When people talk about leadership, they usually mean the visible parts. Standing in front of a group. Giving a speech. Being the one people turn to when decisions have to be made. I’ve been in those roles, and yes, they can feel important. But they aren’t the full picture.
There’s another side that no one claps for. It looks more like walking home after a meeting with your backpack half open because you’re too lost in thought to zip it. Or sitting in your room with papers spread out on your desk, staring at notes you don’t even want to look at anymore because they remind you of what went wrong. Those moments don’t make it into yearbooks or résumés, but they exist.
One of the hardest nights I remember was after a debate club session I had led. I had walked in with a plan: a warm-up, a debate topic, even a small exercise to keep things fun. I thought I had it under control. Halfway through, the energy shifted. People started fidgeting with their phones. Someone made a sarcastic comment that got a few laughs, and suddenly I wasn’t leading anymore, I was just trying to stop the room from unraveling. By the end, the discussion had drifted completely off course. A couple of people left early.
I walked home with my folder under my arm, pressing it tighter than usual as if it could hide the fact that I felt like I had failed. The streetlights were still on, and I remember thinking how quiet the city felt compared to the noise in my head. Every sentence I had said replayed in slow motion, each one sounding flatter than it had in the room. By the time I reached my front door, I was convinced: Someone else should be doing this. Not me.
That night I couldn’t sleep. I stared at the ceiling, then turned to my desk, then back again. At one point, I opened my notebook, wrote half a sentence about what went wrong, and crossed it out so hard the paper almost tore. I wasn’t writing a plan anymore; I was trying to convince myself I wasn’t completely useless.
And yet, the next week, I showed up again. I didn’t walk into that room with a sudden rush of confidence. I walked in with a knot in my stomach and a voice in my head reminding me how badly last time had gone. I stood in front of the group anyway. On the outside, maybe it looked like I had it together. On the inside, I was just hoping this time wouldn’t collapse like the last.
Over time, I started noticing how much those invisible moments shaped me. The walks home where I felt like quitting, the nights where I wrote half a plan and ripped it up, the quiet mornings where I gave myself one more chance. They didn’t feel like “leadership” at the time, but they made me change. I began preparing differently. I learned to ask questions instead of pretending I had every answer. I started calling one or two people ahead of time to check if my ideas made sense, something I’d never thought of before.
Most people only ever see the visible side. The speeches, the titles, the group photos. They don’t see the silence after failure, or the way you carry yourself through it. But I’ve realized that the invisible part doesn’t disappear just because it’s not public. It’s what makes the visible part possible.
I’m still figuring this out. I still walk home some nights with that same heavy feeling. But I’ve stopped seeing those moments as proof that I don’t belong. They’re proof that I’m in the middle of learning what leadership really looks like.
And maybe that’s the part worth sharing. The leadership no one sees isn’t a polished story of success. It’s the messy, hidden part that eventually shapes the leader everyone else does see.
Thanks for stopping by,
Filippo
Braunstorming 