Bold Leadership and Strategic Moves That Matter
- 7 days ago
- 3 min read
By Lena McDearmid
Founder and CEO of Wryver
Twelve months ago I made a decision that changed my life. I stepped away from a company I helped build and a career I had spent twenty years mastering. I did it one month after taking myself on a solo thirty day sabbatical at the end of the year. I went to Mexico with one intention. Get quiet enough to hear myself again.
I barely spoke for weeks. It was almost a silent retreat, completely unplanned. In that stillness I remembered a line inspired by Mary Oliver’s poem The Summer Day. What will you do with this one precious life. The truth hit me hard. I had one life and the life I was living was no longer the one I wanted.
People love to romanticize reinvention. Let
me tell you the truth. Reinvention does not feel romantic when you are standing at the edge of it. It feels like freefall. It feels like taking off the armor you have worn for years. It feels like admitting that the story you built no longer fits the person you are becoming.
I was burned out. My body knew it. My spirit knew it. My team knew it too. Eventually I reached a point where I could no longer be the kind of leader I believed in. I could not keep white knuckling my way through a life that had stopped letting me breathe. So I did the thing people avoid. I stopped. I listened. I told the truth. I left.
Here is what I learned. Reinvention is not a luxury. It is a leadership skill. There comes a moment when the path you are on no longer fits the shape of your future. You can ignore it or you can begin again. I chose to begin again.
After I left, I gave myself time to rest. Real time. No alarm clocks. No Slack messages. No back to back meetings. Slowly the sparks returned. An idea here. A pulse of excitement there. I started paying attention to what people consistently sought me out for. I studied the moments in my career where I felt most alive. I rebuilt myself by listening to what lit me up.
That listening became Wryver. A culture and leadership advisory firm born from twenty years of lessons, mistakes, breakthroughs, and the truth that the future of work will require a different kind of leader. Leaders who understand how it feels to work inside an organization. Leaders who understand the shifting landscape ahead and know it is our responsibility to meet the road where it is rising. Leaders who recognize that culture is the operating system of the business. It is the rules, the rhythms, the relationships, and the realities that determine whether work feels heavy or it feels alive.
The most surprising part was how quickly everything aligned once I stopped negotiating against myself. The clarity returned. The confidence returned. The momentum returned. When you operate from alignment, people feel it. It has its own gravity.
My number one leadership principle for 2026 is emotional integrity. Emotional integrity means staying honest with yourself and the people you lead. It means decisions rooted in clarity instead of fear, truth delivered with steadiness instead of force, and accountability that feels fair instead of punishing.
If this year taught me anything, it is this. You already know the answer to the question you keep asking. You already know when a chapter is complete. And when you stop fighting yourself, your life reorganizes around the truth you finally choose.
Bold leadership is not choosing a new path. It is trusting yourself enough to walk it. That is what this year taught me. And that truth has changed everything.
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