Reflecting on my journey to Laidlaw and the perceptions I had of leadership, I can see that my initial ideas, although are still relevant and important to being a great leader, needed development and experience in order to ground and develop them. I used to equate leadership to being able to speak to everyone, creating connection with different people, and taking risks, being decisive. Since this, my ideas have developed and deepened. Through the last two years, the Leadership-in-Action project and research project have shown me that leadership can include the quieter, more intimate forms of direction: learning to pick up pieces when others cannot, leaving space to compromise on what might’ve previously been non-negotiables, and importantly, communication is the key to leading successfully, even when this may be difficult to do. When communication and empathy is absent, things can slowly break down and make situations more difficult than intended. In the letters written in Toby’s workshops to our future selves, the naivety of my initial ideas was evident and reinforced this. I wrote about wanting to take risks and be at the forefront of all the leadership opportunities that came, not understanding the ways in which leadership doesn’t have to be front-facing and loud. Some of the hardest challenges and the biggest opportunities to grow came from the ability to do the nitty gritty work behind the scenes. Thus, leadership ideas changed: it isn’t a one-time act – it’s an ongoing, human process. It grows through trust, open dialogue, and the quiet, everyday acts of encouragement just as much as through major choices. I think of it now as collective stewardship: making sure the boat stays steady, each person pulling their weight, and progress happening side by side.

Across the last two years, my growth as a leader has been less about adding new traits and more about re-shaping how I understand responsibility, influence, and impact; through the Laidlaw projects this definition became more layered. My research with artists in Turkey has expanded that definition. Interviewing painters, weavers, jewellers, ceramicists, and shopkeepers across Istanbul, Ankara, and Izmir exposed me to forms of leadership rooted in quiet resilience rather than formal authority. Many of the artists I spoke to navigated political pressure, financial precarity, and limited institutional support, yet continued creating as a means of survival, cultural preservation, and subtle dissent. Observing how they adapted heritage practices to contemporary life, balanced authenticity with economic necessity, and expressed identity in ways that were sometimes safer through art than words, challenged my assumptions about what influence looks like. Leadership, I learned, can mean sustaining something fragile, holding space for identity, and continuing to show up under constraint. This translated into my own practice: I became more comfortable stepping back, listening closely, and doing the behind-the-scenes work that keeps teams steady – picking up tasks when others were overwhelmed, compromising on positions I once saw as fixed, and approaching difficult conversations with empathy rather than urgency to resolve.

What surprised me most during the programme was how much leadership depends on patience, emotional awareness, and trust-building, rather than constant visible action. Alongside this internal shift, I developed practical competencies: conducting independent qualitative research, navigating cross-cultural communication, managing uncertainty in unfamiliar environments, receiving and applying feedback, and balancing confidence with humility. Completing this programme equips me for the future not only with skills but with a different orientation toward the world. One of the biggest surprises was realising how often effective leadership feels subtle and even uncomfortable: it can involve slowing down progress to ensure everyone is aligned, addressing tensions early, or accepting that a good outcome might not reflect my original vision.  As a human being and global citizen, I am more attentive to power dynamics, cultural context, and whose voices are heard or silenced, and more committed to collaborative, ethical forms of leadership that prioritise inclusion and sustainability over visibility. Professionally and academically, the experience has strengthened my ability to lead long-term projects and approach complex problems with both critical thinking and emotional intelligence. Most importantly, it has shown me that leadership is not a fixed trait but an ongoing practice of shared responsibility – keeping the canoe balanced, ensuring everyone is paddling, and moving forward together with care and intention.