I Don't Always Know What I'm Doing. I Show Up Anyway.
Presence Over Perfection: Why Your Imperfect Leadership Is Exactly What Your Team Needs
Some days are easier than others. I wake up, get ready, log on, tell my team good morning, and glide through the day. I log off feeling accomplished and confident that I know what I am doing.
Then there are the other days.
Everything is on fire. My team needs me. I feel stuck. I put out each fire one by one. I sweat through the ambiguity, battle changes that were never communicated, help my team manage the chaos, and then log off wondering if I even helped anyone that day—wondering if I actually know what I’m doing at all.
And yet, the one constant through both of those days is me.
I know that sounds confusing. I just said that some days I feel confident and other days I feel completely lost. Both are true. And no matter what I’m feeling internally, I show up. That is the constant—not the perfect answers or the flawless execution, just me, present and willing to figure it out.
That distinction changed everything for me as a leader
Here’s what I’ve learned my team actually needs: they don’t expect me to have all the answers. Instead, they need a steady presence—someone who will find the answers, clear the blockers, and help them move forward confidently in their roles.
That distinction changed everything for me as a leader. It was also one of the hardest adjustments I’ve had to make, because it required me to accept something I had been quietly resisting: I am flawed, and that’s okay. Perfectionism is not the answer in leadership, nor should it be. In fact, the pursuit of perfection in leadership often creates more distance between you and your team than it does trust.
Leadership is about presence, consistency, balancing your own emotions while holding space for others, clarifying ambiguity when everything feels unclear, clearing blockers so your team can keep moving, and sometimes simply being there—even when you don’t have it all figured out.
The internal noise on a chaotic day can be deafening
If you’re neurodivergent or carry trauma—which research suggests applies to more than 70% of the population—you probably experience this internally more than others see. The internal noise on a chaotic day can be deafening, and the self-doubt that follows can feel like evidence that you don’t belong in the role. It isn’t—it’s just your nervous system responding to stress, the same way it always has. The goal isn’t to silence that noise permanently. The goal is to not let it make decisions for you.
A 2025 Center for Creative Leadership article reframes what leadership actually is, defining it around three outcomes: direction, alignment, and commitment. It describes leadership as a social process where individuals work together to produce results they could never achieve alone. That definition has stayed with me.
Do I even know what I’m doing?
So on the next day you find yourself asking, “Do I even know what I’m doing?” pause and ask yourself these instead:
- Am I providing direction?
- Am I creating clarity and alignment?
- Am I showing commitment to my team and the work?
- Am I bringing people together toward something they couldn’t reach alone?
If you can say yes—even imperfectly, even on a hard day—then you know what you’re doing. You’re leading.
The days that feel like everything is on fire are not proof that you’re failing. They’re often proof that you’re exactly where your team needs you to be.
What does showing up look like for you on the hard days? How do you remind yourself that presence is enough?
