One meeting has stayed with me for years.
Not because of what we discussed.
But because, for a few moments, a senior leader stopped trying to be one.
I was working as a fractional Health & Safety Lead for a medical devices manufacturer. It was my first week supporting the business, and as I always do when I join an organisation, I arranged introductory meetings with the key people.
Some consultants dive straight into policies, risk registers and compliance.
I start with people.
I want to understand who they are, what they’re responsible for, what success looks like to them and, just as importantly, what keeps them awake at night. It makes every conversation afterwards more meaningful because I understand the person behind the job title. That’s key!
One of those meetings was with the newly appointed Operations Director.
Not new to the company, he’d been with the business for around fifteen years.
He hadn’t been parachuted in from another organisation. He’d earned every promotion the hard way. Reception. Production. Team Leader. Team Manager. Operations.
He knew the business inside out.
He was respected and he was technically excellent.
And he’d worked incredibly hard to get where he was.
From the outside, he looked exactly like the sort of person every organisation wants leading its operations.
Then, about twenty minutes into our conversation, something changed.
His voice faltered.
His eyes filled with tears.
He apologised.
“I don’t know why I’m telling you this,” he said.
The following morning he was due to present his five-year operational strategy to the Board.
It would be the first time he’d presented at that level.
He hadn’t slept for days.
His laptop contained version after version of his presentation, none of which were finished or he believed were good enough.
He was terrified of saying the wrong thing.
Terrified of being challenged.
Terrified that someone would ask a question he couldn’t answer.
But more than anything…
He was terrified that everyone would realise he’d somehow fooled them into believing he belonged in that seat.
He told me he’d thought about walking away from the role altogether.
Not because he couldn’t do the operational job.
Because he wasn’t convinced he deserved the title.
What struck me most wasn’t that he’d broken down.
It was who he’d broken down in front of.
I was a contractor.
I’d been in the business for a week.
Yet somehow it felt safer telling a stranger than admitting those fears to the people sitting around the executive table.
He worried they’d see vulnerability.
He worried they’d question whether he’d been the right appointment.
He worried that asking for help would confirm the doubts he already had about himself.
As I listened, I realised something.
This wasn’t unusual.
In fact, I’d seen it many times before.
Over the years I’ve worked with directors, senior managers, business owners and heads of department who have admitted almost exactly the same thing.
Some have described themselves as imposters.
Some have confessed they’ve considered resigning.
Others have admitted they spend every day hoping nobody notices they’re making it up as they go along.
They’re not incompetent.
They’re not incapable.
They’re experiencing something, in my experience, organisations rarely acknowledge.
We promote people because they’re brilliant at today’s job.
Then expect them to instinctively know how to perform tomorrow’s.
The best engineer becomes Engineering Manager.
The best nurse becomes Ward Manager.
The best teacher becomes Headteacher.
The best production manager becomes Operations Director.
Technical excellence earns the promotion.
Leadership is assumed to arrive with it.
But leadership isn’t another bullet on the job description.
It’s an entirely different discipline.
Nobody promoted that Operations Director because he already knew how to lead at Board level.
They promoted him because he was technically brilliant and they believed he had the potential to.
Those are two very different things.
Yet very few organisations stop to ask what support comes next.
How do we prepare someone for strategic decision-making?
How do we teach governance?
How do we develop confidence around difficult conversations?
How do we help someone understand risk beyond their own department?
How do we prepare them for the reality that leadership isn’t just about making decisions…
…it’s about carrying the weight of them.
This is where organisations often confuse competence with confidence.
They look similar.
They are not the same.
I’ve met leaders with exceptional technical knowledge who were paralysed by self-doubt.
I’ve also met leaders who openly admitted they didn’t know every answer but built extraordinary teams because they knew how to ask the right questions, surround themselves with expertise and create trust.
One of the biggest myths in business is that leaders are supposed to know everything.
The best leaders I’ve worked with know they never will.
They’ve simply become comfortable learning in public.
A promotion changes your title overnight. Becoming a leader can take years.
Looking back, that meeting changed me as much as it changed him.
It reminded me that behind every impressive job title is another human being trying to do the right thing.
It also made me realise how little support many leaders actually receive once they’re promoted.
We spend years developing technical capability.
We spend remarkably little time developing leadership capability.
That gap has enormous consequences.
It affects culture.
Decision-making.
Health and safety.
Wellbeing.
Governance.
Commercial performance.
Legal defensibility.
And ultimately, organisational resilience.
Because organisations don’t become stronger just by promoting good people.
They become stronger by helping good people become confident leaders.
That conversation was one of many I’ve had over the years, but it’s the one I think about most often.
In many ways, it became one of the seeds that eventually grew into The Compliance & Leadership Collective.
Not because I wanted to create another talking shop. There’s plenty of those out there already.
But because I’d seen too many capable leaders carrying pressures they believed they had to carry alone.
The irony is that the very people we trust to lead our organisations are often the people with the fewest safe places to admit they don’t have all the answers.
Perhaps that’s the conversation we should be having more often.
Because nobody promoted them because they already knew how to lead.
They promoted them because they believed they could.
There’s a world of difference.
One Question for Leaders
Who helped you become the leader you are today…and who are you helping to make that journey a little less lonely?
Next week…
Your Biggest Risk Probably Isn’t on Your Risk Register
Most organisations are good at identifying operational risks. But the issues that cause the greatest damage are often far less visible. Next week, we’ll explore why cultural, behavioural and leadership risks are frequently overlooked, and why learning to spot them early can make the difference between preventing a problem and managing the consequences.
