The Leadership We Long For—but Rarely Dare to Live

Image by Roman Kogomachenko from Pixabay

When visiting our capital city last week, a taxi driver asked my travelling companion – who was sitting in the front passenger seat - what they do for a living, “I teach leadership” they replied. And what ensued next was an interesting conversation which apparently often arises in response to that, where people start recounting tales of poor leadership they are being subject to, or have experienced in the past or are witnessing elsewhere.

I was introduced to leadership development in my twenties. My bookshelf is full of books by authors ranging from the classics like Napoleon Hill, Ken Blanchard, John Gray, Patrick Lencioni, and Robert Kiyosaki, through to voices who dive a little deeper—Frederic Laloux, Eckhart Tolle, Evette Rose, Terri Cole, Gabor Maté—and those who bridge both worlds, like Brené Brown.

There’s a point in every growth journey when we’re called inward—not upward. A point where healing isn’t about fixing or striving, but about softening, surrendering, and listening to what lies beneath.

In Maiden to Mother, Sarah Durham Wilson draws from the myth of Inanna's descent to illuminate a powerful truth: our growth often requires a journey into the dark—into parts of ourselves we've hidden, rejected, or labelled as "too much" or "not enough". Her journal prompts are some of the most powerful I’ve come across for uncovering the deeper, often subconscious stories we carry. They ask:

• What is calling you from within—and what is the cost of ignoring it?
• Where are you relying on external approval to fill the void inside?
• What needs to "die" in you so that you can come home to yourself?

These questions invite you to go deep—into grief you haven’t processed, rage you haven’t dared to express, desires you’ve silenced, and parts you’ve buried under politeness or perfectionism. But Wilson encourages us to do this with compassion, through what she calls the cherishing Mother—an inner presence who holds all of who we are with unconditional love.

Reading through these prompts, I found myself asking:

• What have I disowned to stay acceptable, competent, or safe?
• How can I begin to let these parts speak—and be heard?

This is not surface-level work. It’s the slow, brave process of reclaiming the whole self, honouring the full spectrum of our humanity, and finding the courage to feel it all. Only then can we return—like Inanna—clear, whole, and unapologetically ourselves.

In contrast, the Transformation of Identity Matrix by Claire Zammit and Katherine Woodward Thomas – another of my go-to references - is like a map for the ascent; guiding you through how to reframe, rewire, and emerge as your empowered self. Their work helps structure the answers that might begin to emerge when you’ve sat with Sarah’s questions long enough.

Together, their work offers a powerful balance: Sarah Durham Wilson lights the torch and guides you into the underworld of your shadow and Claire Zammit and Katherine Woodward Thomas provide the map and tools to help you reassemble and rise.

This alchemy of descent and ascent, shadow and structure, creates a transformative journey that honours both the depth and the emergence of our authentic selves.

Rooted in Risk: Reclaiming Ourselves Through the Descent

There’s a moment in the Sumerian myth of Inanna where she stands naked in the underworld, stripped of her titles, tools, and armour. She’s not there to conquer, but to integrate—to die to the life she built from expectation and rise rooted in truth. I resonate with this as I reflect on my own descent.

I grew up in Thatcher’s Britain, where stability was currency and creativity was a hobby, not a career. Following convention was what you did. And I could—so I did. I built a corporate career in change and transformation, climbed the ranks, played the game. But after restructure upon restructure, I realised real transformation doesn’t happen in boardrooms. It begins within.

So I went inward. I started a blog—one post a week for over a decade—committing to my truth even when it didn’t earn a cent. I wrote through parenting young kids with dyslexia (the universe’s way, perhaps, of ensuring they wouldn’t fall into the academic traps I did). I wrote through exhaustion, through doubt, through the slow untangling of patterns I didn’t know were driving me.

A few years into blogging, I started to notice something shift. I could see the truth in teachings like Eckhart Tolle’s and Abraham Hicks’—there is inherent wisdom in presence and emotional guidance—but in the thick of motherhood and after my mum died, I hit a wall. I realised I’d been spiritually bypassing.

That’s a term coined by psychologist John Welwood, it’s often seen when people:

• Use “positivity” to avoid anger or grief
• Focus on being “enlightened” or “high-vibration” to avoid messy human experiences
• Stay in the mind (philosophy, abstraction) to avoid embodied or emotional healing work

Resonating with teachings like Eckhart Tolle or Abraham Hicks was the first step of seeing what could be, but then I realised that those frameworks weren’t enough to hold me through intense grief or the complexities of motherhood, not with the nervous system wiring I had ingrained over my life. Grief, exhaustion, and disillusionment with the stories I’d believed about relationships stripped away the neatness of theory. I was emotionally threadbare, and the only direction left was inward—into the shadows.

At first, I thought I could process it all neatly and cleanly through structured methods like Teal Swan’s Completion Process—clear the beliefs, integrate the pain, and move on. But life doesn’t work like that. Shadow work isn’t linear. We don’t just uncover a wound and move on—we see it resurface, again and again, in new forms, providing opportunity after opportunity to react in new ways.

At first, I fell into the same old patterns—but now I had awareness and anger alongside them. That was a turning point. I began to learn what secure attachment actually looks and feels like. What healthy attunement is. What boundaries are and how they function beyond theory. And I practised—all the clunky, awkward, imperfect ways you do when you’re rewiring decades of conditioning. Even now, those prompts from Maiden to Mother highlight areas I’m still working to reclaim. It’s not tidy work. But it’s real.

And structures like the Completion Process are gold, but for me none were silver bullets. I surfed the waves of various content and offerings, many complementary healthcare practices and writing became my beacon, documenting all of it, finding my way back to a point when presence and intention aren’t so easily ambushed by old triggers. And the more I wrote, the more I remembered who I really was.

Like Inanna, I had to let go of the accolades, the job titles, the security. I had to descend. And now I find myself reborn—not because someone offered me a salary or a retirement plan, but because I finally gave myself permission to show up fully as I am.

I’m writing a book now. It’s unpaid work. But it’s the only work that feels true. Of course, it might one day earn something—maybe even sustain me or serve generations to come. Or it might not. But that’s not the point. The act of writing itself is a container for my becoming—a crucible where I distil what I’ve lived, what I’m learning, and what I’m still reckoning with. It’s not just a project. It’s a commitment to keep maturing, to stay present with the process, and to let it shape me into whatever comes next.

I’ve learned that success isn’t about metrics—it’s about moments of presence, flow, and heart-led living. I want that for my kids—for all our kids.

When we model the courage to live from our roots, not our roles, we give them something more valuable than safety: we give them freedom.

This alchemy of shadow and structure, descent and redefinition, is the leadership we rarely talk about—but deeply need.

True leadership isn’t authority; it’s authenticity. It’s reclaiming the parts we’ve exiled so we stop projecting them onto others. It’s meeting the world from rootedness, not reaction. It’s modelling courage, not mastery.

When we lead from this place—showing up honestly for our children, communities, and colleagues—we offer more than control. We offer freedom.

What parts of yourself have you yet to reclaim? How might leading from your roots change the way you show up in your life? What freedom could emerge if you lived with more presence and courage?
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