Most mornings, I reach for the same thing: a black t-shirt and a pair of khakis. It’s not about style and it’s not about trying to make a statement. It’s just simple. It’s predictable. It’s one less decision I have to make before the day begins.
Somewhere along the way, I realised that’s how I lead too. Not flashy. Not complicated. Just grounded in the belief that leadership, at its best, is about showing up with clarity, consistency, and purpose day after day, and creating space for others to thrive.
I didn’t set out to become a CEO. I started my career as an engineer, then moved into public service, and eventually found myself leading organizations dedicated to helping people build better lives. Across all those chapters, from negotiating trade in Seoul to guiding national charities through seasons of change, the lessons have been humbling, surprising, and hard-won. And the older I get, the more I see how those lessons circle back to a few simple truths.
Simple isn’t the same as easy
I’ve spent enough time in boardrooms and strategy sessions to know how easy it is to complicate things. We build plans, chase big goals, and pile on layers of process. Yet clarity, true clarity, is what drives teams forward.
I’ve learned that if I can’t explain something clearly to the people around me, then I probably don’t understand it well enough myself. My job isn’t to impress people with complexity; it’s to give them the confidence that we know where we’re headed. Like a black t-shirt, leadership shouldn’t draw attention to itself. It should let the work, and the people, take centre stage.
Trust is built in the small things
I used to think leadership was about the big moments — the speeches, the major decisions, the public wins. Over time I’ve come to see that trust is built in the quiet, ordinary choices. It’s built when you follow through on the small promises. When you listen before you speak. When you show up the same way on a Tuesday morning as you did when the cameras were rolling.
I’ve been brought into more than one organization where the team was tired, trust was fractured, and people had learned to keep their heads down rather than speak up. Those moments are humbling because you can’t rebuild a team overnight, and you certainly can’t do it with a single speech. You rebuild trust one consistent action at a time. You do it by creating an environment where people feel safe enough to bring their ideas, their questions, even their disagreements. And you do it by showing them, again and again, that you mean what you say.
Consistency doesn’t mean never evolving; it means staying rooted in your values, beliefs, and character while you do.
The hardest part: leaning into discomfort
If I’m honest, this is the lesson I’ve had to learn repeatedly. I don’t like conflict. I never have (just ask my family). My instinct is to smooth the edges, find the compromise, and keep the peace. For a long time, I believed that was a strength and in many ways it is. Yet I’ve also discovered that if you’re too committed to avoiding discomfort, you’ll never grow, and neither will the people you lead.
Rebuilding teams has taught me this more than anything else. It’s easy to talk about trust and culture in theory; it’s much harder when you’re sitting across from someone who is deeply frustrated, or when long-standing patterns need to change, or when the honest conversation you’ve been avoiding can’t wait any longer. I’ve lost sleep over those moments. I’ve second-guessed myself. And still, those are the moments that have shaped me most.
Leadership isn’t about eliminating conflict; it’s about leaning into it with humility and purpose. The goal isn’t to win an argument. It’s to listen deeply, seek understanding, and build something stronger on the other side. Healthy teams aren’t built by avoiding tension; they’re built by learning how to navigate it well, and helping others do the same.
Leadership doesn’t stop at the office door
One of the things I’ve discovered is that leadership isn’t a job you clock out of at 5:00. It’s a way of showing up in the world. For me, that’s meant spending my vacation time hiking the Pacific Crest Trail, not only because I love the wilderness and the challenge, but because it’s one more way to live out what I believe in. Over the past three years, those miles have become part of Walking People Out of Poverty, raising funds and awareness for the work Opportunity International Canada is doing around the world.
It’s humbling to realise that something as simple as putting one foot in front of the other can change lives on the other side of the world. That’s leadership too: doing what you can, with what you have, and trusting that small steps add up.
I don’t have all the answers. In fact, the longer I lead, the more I realize how much I still have to learn. Yet if there’s one thing this black t and khakis life has taught me, it’s this: leadership isn’t about being impressive. It’s about being real. It’s about showing up with clarity, staying grounded in your values, creating space for others, and walking toward the hard things instead of around them.
And maybe it’s about remembering that the simplest things, the ones we reach for every day without thinking, often reveal the truest things about who we are.