The Stories Behind the Stories: Sarah

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The Stories Behind The Stories Sarah

Hello. 

It’s Carmel from School of WorkLife. 

Welcome to The Stories Behind the Stories. 

Where I go deeper into the WorkLife Stories I’ve crafted. 

The thinking behind the ideas. 

The experiences that shaped that thinking. 

The lessons learned from those experiences.

Today’s episode is Sarah. Her story is featured in the episode: How to Lead Authentically Through Storytelling

In the last episode I went deeper into Marcus’s three stories. 

Today I want to go deeper into Sarah’s failure, success and passion stories.

Together they reveal something that no single story could show alone. 

Who she is professionally. 

What shaped her. 

And what drives her.

The Story Behind the Stories: When She Left the Script Behind 

“Leadership is not about being in charge. It is about taking care of those in your charge.” — Simon Sinek

Sarah had delivered impressive results for eighteen months.

Her team respected her. 

Followed her direction. 

Met every target.

And she had never truly reached them.

Sarah’s pattern is one I’ve observed in people throughout their working lives. 

The leader who delivers everything that’s asked. 

And somehow never quite reaches the people they’re leading. 

Not because they don’t care. 

But because they’ve confused professional effectiveness with genuine connection. 

Those are two different things. 

And the gap between them is where leadership either deepens or stays stuck.

The Failure Hidden in Effectiveness

Sarah’s failure isn’t a single mistake.

It’s eighteen months of effective leadership.

That never became genuine partnership.

Her team followed her directives.

But they never brought their full thinking to the work.

Here’s what I think was behind that.

Sarah had confused respect with connection.

Her team respected her competence.

But competence alone keeps people at arm’s length.

It creates followers.

Not collaborators.

A team that respects you will do what you ask. 

A team that trusts you will do more than you ask. 

Sarah had respect. 

For eighteen months. 

What she didn’t yet have was trust. 

And trust requires something competence alone can’t provide.

The Success That Began With Letting Go

Her success story begins with a departure.

From her prepared script.

From the facts and figures she had carefully arranged.

From everything she thought leadership required.

And into something she had never shared professionally before.

Her own experience of uncertainty.

The merger.

The panic.

The questions she hadn’t been able to answer.

And what she discovered on the other side.

The room shifted.

Not because the restructuring plan changed.

Because Sarah did.

What strikes me about Sarah’s success is the courage it required. 

She had prepared everything. 

The facts. 

The plan. 

The talking points. 

And she left them behind. 

Not because they were wrong. 

Because something more important arrived. 

The recognition that her team needed truth more than they needed information. 

That’s not a leadership technique. 

That’s a choice. 

Made in the moment. 

To say something real instead of something safe.

It bears repeating. 

Sarah didn’t plan the breakthrough. 

She recognised the moment. 

And chose to meet it honestly. 

That’s what authenticity is.

Not a quality you develop. 

A choice you make. 

When it matters.

A Passion for the Human Side of Change

Sarah’s passion is the most specific of the three.

She doesn’t want to direct people through change.

She wants to help them navigate it.

There’s a difference.

Direction says — follow me.

Navigation says — let’s figure this out together.

That’s what drives her.

Not the efficiency metrics.

Not the performance reviews.

The moment a team stops waiting for answers and starts finding them together.

Direction and navigation look similar from the outside. 

But they feel completely different to the people being led.

Direction creates followers. 

Navigation creates partners. 

Sarah understood that instinctively. 

Once she stopped hiding it.

Enabling people isn’t about giving them answers. 

It’s about creating the conditions where they find their own. 

That’s what her team experienced in that room. 

When she put down the script. 

And trusted them with the truth.

Beyond Every Expectation

But that’s not where the story ends.

The restructuring succeeded.

Beyond every expectation.

Not because Sarah had the best plan.

Because her team owned it.

And the ripple didn’t stop there.

A newly promoted team lead came to her struggling with the same distance she had once created.

Sarah recognised it immediately.

And she knew exactly how to help.

What I hope you take from Sarah — beyond the framework, beyond the leadership context — is something simpler.

Competence earns respect.

Authenticity creates connection.

And connection is what makes people bring their full thinking to the work.

Sarah is every leader who has delivered results without ever truly reaching the people delivering them.

Until they did.

FROM MY NOTEBOOK

An Observation: 

Something I’ve Seen from Experience:

I’ve witnessed this pattern across more than twenty years.

When markets crashed early in my career. 

When companies restructured and people lost their jobs. 

When Covid arrived and everything stopped.

In every one of those moments — the leaders who stepped forward honestly made the difference.

Not with answers. 

They didn’t have answers. 

Nobody did.

But with truth.

The best town hall meetings I witnessed during those times were the ones where leaders did exactly what Sarah did. 

They stopped pretending certainty they didn’t have. 

They said — I don’t know what’s coming. 

But I know we’ll figure it out together.

And something shifted.

Not because the situation changed. 

Because people felt less alone in it.

That’s what honest leadership does in a crisis. 

It doesn’t solve the problem. 

It changes how people face it. 

Together rather than separately. 

With trust rather than fear.

That’s what separates good leaders and good companies. 

Not having the answers.

Being honest about not having them.

And creating the conditions where people can find their own way through.

On Sarah:

That’s why I wrote Sarah. 

Because I’ve seen what authentic leadership makes possible. 

And I wanted to show it from the inside. 

Not the theory of it. 

The moment of it. 

Standing outside a conference room. 

With a prepared script. 

And the courage to put it down.

On the Prepared Script:

Sarah’s breakthrough happens when she abandons her notes.

Not because the notes were wrong.

Because something more important arrived.

The recognition that her team needed truth more than they needed information.

That’s a specific kind of courage.

To leave the safety of the prepared and say something real.

The script is where leadership begins. 

Not where it ends. 

Sarah needed to prepare everything. 

So she could recognise the moment to set it aside. 

That’s not spontaneity. 

That’s judgement. 

Knowing when the plan serves the moment. 

And when the moment needs something the plan can’t provide.

On Direction Versus Navigation:

Direction and navigation look similar from the outside.

Both involve a leader moving people toward a goal.

But they feel completely different from the inside.

Direction says — I know the way. Follow me.

Navigation says — I don’t know exactly how we’ll get there. But I know we’ll figure it out together.

Sarah leads through navigation.

That’s her distinctive approach.

And it’s what creates genuine partnership rather than efficient compliance.

Your Three Stories

Before you go — something to take with you.

Your Success Story

When did you abandon the prepared script and say something real — and what happened?

Your Failure Story. 

Where have you been leading from competence when connection was what was needed?

Your Passion Story. 

When does your leadership feel most like who you truly are?

Sarah’s story originated from the Programme: The Art of WorkLife Storytelling: Creating Three Fundamental Stories That Define Your Identity

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