I feel like I've always been, or at least always tried to be, a good colleague, a good employee, a good co-founder. In every experience I've had, I started out consumed by introversion, impostor syndrome and social anxiety, but I always tried to turn them into fuel. Something to grow against.
The pattern is almost always the same. I start convinced they'll show me the door any moment, that they'll soon discover I'm not what they were looking for, that I'm not good enough. That fear has always turned out to be false, and crippling for no reason at all.
Once I break out of that trap, I tend to blend in. I'm not flashy or loud. I'm not the one offering my two cents in every meeting, driving initiatives, or holding court at the watercooler. I just get on with my work and build a reputation as a consistent, reliable contributor.
From that baseline, I grow. My curiosity pulls me down avenues outside my day-to-day. My belief in strong teams leads me to pick things up and help colleagues across all kinds of situations. It compounds into a kind of technical and relational growth that only stops if you let your curiosity die.
This is the stage where I've built my strongest relationships. Friendships and collaborations that have outlasted contracts, survived relocations and new jobs, weathered rough patches and shared the good moments too. It's here that people start to understand me a little better, to see that behind the quiet exterior there's fire, curiosity, and, so they tell me, some talent.
Now I've reached a point where I've outgrown this pattern. I've always been a great follower. Now I need to learn how to lead.
Leading is a vast and slippery topic. What I mean by it here doesn't map neatly onto career progression, and it isn't only about the relational side. So far I've been good at delivering what colleagues, managers and clients told me they needed. They set a target, I often exceeded it. What I need now is to bring more to the table myself. More ideas, more confidence, more responsibility.
I suppose some would file this under becoming a "thought leader." The term makes me wince a little, it sounds pompous, and faintly disrespectful to the people genuinely changing tangible things day in, day out. What I actually want is simpler: to own my domain, deepen my knowledge in my space, and become the person others turn to for anything related to it. From there, to use that to propose and drive opinionated initiatives that improve it. I've done versions of this before, but sporadically, never systematically, never as part of a deliberate way of working.
It's a subtle shift, but a radical one, and it may be one of the biggest challenges of my career. I know I'll have to rewire some mental processes, dismantle a lot of the insecurities I've used as a shield over the years, and let that change reach into every part of my working life. Communication, decisions, technical work, relationships. All of it will need refreshing. And yet I don't want to lose who I am.
That's the part that worries me most. If I got here by leaning on my personality and my imperfections while maximising my better traits, would a radical shift mean losing the real me?
This question has been living rent-free in my head for months. But I've arrived at a conclusion. The "real me" is an abstract concept. I've simply leaned on the traits that came most naturally, as anyone would. If I stay on those same tracks forever, I may never find out what I'm actually capable of.
Understanding where my shortcomings lie is only the first step. I need to untangle a dense web of excuses and faulty frameworks I built over the years to make life easier on myself. I need to explore the alternatives, and accept that I'll hit a few walls along the way.
I don't see another route to my own limits, to a truer shape of myself. I'm ready for this. I need it.