What stepping away revealed about how I lead

THE ART & SCIENCE OF LEADING SELF
The Power of A Moment to Pause

My friend,

For most of this past month, I was in East Africa. 🌍

I stepped away from social media, preloaded the newsletter issues you received, and gave myself permission to be fully present somewhere else. I spent my days reconnecting with friends, following my curiosity, and paying attention in ways that are difficult to sustain when life moves fast.

It wasn’t a retreat in the formal sense. Honestly, it was a return.

To conversation.

To wonder.

To observing myself more clearly.

I moved more slowly. I listened more than I spoke. I let my days be shaped by what I was learning rather than what I felt I needed to produce.

That choice mattered more than I expected.

What Space Makes Possible 🔑

The space I created for myself became deeply reflective. What was exciting was how restorative it felt, rather than effortful.

I found myself dropping into reflection while gorilla trekking 🦍, visiting tribal villages, learning local history, dining on remarkable cuisine, and sitting across from executives who have built meaningful businesses in complex environments. Each experience offered insight, but what stayed with me most was what surfaced internally.

Unhurried reflection tends to surface what matters.

When I returned, just in time for Christmas, I gave myself a gift: more time to reflect. After treating the month as restorative rather than productive, I consciously chose not to let the momentum rush back in.

I’ve since been connecting dots between things I learned in 2024 while in Australia and New Zealand and what I observed in East Africa. Shifting cultural lenses has a way of expanding how you see leadership, self-leadership most of all.

That expansion feels like the right way to step toward 2026.

A Different Way to See the Season 👁

That choice changed how I returned.

And that difference has stayed with me as I reenter the rhythm of December.

Let’s be frank. In today’s world, the holidays often collapse into a single storyline. More to buy. More to schedule. More to finish before the year closes. Even rest becomes something to optimize or squeeze in between obligations.

But that was never the original intent.

Across cultures and traditions, holidays were meant to interrupt momentum. They were designed as pauses. Moments for reflection. Opportunities to reset before moving forward again.

I’m not saying there is a “right” way to move through this season. Some people find energy in activity. Others find meaning in stillness. Many of us move between the two.

What matters most is whether the choice is conscious.

Because when reflection gets skipped entirely, something else quietly takes its place. Usually more doing. 🤦🏽‍♀️

The Quiet Leadership Lesson 🔗

Here’s where the season becomes more than personal.

Whether you intend it or not, how you move through this time models something for the people you lead. Your pace. Your boundaries. Your relationship with rest. Your willingness to pause or your compulsion to push through.

All of it teaches.

Perhaps you notice that you fill every open space with activity. Perhaps you slow down in public but carry urgency internally. Perhaps you genuinely restore and return clearer.

None of these are moral statements. They are observations.

But leadership is shaped in moments like these, often when no one is explicitly watching. The patterns you reinforce now tend to reappear when pressure rises later.

So I’ll offer a gentle question, not as an assignment, but as an invitation:

What does the way you move through this season quietly teach others about what matters?

That answer often reveals more about your leadership than anything written in your leadership philosophy.

Carrying Perspective Forward 💡

The more I travel, the more experiences from different parts of the world speak to one another.

What I observed in East Africa connected back to lessons I learned in Australia and New Zealand last year. Different contexts. Different cultures. And yet, similar insights surfaced again and again about pace, presence, community, and what it actually takes to lead well in complexity.

Shifting cultural lenses does that. It loosens assumptions you didn’t realize you were carrying. It expands what feels possible. And it sharpens self-awareness in ways that no single framework ever could.

Those insights sit at the heart of self-leadership. And they’re shaping some of what I’ll be sharing with you as we move into 2026.

A Closing Thought 🧐

As the year comes to a close, I want to leave space for your voice as well.

If there are themes you’d like me to explore in the year ahead, questions you’re sitting with, or leadership challenges you’d like illuminated through a different lens, I’d love to hear from you. Simply reply to this email and let me know.

Holidays were meant to interrupt momentum. To invite reflection. To offer a reset before the next chapter begins.

My hope for you is not that you do less or more, but that you move through this season with intention and awareness. Because what you practice now quietly shapes how you’ll lead in the year ahead.

Wishing you a reflective close to the year and a steady, meaningful start to the next.

Happy New Year,

Shawnette

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