Leadership as a Language of Care: A Thoughtful Approach to Values-Based Leadership.
The opening line of Always Home, Fanny Singer’s tribute to her mother, Alice Waters, has stayed with me since I first read it.
She describes beauty as a language of care — a way of moving through the world that permeates everything Alice touches.
A language of care.
It’s a simple phrase, yet it carries depth. It speaks to the idea that care is not a single act, but a way of being. A set of choices made daily, often quietly, in alignment with what feels meaningful and true.
What feels meaningful at 25, of course, will not be the same at 45 or 55. Our values evolve. Our understanding deepens. And if we’re paying attention, the way we want to live and work changes, too.
Leadership, I believe, is also a language of care.
What care looks like in leadership.
When we speak about care in leadership, it’s easy to assume we’re talking only about others — teams, clients, organisations. But care begins much closer to home.
Leadership as a language of care asks us first to turn inward.
It requires the courage to work with ourselves:
to understand our patterns and tendencies
to examine our values, strengths, and blind spots
to notice how our inner world shapes how we show up in the outer one
To know ourselves well enough that we can meet others with empathy rather than assumption, and with curiosity rather than judgement.
This kind of care is not soft in the sense of being passive. It is active, intentional, and often challenging.
The inner work of leadership.
Each of us carries our own knots and scars — shaped by experience, upbringing, success, disappointment. These stories don’t disappear when we step into leadership roles. They inform how we listen, decide, react, and relate.
If we’re willing, the leadership journey can become deeply transformative. Not just professionally, but personally.
When leaders commit to doing their own inner work, something shifts. The way they work in the world becomes steadier. Their relationships deepen. Their sense of satisfaction is no longer tied solely to outcomes, but to integrity and alignment.
This is where leadership stops being performative and starts being lived.
Choosing honesty over avoidance.
At some point, every leader reaches a choice.
We can let our wounds and fears quietly run the show — or we can meet them with honesty and care and let them become a source of wisdom.
This requires radical self-honesty:
acknowledging vulnerability rather than masking it
noticing fear without letting it dictate behaviour
questioning long-held narratives about who we need to be
This kind of honesty doesn’t come from forcing change. It comes from being willing to be with ourselves — through reflection, self-inquiry, contemplation, and presence.
Change becomes possible only when we are truthful about our current reality. Without that, any attempt to lead differently is built on avoidance.
Why the work is often resisted.
I once had a client say to me, quite openly, that they wanted things to change — but they didn’t really want to do the work required to make it happen.
I appreciated their honesty. And I also knew that without a willingness to engage with the discomfort, there was nowhere meaningful for us to go together.
Most of us avoid the work because it’s uncomfortable. As humans, we are remarkably good at distraction — filling our days with meetings, noise, consumption, and busyness to avoid being alone with ourselves.
Yet it’s the leaders who are willing to stay with that discomfort — to feel it, explore it, and gently challenge their own stories — who experience lasting change.
And it’s often what quietly sets them apart.
Where leadership truly begins.
There’s no shortage of programs, frameworks, and advice promising better leadership.
But the place it begins — and the place it always returns to — is within.
Leadership as a language of care is not about arriving at some perfected version of ourselves. It’s about staying in relationship with who we are becoming.
We are always a work in progress.
And when care guides how we lead — ourselves first, and then others — leadership becomes not just effective, but deeply human.
If you’re reflecting on how you want to lead — and sensing a desire for more clarity, alignment, or sustainability — The Leap offers a supportive, structured space to explore what comes next.
