Belonging Is Not Accidental: What Transitions Taught Me About Leading with Intention and Self-Trust
From Survival Mode to Self-Trust: A Latina Leader's Journey to Belonging
One year after joining a company as a Software Engineering Lead, I was promoted to Project Manager to oversee an area in serious trouble. There was no real onboarding into the role, and unfortunately, at that point in my career, as a first-generation Latina and the first in my family to build a career in tech, I had little awareness of mentors, coaches, or the kind of support that might have helped me step into that new chapter more confidently.
I already had a strong software engineering background across industries and roles, but this transition felt different. I had to recalibrate my sense of who I was. What had once felt familiar no longer did, and I was learning how to lead in a space that demanded something new of me.
For the first time in my career, I found myself quietly questioning whether I truly belonged in the room.
In those early days, I leaned on the wisdom of The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People by Stephen R. Covey. I carried those lessons with me as a way to stay steady: โMake small commitments and keep them. Be a light, not a judge. Be a model, not a critic. Be part of the solution, not part of the problem.โ
But one quote stayed with me every day:
โLeadership is communicating to people their worth and potential so clearly that they come to see it in themselves.โ
I held onto that because most of the team members assigned to me had low performance reviews, and I needed a way to stay grounded in possibility rather than discouragement.
That quote helped discipline my thinking. I began looking at each person through the lens of possibility, and the results were powerful. Team members stepped into a different level of ownership and leadership. Together, we reduced a significant customer backlog, improved customer satisfaction, supported business goals, and delivered a strategic compliance project on time.
And yet, even with those results, I was not able to successfully create a culture of belonging with the other project managers. Every day, I felt like I was in survival mode. The culture felt heavy. It did not feel inclusive of people who looked different or came from different backgrounds. Recruitment and leadership seemed to prioritize candidates and employees who graduated from the same top local university, making it harder to feel like I truly belonged in that environment.
That season taught me something I have carried ever since:
Belonging is not automatic, especially in spaces where assumptions already exist about who belongs.
I could do meaningful work, create results, and still feel disconnected from the larger environment around me.
It also taught me something deeper: competence alone does not create ease.
Even while delivering impact, I still needed to feel grounded in who I was. I needed to understand that belonging was not only something other people could give meโit was something I could begin to cultivate for myself through self-trust, clarity, and intention.
As I moved through different industries and roles, I began noticing something important: I was carrying more with me than I gave myself credit for.
Each experience added somethingโa lesson, a perspective, stronger instincts, or resilienceโeven when I could not fully see it at the time.
For years, I walked into new spaces as though I had to begin again from zero.
But that was never really true.
I was already bringing my values, experiences, and hard-earned wisdom with me.
What changed over time was my willingness to trust that more.
I began to see that I did not need to erase my past to belong in the present.
That shift mattered.
It helped me stop shrinking myself in new environments and instead show up with more steadiness and self-trust. I became more intentional about building genuine human connections, trusting that belonging could grow through consistency, openness, and being fully myself.
I also learned that when I later asked for a promotion at a different company, I could confidently speak not only about my work and business impact but also about the overall value I brought to the role. Leaders and sponsors became willing advocates for me.
Looking back, that early promotion shaped me in ways I did not fully understand at the time.
It taught me that belonging mattersโnot just for comfort, but for confidence, leadership, and growth.
It taught me that transitions ask something deeper of us than new skills.
They ask us to trust ourselves again.
And perhaps most importantly, it reminded me of this:
Women do not start from zero when entering a new chapter.
We bring wisdom with us.
We bring resilience with us.
We bring lived experience with us.
Even when we feel uncertain.
Even when we are learning.
Even when we are stepping into unfamiliar spaces.
The question is not whether we already have what we need.
The question is whether we are willing to trust what we have been quietly building all along.
Because sometimes belonging begins thereโwith the decision to stop shrinking, stop starting over, and trust ourselves enough to step forward with intention.
