The stories that shape us

Photo by Vardan Papikyan on Unsplash

Looking back over more than thirty years of working with leaders, I have come to realise that many of the beliefs I now hold about leadership were not formed in boardrooms, lecture halls or strategy sessions.

They were formed through stories.

At the time, those stories felt ordinary. Only years later did I begin to understand what they had quietly been teaching me.

Whenever I work with student leaders who are about to receive a badge, a title or the responsibility that comes with leading others, I leave them with one simple question:

"Am I building this person, or am I breaking them?"

It sounds like a simple question, yet I have come to believe that it lies at the heart of leadership. Leadership always brings influence. Sometimes it is obvious. Sometimes it is almost invisible. Whatever form it takes, every interaction leaves people a little stronger or a little weaker than before. We rarely recognise that responsibility while we are living it.

Perhaps that is why I find myself returning to a year that changed more than I realised at the time.

In 1995, my brother was a teacher and bandmaster. He took the Benoni High School Pipe Band on tour to Scotland, where the students were invited to attend a rehearsal of the Shotts and Dykehead Caledonia Pipe Band, one of the great names in international piping.

I was not fortunate enough to make the trip, although my bagpipes did. My brother's own pipes had been stolen shortly before the tour, so mine travelled in my place. Looking back, I suspect they had a far more exciting few weeks than I did as I navigated my final year of corporate employment, a relatively new marriage and life with a small child.

For those young South Africans, walking into that rehearsal hall must have felt overwhelming. These were musicians they had admired from the other side of the world. Legends, in many respects.

At the end of the rehearsal, something unexpected happened. The Pipe Major invited the students onto the floor. The musicians handed over their own instruments, encouraged them to play, answered their questions and welcomed them into a world that had previously existed only in stories, recordings and dreams.

Nobody had to do that. After a long rehearsal they could simply have packed away, wished everyone well and headed home. Instead, they stayed. They shared not only their knowledge, but something much more valuable. They quietly helped a group of young people believe they belonged.

The second story happened before the tour had even begun.

As the Benoni High School Pipe Band worked tirelessly to raise the money needed to travel to Scotland, one of their fundraising events included a raffle. The prize was a rugby ball signed by the Scottish captain, Gavin Hastings, who happened to be touring South Africa at the time.

His mother attended the event. She could easily have bought a single ticket, smiled politely and moved on. Instead, she bought many. I have often wondered whether she realised what she was really supporting. She was not simply buying raffle tickets. She was helping a group of young people move one step closer to an experience that many of them had believed was beyond their reach.

Neither of these moments would ever appear in a leadership textbook. Neither was announced as leadership. Both were simply acts of generosity, offered without expectation of recognition or reward.

Years passed. My own career unfolded in ways I could never have predicted. Entrepreneurship, education, leadership development and research became part of my journey, and over time I found myself becoming increasingly interested in one recurring question.

What is it that genuinely shapes leaders? Not simply their knowledge or technical competence. But the beliefs they hold about themselves, about other people and about what is possible.

Then, a few days ago, those two stories unexpectedly found their way back into my life.

I spent nearly two hours speaking with that same Pipe Major. We were discussing the future of leadership within pipe bands, but as so often happens in meaningful conversations, we spent surprisingly little time talking about piping.

Instead, we talked about people. About learning. About confidence. About how leaders create cultures where excellence and humanity are allowed to exist together. At one point, I mentioned that evening in 1995.

He immediately recognised many of the names of the teenagers who had visited his rehearsal all those years ago. They had gone on to become internationally respected musicians and leaders within the pipe band world.

What he had never realised was that they were the same young people he had welcomed so generously that evening.

Then he paused. You could almost see him joining the dots. For him, it had been one rehearsal. For those young musicians, it had become part of the story they carried with them.

As I ended the conversation, I found myself thinking less about pipe bands and much more about leadership. Perhaps the moments that shape us most are rarely the ones we recognise at the time. Perhaps influence has far less to do with authority than we imagine. Perhaps the most significant contribution we make to another person's life is not found in the speeches we deliver or the positions we hold, but in the ordinary moments when we choose encouragement over indifference, generosity over self-interest and belief over judgement.

After more than three decades of studying leadership, I continue to discover that the most profound lessons are often the quietest ones.

The leaders who stay with us are not always those who demanded the most of us. More often, they are the people who saw something in us before we could see it for ourselves. And perhaps that is why I continue asking student leaders the same question every year.

Not because I expect them to have all the answers. But because leadership begins the moment we realise that every interaction leaves another human being either a little stronger or a little weaker than before.

Everything else is simply an opportunity to choose which it will be.