections on fashion, leadership and the environments we spend so much of our lives inside.

Gilly
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