Empowerment Through Presence: Lessons from Parenting for Leadership
As parents, we often want to protect our children from mistakes, smooth the path ahead, and sometimes even take the reins. Leaders do the same. The instinct is natural: we want to help, to speed things up, to deliver the best outcomes. But one of the most powerful shifts we can make, both at home and at work, is learning to move from directing to walking alongside.
When advice isn’t what’s needed
I remember a conversation with my daughter before an important decision. My natural instinct was to give her the benefit of my experience: to share what I thought she should do, how she should approach it, even what outcome I believed would be best. Yet something held me back. Instead, I asked her: “What feels tricky about this decision for you?”
In leadership, the same dynamic plays out. When a team member faces a big decision or a moment of doubt, our instinct is to step in with solutions. Yet what they might value most is a leader who creates room for them to process, to explore, and to trust their own thinking.
How presence changes conversations
The temptation to jump in with answers is strong. It feels efficient. It feels like leadership. But quick answers can unintentionally create pressure, signalling that our way is the right way, and that others’ perspectives matter less.
Presence in leadership doesn’t mean stepping back or disengaging. It means showing up differently. Instead of offering strategies and solutions first, we bring listening, curiosity, and encouragement.
We ask questions like:
- “What feels tricky about this decision for you?”
- “Would you like me to just listen today, or would brainstorming together be helpful?”
These small shifts change the dynamic. They move the conversation from dependency to ownership, from pressure to empowerment.
Why presence builds stronger people
When leaders operate from presence, they communicate something powerful: “I trust you.”
That trust builds confidence. It signals that the individual is capable, resourceful, and able to arrive at their own best answers. Over time, it plants the seeds of self-trust that grow into resilience and independence.
Think about the people who have empowered you most in your own journey. Chances are, they weren’t the ones who always gave you answers. They were the ones who asked you thoughtful questions, listened deeply, and stood beside you as you worked things through.
The ripple effect
What starts in one conversation doesn’t stay there. Leaders who show up with presence create cultures of trust. Teams begin to share more openly, take greater ownership of their work, and support each other in the same way they’ve been supported.
It’s a ripple effect, one that transforms not just individuals, but the whole organisation.
A reflection for leaders
This shift, from pressure to presence, is deceptively simple yet profoundly transformative. It turns what might have been a pressure point into an opportunity for growth, resilience, and self-discovery.
Whether in parenting, coaching, or leadership, the principle is the same: empowerment doesn’t come from giving answers, but from creating the conditions for others to find their own.
I invite you to pause and reflect:
- Where are you operating from pressure, and where are you showing up with presence?
- What might change if you leaned more into presence?
The Quiet Voice That Shapes Your Potential
So what exactly is a mindset?
At its simplest, mindset is the collection of beliefs we hold about ourselves, our intelligence, our abilities, our worth, and our capacity to change. It shapes how we interpret experiences, how we respond to setbacks, and how we show up in the world.
And because mindset frames our story, it also influences how that story unfolds.
When we look at growth and development through this lens, we land where Carol Dweck’s research leads us: at the intersection of two powerful perspectives, a Fixed Mindset and a Growth Mindset.
A Growth Mindset, on the other hand, sounds like: “I can’t do this… yet,” “Challenges help me grow,” and “My abilities come from effort and learning.” Its inner dialogue is one of curiosity, resilience, and possibility.
This subtle shift: from I can’t to I can’t yet, opens the door to learning. It reminds us that we are not stuck; we are in progress.
Carol Dweck, the researcher behind the Growth Mindset model, made an even more startling observation: when we praise intelligence, we actually make people more vulnerable. Why? Because they begin to associate their worth with being seen as “smart”, which often leads to fear of failure, risk aversion, and fragile confidence.
Instead, she encourages us to praise the qualities that support resilience and growth, things like curiosity, perseverance, diligence, and determination. These are the traits that anchor us when things get hard. They’re what keep us becoming.
This difference isn’t just theoretical. It’s deeply personal and profoundly practical.
How we define success, and how we interpret failure, determines whether we step forward or shrink back. Whether we view challenges as threats or invitations. Whether we give up or grow through it.
Mindset matters not because it gives us all the answers, but because it gives us the courage to stay curious, the freedom to try again, and the belief that becoming is possible.
A Growth Mindset doesn’t mean you feel confident all the time. It means you’re willing to try, even when you don’t. It asks us to feel the fear and move forward anyway. To risk failure and believe that even in falling short, something in us is growing.
“Fear and self-doubt have always been the greatest enemies of human potential.”
— Brian Tracy
When we view success as a final destination, failure becomes a dead end. But when we view success as a process of becoming, failure becomes a teacher — an essential part of the journey.
“Continuous effort, not strength or intelligence, is the key to unlocking our potential.”
— Winston Churchill
A Growth Mindset invites us to stretch. To persevere. To keep going, especially when things aren’t going well. It reminds us that talent and intelligence are just the starting points. Without grit and effort, potential stays just that — potential.
Growth doesn’t happen overnight. But over time, with effort and self-compassion, it becomes who we are becoming.
That’s the gift of a Growth Mindset. It doesn’t ask you to be perfect. It asks you to stay open. To stay in it. To keep becoming.
And perhaps you’re thinking, this is all interesting, but so what? What does it mean for me, in the real world?
It’s a good question. Because this isn’t just about theory. It’s an invitation.
An invitation to pause and reflect on how your own mindset may be shaping the way you experience yourself, your children, your colleagues, your team, and your loved ones.
What possibilities might open if we stopped treating failure as a problem, and started seeing it as part of the process? What if difficulty wasn’t the enemy, but an invitation to grow? What if success wasn’t about perfection, but about persistence?
We can change the trajectory of our lives, and perhaps even more powerfully, the lives we share life with, when we stop celebrating only achievement, and start recognising character: curiosity, courage, effort, and the willingness to keep becoming.
The Untapped Power of School Leadership Culture
Over two decades, I’ve partnered with leaders across corporate and non-profit sectors — from individual coaching to comprehensive culture transformations involving surveys, focus groups, and facilitated interventions. Consistently, I’ve witnessed how investing in a team’s development, unity, and character yields remarkable returns — not only in performance metrics but also in wellbeing and fulfilment.
And yet, for years, I failed to recognise this principle’s application to schools.
Our attention naturally gravitates toward students, curriculum, and systems. While these elements are undeniably important, I’ve come to see how frequently we overlook those who sustain the entire enterprise — teachers, support staff, and school leadership teams. This insight — catalysed by ShareTree’s (https://sharetree.org/sharetree-app/) mission to enhance school environments through character development — transformed my perspective. Since then, I’ve had the honour of partnering with several schools to support their leadership and teaching teams, most recently with two institutions in Cape Town’s Southern Suburbs.
What struck me in working with them:
· Teachers are so conditioned to prioritise children’s needs that they often neglect their own.
· They navigate daily pressures — from limited resources to increasingly demanding stakeholders — with little relief.
· Amidst it all, I encountered more dedication than grievance, more resolve than resentment, and an unwavering perseverance that keeps them showing up — even when they feel isolated and entirely alone.
What they needed most wasn’t fixing — it was simply to be seen. To pause, reflect, and reconnect with themselves and each other.
Through deliberate, meaningful interactions — character acknowledgements, compassionate listening, quiet solidarity in shared spaces — something remarkable began to emerge. A sense of collective resilience. Team cohesion. And perhaps most significantly, a rediscovery of purpose and professional pride.
Partnering with schools in this capacity has become one of the most rewarding aspects of my work. I consider it a profound privilege to be welcomed into these environments and entrusted to support the teachers and leaders who are shaping our future. Each engagement leaves me inspired — by their courage, their resilience, and their unwavering commitment.