What Public Service Taught Me About Leadership Before I Had the Title

Early in my public service career, I encountered a practice that didn't make much sense to me.

We were expected to process cases in the order they were received.

I understood the appearance of fairness in that approach. Everyone had a place in line, and the work moved in sequence. But I couldn't understand why a case that was ready for a decision should remain unfinished simply because another case, received earlier, was still missing information.

To me, we were managing a queue rather than completing the work.

I was new to government, but I wasn't new to working. Before entering public service, I had worked in the private sector, where I was introduced to Kaizen, the concept of continuous improvement. My position was entry-level, but the lessons were significant. A better, faster, more effective way of accomplishing a goal had value, regardless of who suggested it.

I carried that thinking with me.

What I hadn't yet learned was that different organizations could respond very differently to the same approach.

A Different Kind of Responsibility

I wasn't yet thirty when I entered this chapter of my career.

I was divorced, raising three young children, and earning barely $30,000 a year. I had purchased an old house on a corner, one that needed work but offered something important: enough space for each of my children to have a bedroom of their own.

I had grown up in a beautiful home, surrounded by a beautiful yard and a neighborhood where I formed friendships that would last a lifetime. I wanted my children to experience the security and belonging that a home could provide.

Not just a place to stay.

Our home.

I had left the private sector in part because I wanted greater employment security. There were three little people depending on me, a house to maintain, and a future I was determined to build.

So when I entered public service, I wasn't thinking about becoming a leader. I was thinking about doing my job well, keeping that job, and making a life for my children.

That responsibility shaped how I approached almost everything that followed.

Learning the Rules and Questioning the Routine

After training, I found myself facing hundreds upon hundreds of pages of program policy. The manual for just one program approached 900 pages.

It was a lot to absorb, especially for someone still learning the responsibilities of the position.

But I was curious. I asked questions, observed how people worked, and tried to understand the reasoning behind the processes we followed.

I wasn't particularly outspoken then. I didn't assume everyone needed to do things my way. But I had a strong sense of what seemed right or at least what I believed was right at the time.

Eventually, I learned that processing cases strictly in the order received was an operational practice, not a specific program policy requirement.

That distinction gave me room to think differently.

I began completing cases when the necessary information was available rather than allowing ready cases to sit behind others still awaiting documentation.

And something unexpected happened.

I had more time.

Not because there was less work, but because I was managing it differently.

I could follow up with people who hadn't returned the information we needed. I could remind them what was missing, answer questions, and offer assistance. Some customers were surprised to hear from me. Others were skeptical.

I understood why. People don't always expect a government worker to call simply to help move their case forward.

The additional time also allowed me to support colleagues and study policy more closely.

Before long, I developed a quiet reputation for completing cases quickly.

I found that amusing. I wasn't trying to be exceptional. I was trying to complete accurate cases and make the work more manageable.

Somewhere in those early experiences, I was discovering that efficiency wasn't simply about speed. Done thoughtfully, it could create more room for service.

When a Better Way Raises Questions

Not everyone viewed my results with the same enthusiasm.

My supervisors began examining my work closely. My determinations were questioned, my cases scrutinized, and my decisions challenged. The questioning continued for months.

I was young, confident, and probably not always as diplomatic as I could have been. But I understood the importance of supporting my decisions.

I also understood the stakes.

I couldn't afford to be careless with my work, and I couldn't afford to lose the employment security I had worked to establish for my family.

So I responded in the way I knew how.

With policy.

I began including policy citations to support virtually every entry and determination. Not just a few entries. Every entry. Across roughly twenty cases.

Looking back, I can laugh at the sheer determination of that response.

At the time, I wanted my reasoning to be unmistakable. If someone questioned a decision, the authority supporting it was already documented.

I never offered a grand explanation for why I had begun documenting everything so extensively. And I never received a full explanation for why the scrutiny continued after others had stopped questioning my work.

Eventually, it subsided.

Years later, I can appreciate that supervisors had responsibilities of their own. Accuracy mattered. Proper eligibility determinations mattered. Oversight was necessary.

But the experience also taught me that strong performance can create discomfort when it looks different from what an organization is accustomed to seeing.

More importantly, I learned that confidence was not enough.

I needed to understand the rules, apply them correctly, and be able to explain my decisions.

The Policy Was There All Along

As I continued studying the program, I made a discovery that stayed with me.

The written policy directed us to act as soon as possible once the necessary information was available to make a determination.

The outcome I had been working toward was supported by the governing policy.

That discovery reinforced a distinction I would carry throughout my career: knowing how something had always been done was not the same as knowing what was required.

An established process might serve a useful purpose. But it could also outlive the circumstances that created it or be applied more rigidly than intended.

Questioning such a practice didn't have to mean rejecting authority. Sometimes it meant understanding the authority more completely.

The People Who Helped Me Find My Wings

There's another part of this story that matters just as much as the scrutiny.

Over time, some of those same supervisors became among my strongest supporters.

We came from different generations, with different expectations about how work was done and how people learned. Not every exchange was gentle, and not every lesson was comfortable. But somewhere between their experience and my determination, we developed something that lasted well beyond those early disagreements.

The women who had challenged my work also taught me, invested in my development, and helped me grow. I came to think of them affectionately as my Auntie Supervisors.

Their influence extended well beyond those early experiences.

Years later, I had an opportunity to advance my career outside the agency. By then, I had already earned promotions, established myself professionally, and had been encouraged to consider further opportunities within the organization.

Staying offered familiarity, security, and the prospect of continued advancement.

Leaving meant stepping into something less certain.

I hesitated.

But my Auntie Supervisors didn't.

They encouraged me to go.

Their advice was different from what I was hearing from others who held more senior positions. Those leaders saw opportunities for me to continue growing within the agency. My Auntie Supervisors believed I was ready to grow beyond it.

What made their encouragement meaningful wasn't their position in the organizational hierarchy.

It was that I knew them.

They had challenged me, taught me, watched me develop, and supported me through years of professional growth. I trusted their judgment because I trusted the relationship we had built.

They weren't simply encouraging me to accept another job. They were helping me recognize that the security I had worked so hard to establish did not have to become the boundary of my ambition.

Looking back, I recognize another important lesson in that moment.

Authority may come with a title, but influence is earned through trust.

Sometimes the people who help us grow are also the ones willing to encourage us to move beyond them.

And sometimes leadership means recognizing when someone is ready to fly, even when it means watching them leave.

The Lessons I Didn't Know I Was Collecting

Looking back, I can see how much of my leadership philosophy began taking shape before I ever held a leadership title.

My private-sector experience taught me to look for opportunities to improve the work.

Public service taught me to distinguish between established practices and actual requirements.

The customers reminded me that administrative processes have consequences for real people, whose time and circumstances deserve consideration.

The scrutiny of my work taught me to ground my confidence in knowledge and evidence.

And the supervisors who eventually encouraged me to advance taught me that leadership can include challenging people, recognizing their growth, and knowing when to help them move forward.

None of these lessons arrived neatly packaged.

I didn't recognize them as the foundation of a leadership philosophy. I was working, raising children, maintaining a home, and trying to make responsible decisions.

But I was paying attention.

Leadership doesn't always announce itself through a promotion, a position, or a defining moment. Sometimes it develops quietly, through the questions we ask, the responsibilities we carry, and the experiences we take the time to understand.

I would eventually lead teams, develop programs, navigate complex systems, and help organizations rethink how they serve people.

But those experiences didn't create my curiosity, determination, or sense of responsibility.

They gave those qualities new places to grow.

Before the Title

If I could speak to the woman I was then, I wouldn't tell her that every difficult experience was necessary.

Some challenges were simply difficult. Some conflicts consumed more energy than they deserved.

I would remind her that she was stubborn, sometimes to her own disadvantage. I would tell her to trust herself more, to keep learning, remain curious, and to remember that she didn't have to attend every fight.

I would also tell her that the home she was building, the children she was raising, and the responsibilities she carried were already teaching her things no leadership course could fully explain.

She couldn't see the career ahead.

She didn't know how often she would draw upon the lessons she was quietly collecting.

She was simply trying to do good work and build a stable life for her family.

And perhaps that's what I understand most clearly now.

Before there was a leader to become, there was a life worth protecting.

The leadership title came later.

The lessons had already begun.