This is not a post about leadership. Not on the face of it.
Earlier this year I handed over my late mother's dog to a new owner. I'd cared for him for 14 weeks — whilst navigating all that comes with closing a life, the grief that comes with loss, the competing needs of him, cats, family, and my own heart and, a stubborn refusal to rush the decision. I had to find the right solution for him, for us, and one that Mum would have been proud of.
On the day I let him go, I learned that the people in the village in which his new home was located, were waiting to meet him. An entire community, poised to welcome one small dog.
I drove home and sat with that.
And I realised he wasn't the only one with a village.
I had one too. Groups of people who'd held me through a much bigger journey, and who'd quietly, consistently, rooted for this dog to land on his paws. People who put feelers out, talked to contacts, kept an ear open. Who didn't lose faith I'd find the right answer, even when I was wavering. Many of whom later commented on my determination to do the right thing, as though it were something unusual.
I found that quietly surprising. It didn't feel exceptional to me. I owed him that. His exceptional loyalty was owed that. I knew that moving too fast would have cost me and him, a price I wasn't willing to pay.
What struck me, sitting with all of this, was something I'd seen years earlier in Catalonia. The Castellers — teams of people who build human towers in the town squares at festival time. The base holds everything. Dozens of bodies, shoulder to shoulder, absorbing the weight so that others can rise. What makes it work isn't the person at the top. It's the foundation. The people who show up, plant their feet, and hold.
That's what my village did. They held the base and because they held it, I had the steadiness to take the time the decision needed, and to get it right.
I said this wasn’t a post about leadership but there is in fact a parallel. So often those leading are navigating genuinely hard calls. The pressure is to move fast, perform with certainty, and not let people see you working it out. To get it right, often first time, and frequently the instinct is to carry it alone.
But some decisions need time. Time requires support. And support, real support, is less about advice and more about people planting their feet and saying: we're not going anywhere. Take what you need, we will be here.
The quality of a leader's decisions is often shaped less by their intellect than by the quality of the ground they're standing on.
Who's in your village? Who and what keeps you steady? Who helps you hold your ground?
