The Book That Changed How I Led

What began as an attempt to understand my relationship with my daughter changed the way I understood leadership — and eventually became part of the foundation for The Leadership of Seeing™.

I was not prepared for what happened when I read that book.

It must have been around 2014. I was leading teams at Stora Enso — deep in corporate life, managing people, navigating organisational complexity and working under real pressure.

I picked up The Conscious Parent by Dr. Shefali Tsabary as a parent.

My oldest daughter was approaching her teenage years, and we had started clashing. I wanted to understand what was happening and how to show up better for her.

I remember sitting there with my forehead in my hands as I read.

I could not believe I was doing some of the things I was doing — and that so much of it had been completely unconscious.

For two weeks, I walked through my daily life stunned. I was doing my work, managing my responsibilities, but underneath it all I was processing something that had shaken me deeply.

Then I started applying the principles at home.

And gradually I realised something.

This was not only about the parent-child relationship. It was about relationships.

So I started experimenting with the same principles at work.

I became more conscious of when I was reacting rather than responding. I tried to stay curious when my instinct was to become certain. I began paying more attention to what was happening within me before deciding what the person in front of me needed.

The impact was significant — both at home and at work.

And over time, I began to see a connection I could no longer ignore:

The inner capacities that help us become more conscious and connected as parents also matter profoundly in leadership.

A parent who becomes controlling because fear has taken over can lose connection with the child.

A leader who becomes controlling under pressure can lose access to the thinking, judgement and contribution of the people around them.

The contexts are different.

But something important about the human mechanism is shared.

I spent the next decade living and testing this — at home with my children and at work with my teams.

It wasn't linear.

There were mistakes. Moments when I reacted before I realised I had been triggered. Times when I had to return to the work and look again at what I was bringing into a relationship or leadership situation.

It required a great deal of personal inner work.

But as my awareness grew, something else happened.

I became better able to lead.

Not because I had acquired another leadership technique, but because I had become more able to see what was happening — first within myself, and increasingly in the people and situations around me.

Later, my studies at Dr. Shefali's Institute gave me greater depth and clarity around what I had been experiencing and practising for years.

And eventually, I could see the larger pattern.

What had begun as a personal attempt to become a better parent had fundamentally changed the way I understood leadership.

The Leadership of Seeing™ is the leadership methodology that grew from that understanding — shaped further by years of organisational experience, leadership practice and study.

It begins with a deceptively simple premise:

What we are able to see shapes how we are able to lead.