"Leadership is just a story we tell"

Yesterday, I wrote the phrase:

As I reread it, something started to shift.

At first, I thought I was making a point about connection, that leadership happens between people, not above them.
But the more I sat with the words, the more I realised:

It feels like a real object, something we can teach, model, critique, optimise.
But it’s not a lever or a layer or a structure.

It’s a lens.

A way we make sense of power, influence, responsibility, fear.
A story we tell ourselves about what’s happening between people.

And like any story, it can be useful, or distorting.

When we treat leadership as a real thing, we start designing around it.
We build frameworks, assign roles, measure performance.
We make it the object of change.

But if leadership is just one way of interpreting human interaction, then the work changes.

It’s not about installing better leaders.
It’s about noticing the patterns between us.
The invitations we make, the responses we give, the meaning we create together.

That doesn’t make leadership less important.
It makes it more human.

It’s not a title.
It’s a conversation.

Until next time,
Dermot
The Messy Middle

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