Twelve stories. That’s enough, I’m done. Leaders is done.
Work, power, trust, ego, fear, careers, decisions. People trying too hard to look professional. I spent twelve years in corporate. Big companies, big titles, big bosses, proud me. Some people were brilliant. Some were assholes. I was both. On more than one day.
Corporate life gets mocked a lot. At least everywhere but on LinkedIn. And the mocking has a few good reasons. Look at all the wasted PowerPoint decks. Scheming politics because a CTO lacks any empathy. A high priority meeting to prepare the next high priority meeting tomorrow. Don’t sleep on transformation and stakeholder management. There are entire dictionaries for new joiners so adults can pretend to be even more professional.
Still, corporate life is life. So many people spend eight hours a day there. Or more. Years. Decades. They fall in love. Get divorced. They gain confidence. And lose it. They get promoted and suddenly sit differently in chairs. They get put on a new project and dance at two am in an Indian golf club. Friendships start. Jealousy unspoken. Kindness, fear, pride, humiliation. You want coffee and your boss’s secretary publicly cuts in line. Just normal human stuff, squeezed between Teams meetings.
So, I don’t know what these twelve stories taught you about leadership. Or me. Leaders matter. But far less than they think. Power does change people. But most notice far too late. The meaning of my stories is yours. Because learnings aren’t always clean. Most are messy. In the grey. Corporate life certainly was for me.
So, what now? I’m done writing about leadership. Not because I don’t care about leaders anymore. I just don’t want to care about corporate environments. Not now. Maybe leaders come back one day, in a completely different setting.
Also, because that’s me.
I go head over heels into things. Completely, embarrassingly, bat-shit crazy. I travel for months. I start kickboxing. I code quickshell. I run mountains. Coach kids. Read yet another fantasy book. I find something new and I’m gone for weeks. Also, some crucial piece of equipment arrives tomorrow that I absolutely needed.
Full steam ahead.
I wrote recently that activity might be my armor. That I’ve spent a lot of my life answering who I am with the things I do. I know that part of me. Standing still is suspicious. I swear.
But that’s not all it is. I genuinely love moving.
I love finding stuff I don’t understand yet. Places I haven’t been to. Ideas to think through. I’m fine changing my mind. Being wrong. Maybe that one not so much. I get obsessed, happily. Trying things. Seeing things. Realizing, eventually, how much of the world I still haven’t seen.
Movement is my armor. I get that. It’s also very much me. You see, the window in my room is always open. Fresh air gets in all the time. Wind, rain, snow. Noise. All of it. I like the heat in summer, but I’m living in Germany. We have seasons.
So, TracingEchoes will do what I do. Get blown away by one thing for twelve stories. Then, who knows?
Leaders was first. I loved parts of it. Hated other parts of it. No regrets. I lived all of it. And the window is open. Something else is already coming in. It’s not winter.
It’s backpacks.