Welcome to the Circle

A few weeks ago, I was working on a presentation and found myself stuck on three words: Welcome to the Circle.

Not the research. Not the content. Not the part of the presentation I expected to wrestle with. Those three words kept pulling me back.

I started thinking about why they mattered so much to me. The answer took me back through more than three decades of leadership and to something I understand far better today than I did when I started.

For much of my career, I thought my work was about athletics. Then I thought it was about being a woman in rooms where women were often the exception. For a while, I thought leadership meant earning the title, doing the work, finding my voice, and proving I belonged.

I see it differently now.

The work has always been about belonging.

WHAT I DID WITH THE ONLY SEAT

I know what it feels like to walk into a room and immediately notice you are the only woman there. I know what comes next, too. You read the room. You figure out where to sit. You decide when to speak. You wonder whether you should say what you are thinking. You learn when to push and when to listen.

And, if you are anything like I was early in my career, you spend far too much energy wondering whether you have earned your place there.

For years, I thought the goal was to become comfortable being the only one. I thought success meant learning how to walk into those rooms without questioning whether I belonged.

Eventually, I realized I was asking the wrong question.

The goal was never to become comfortable being the only woman in the room. The goal was to make sure I was not the only one for long.

That realization changed the way I lead.

I stopped focusing so much on protecting my own seat and started looking around the room. Who was missing? Whose voice were we not hearing? Who had something to contribute but had not been invited yet? Who needed someone to say, “Come sit here”?

Those questions became far more important to me than proving I belonged.

BELONGING IS THE WORK

Leadership gets measured in many ways. Titles. Results. Awards. Influence. Organizational growth. All of those things have value.

But after more than thirty years of leading, I pay attention to something else.

How do people feel when they are around you?

Do they know their voice matters? Do you trust them with something important? Do you give them room to lead? Do you notice when someone is standing on the outside? Do people leave an interaction with you feeling more confident about what they bring to the room?

Those questions matter to me because people remember how we made space for them.

They might forget the meeting. They might forget the decision. They will almost definitely forget whatever brilliant thing we put on slide 37. But they remember the person who saw them. They remember who said their name in a room they were not in. They remember who opened a door, extended an invitation, or moved over and said, “There’s room for you here.”

I have come to believe this is some of the most important work a leader does.

Leadership is not only about what you accomplish while you hold a position. Leadership is also about what becomes possible for other people because you held it.

NOT A SLOGAN

That brings me back to Welcome to the Circle.

When I first wrote those words, I thought I was writing an opening line for a presentation. The longer I sat with them, the more I realized I was naming something I have spent much of my career trying to create.

The circle I am talking about is not an exclusive group. You do not qualify for it after enough years, enough wins, enough letters after your name, or enough proof that you deserve to be there.

It is a place where people know they belong. Where experience comes with a responsibility to share what you have learned. Where finding your voice eventually leads you to help someone else find hers. Where leadership gets shared because the goal was never to become the most important person in the room.

And where getting your own seat is never the end of the story.

Once you are in the room, you have a choice. You can spend your energy protecting your place, or you can pay attention to who is still standing outside.

I know which kind of leader I want to be.

Welcome to the Circle is more than three words on a slide for me. It is a reminder of the responsibility that comes with belonging.

There’s room for you here.

A QUESTION TO CARRY WITH YOU

Think about the rooms, teams, organizations, and communities where you already have a place.

Who is still standing outside your circle?

And what might change if you were the person who invited them in?