“Pick your battles,” they say. “You can’t care about every single thing, or you’ll end up drained.”
But it’s not true that I care about everything. I only care about a few things, yet I care about them deeply. And one of those things happens to be nurturing leadership.
What is nurturing leadership, anyway? To me, a nurturing leader is someone who:
- Places high value on empathy, compassion, and respect.
- Focuses on building strong relationships.
- Understands the intricacies of different personalities, working styles, and motivations, and uses this knowledge to achieve business goals AND foster individual growth.
- Creates a safe, open, and mature environment where individuals feel comfortable sharing (and receiving) thoughts, ideas, and feedback.
- Believes in the innate human capacity to strive for excellence.
I’ve been working for a while and have worked under many different kinds of leaders. Some are efficient, some are business-savvy, and some are inspirational.
But only two are nurturing.
One of them is Hex, my Head Writer back in the agency.
She was gentle and firm. She spoke fewer words than most people, but when she did, everybody tuned in. She was the one everybody reached out to (because sometimes these bosses duwan to talk to each other lmao), yet she never ran out of space to hold for other people.
She’s the very definition of fortitude. She’s like a mountain, tranquil when seen from afar, but gods knows how many earth formations she has gone through. Despite the ever-changing nature of the environment, I hope she’ll stay above the surface.
This International Women’s Day, I remember Hex, one of the most positively impactful human beings I’ve ever had the pleasure of working with.
Meta
Originally written and published on March 8, 2023