What I’ve learned about leadership

Leadership is an ongoing journey, no matter how far you have come. Here, four senior leaders who invested a year of their time in the Sloan Masters in Leadership and Strategy at London Business School recall some of the experiences that have surprised and inspired them in their careers so far.

Learn from everyday heroes

Whatever your natural style, good leadership is situational. As a battalion commander in the Indian Army, my leadership abilities were supplemented by the rank and authority that came with the role, and both the Army ethos and the challenging operational environment allowed for a direct approach. Nevertheless, flexibility was required.

When tasked with raising a new team, I had to employ a transformational style. When on a peacekeeping mission under the banner of the UN, where we needed to build consensus amongst various international organisations including medical relief providers, aid organisations and local government, there was a need for a collaborative approach.

On yet another occasion, leading a number of small independent teams in a very dynamic and challenging situation, the leadership style had to be more hands-off, or what the military calls Directive Style of Command, allowing for autonomous decision-making. Ultimately, leadership styles do not define a leader. The results of their decisions and their ability to persevere do.

History books are replete with astute leaders – politicians, military commanders, sports icons, business executives – who continue to inspire new generations. But in my experience, profound leadership lessons often emerge from unassuming corners of everyday life, far removed from the spotlight.

Back in 2018, when I was a newly promoted Indian Army Colonel commanding an operational unit in the desert, I found myself facing a situation that challenged my understanding of leadership. One of my platoon commanders, whom I will call Tim, had medical disabilities that prevented him from performing active duties. Tasked with managing an ammunition storage facility, he repeatedly failed to meet the required safety standards, despite guidance and additional resources.

After much deliberation, I was forced to make the difficult decision of withdrawing sponsorship for light duties, a move that set him on the path to termination. The decision was legally sound, had precedent, and was necessary for the safety and discipline of the unit. But it was the first time I realized the gravity of having the authority to end someone’s career – a power that weighed heavily on me.

I confided in my wife, who offered a perspective that completely shifted my understanding. She reminded me that leadership is not solely about exercising authority or enforcing consequences; it also encompasses the capacity for empathy and forgiveness. Inspired, I publicly offered Tim another opportunity: he could choose any available role that suited his medical condition.

To my surprise, Tim opted to expand his responsibilities, taking on ammunition management for the entire battalion – a role unprecedented for someone of his rank. Over the next three years, he excelled, earning accolades for himself and the team during external inspections.

This reinforced my belief that leadership lessons are not the exclusive domain of a few celebrated individuals. They exist in the everyday thoughts, actions, and choices of ordinary individuals. True leadership is often revealed in moments of compassion, adaptability, and the willingness to see potential where others might not.

Be consistent through crisis

Some of the most important lessons in leadership arrive long before we feel ready to learn them. Early in my career, I believed leaders stood out mainly for their decision-making. That assumption swiftly shifted once I was forced into a leadership role far earlier than I expected.

I graduated in late 2007 and joined my father’s entrepreneurial group in Brazil, which included engineering, steel structures, and farming, all founded in the early 2000s. By mid-2009, the global financial crisis had reached us with full force. Demand evaporated, credit froze, and we lost more than 70% of both workforce and revenue. At 24, I was asked to step in and run the manufacturing business at a moment when survival felt uncertain.

Beyond hard work, the only real advantage I had was the humility that comes with knowing you don’t have all the answers. Without any preconceived “leadership model,” I did the one thing I knew would not fail: I spoke with everyone. I listened to complaints, ideas, frustrations, and small insights that rarely reached management.

What I discovered was not a single breakthrough, but patterns – recurring failures, cultural inconsistencies, waste that had become invisible, and opportunities that no one felt empowered to act on. The turnaround emerged from aligning these voices into one coherent direction rather than from a bold, isolated decision.

Only then did I understand how limited my original view of leadership had been. From the remote croplands in Mato Grosso to our offices in Curitiba and São Paulo, the underlying driver has never been a perfect decision; it has been trust, motivation, and cultural alignment.

The greatest risk to an organisation if it lacks psychological safety and a strong culture is that it doesn’t trigger an obvious collapse, it triggers something far more dangerous – a silent defeat. People stop pushing, stop questioning, and stop improving. The business remains standing, but it gradually loses its edge.

While technology continues to transform how we operate, it is human skills that still determine whether organisations move forward. No algorithm has replaced the cultural signals that people read in silence.

At LBS, our dear professors Herminia Ibarra and Jessica Spungin used to joke about whether culture or strategy mattered more. The truth is that each amplifies or undermines the other. Strategy without cultural coherence collapses. Culture without direction drifts.

What I learned is that leadership lives in seeking balance between setting direction and shaping the environment in which people can actually execute it. It requires listening deeply, aligning honestly, and adapting to the team’s preparedness and the business context. Seeing the responsibility of leadership through the eyes and ears of a team member, while keeping the roadmap aligned, is a shortcut that takes you far.

The crisis eventually passed, but the lesson stayed: leadership is less about the noise of decisions and more about the quiet consistency that holds a team together.

Turn to the people around you

Graduating from the LBS Sloan Masters in Leadership and Strategy changed my life. I left my comfortable, corporate life and fell headfirst into the world of entrepreneurship. I co-founded a company with a classmate. Success was close, but not close enough, so the corporate world soon lured me back. But this time it was very different.

In 2023, I started a new role in a new industry. Previously I had led a technical discipline for the international oil company LUKOIL, where I’d also been a board member. Now, I was a director in consulting within the UK utilities sector.

It felt overwhelming. I have over 20-years’ professional experience, and I’m not afraid of a challenge – having worked in four countries and the Arctic Circle, I know how to adapt. But changing industries was one of the toughest challenges I’ve faced in my career.

There was so much I didn’t know about the electricity sector, and the learning curve was steep. I felt like I was starting my career from scratch, which was scary, and a fear of failure held me back. My initial instinct was to hide until I knew everything, but this only slowed my progress and stifled my enjoyment.

To overcome my fears, I needed to stand up to the challenges, like I always had, and show the resilience that makes me who I am. To get through the toughest moments of my life, I’ve always turned to the people around me, keeping them close to my heart, repaying trust and always going that extra mile.

So, off I went. I chatted with colleagues and clients to get to know them professionally and personally, and these relationships became the most valuable outcome of those challenging moments. I asked lots of questions, listened, and focused on how I could bring value to people inside my organisation and to my clients.

There’s a saying, that there’s nothing more constant than change. As I write this, I’ve just started another exciting career chapter, this time at a global full stack technology leader. What I’ve learnt is that changing career doesn’t get any easier. But I’ve also learnt to trust my abilities to conquer any mountain and embrace challenges while continuing learning with, and from, people around me.

Be willing to be challenged

The world was accelerating. AI was changing everything. By 2023, after 13 years in investment management, I had risen from an analyst to Head of Global Multi-Asset Strategies at ATRAM in the Philippines. My job was to spot trends, manage risk and position my clients accordingly. I realised I needed to do the same for myself.

That same year, I cofounded Aralin on the side. There were students in the Philippines struggling to learn, and university students who could mentor them. I thought we could fill this gap, and I assumed I could do it like my investments: research, allocate, monitor. Passive. Strategic.

I was wrong. We had to pivot, talk to clients, find anything that worked to survive. When it's your own money and your own time, you learn fast: assumptions break. Ego breaks. What got you here doesn't work any more. I grew because I had to. That's not a failure story. That's the only story. But something else shifted. I wasn't building for customers. I was building for myself. That was my wake-up call.

So: I paused. I disrupted my own life. In December 2024, I joined the Sloan programme at LBS, the youngest in my cohort at 35. I left my role, my startup, my country. Sloan gave me that space, and I needed it. Learning again was like reading a book for the second time: you see things you missed because you've changed. The frameworks weren't new, but I was.

And then I looked around. Thirty-six people from different industries, different countries, different stages of life. All of us had made the same choice: pause everything, embrace disruption, “show up hungry to be challenged”. Not because we had certainty about outcomes, but because we had some certainty about ourselves.

That was the lesson: Leadership isn't taught once, it's lived daily. The most grounded leaders I've met aren't those with the most answers. They're the ones who are still willing to be challenged.

One month in, I started Flosendo, an enrichment learning platform for kids, with my co-founder and fellow Sloan, Vedika Harriban. I'm building it now not because I have all the answers, but because I've learned that the right purpose with the people matters more than a certain plan.

The pause made the leap possible. The purpose made the direction clear. The people made the building possible. That's the long game, the only one worth playing.