Reclaiming the Heart of Your Leadership
- Jan 13
- 3 min read
By Brianna Sylver
Founder & President, Sylver Consulting | Author of “Leading Through Free Fall: How Innovators Turn Turbulence into Trust”
For years, I believed strong leadership meant carrying everything and everyone. I said yes to every need. I pushed through long days and late nights. I felt useful and important, yet something inside me was growing quiet.
My schedule looked successful. My spirit did not.
The shift began in a season when our company numbers looked great but inside our culture, I sensed strain. Conversations felt tense. Projects lost their spark. I was still delivering outcomes, but I did not like the energy I was bringing into the room. I also didn’t love what was being reflected back at me.
The truth was simple: I had drifted away from myself.
Renewal began with reflection. I slowed down and asked hard questions:
What presence do I bring when I enter a meeting?
What habits are running in the background that no one sees?
What do I truly value as a leader and as a human being?
Journaling helped me name what I could not see during the daily rush.
My perfectionism had been posing as dedication.
Overprotection had been limiting my team’s growth.
Service without boundaries had turned genuine, generous effort into quiet resentment.
None of this felt like the leader I wanted to be.
With honest reflection came clarity. Three values rose to the surface and now guide my choices every day: Shared appreciation. Collaboration. Personal responsibility.
These values are simple to write and powerful to live. They ask me to notice the good in others. They ask me to design spaces where people participate, not just observe. They ask me to follow through on what I say and to invite my team to do the same.
When I began to lead from this foundation, the tone of our work completely changed. Meetings opened up, feedback felt safer, we reconnected to purpose, and I felt joy return to the craft of building ideas with people I trust.
In my client work, I meet many leaders who carry a similar weight. They are accomplished and exhausted. They look for relief in new frameworks or more data. The turning point often arrives when they pause long enough to ask one simple question. Who am I being right now?
That question brings the human heart of leadership back into view. It reminds us that people remember how we made them feel. It invites us to notice where fear is steering a decision. And it asks us to choose presence over performance.
From that place, trust grows and progress follows closely behind.
Reflection is not a luxury. It is a practical tool for clarity.
It helps us sort urgency from importance and motion from momentum.
It also restores something essential. When I make time to reflect, I remember that leadership begins within me, then extends to others. I show up grounded. I listen better. I ask cleaner questions. I keep my word. Small actions compound into a culture people can rely on.
If you are in a season that feels heavy, try this simple practice:
Take ten minutes with a blank page. List what is working. List what is not.
Circle three words that you want to define your leadership in the year ahead.
Post those words where you will see them every day. Then choose one action that brings those words to life this week.
The human heart of leadership has always been there. Reflection brings it back into focus. And from that focus, renewal grows and power returns to the place it belongs, within you.
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