Most mornings I catch myself doing the same quiet, useless thing. I wonder what someone thought of a meeting I ran, or whether a comment I made landed the way I meant it. It is a small habit, but it eats a surprising amount of energy. I am guilty of this, and I know it is easy to say the opposite is better, but I keep coming back to the same old truth. Actions speak louder than words.
I do not think you can simply switch that worry off, and I am not sure you should. We are social creatures, and there is a healthy version of caring what people think. It is called conforming, and a certain amount of it is how any of us fit into a team, a family or a society at all. The trouble starts when the worrying becomes the whole job, when managing the impression quietly replaces doing the work.
Stop rehearsing how things look and become the thing instead. If you want a kinder, cleaner or more attentive world, lean hard toward it in your own small corner. Repeated action, not announcement, is how you tip the momentum your way.
The Yin and Yang of caring
There is a Yin and Yang shape to almost everything I look at now. Too much of anything, even a good thing, tips over into harm. Too much caution and you never move. Too much boldness and you break things that did not need breaking. So the honest question is not whether to care what people think. It is where the boundary sits, and what you do when you reach it.
My answer, more and more, is that on this particular topic you should push through. Lean hard toward the thing you actually want to see, hit the boundary, and trust that a correction will come. The world has a way of pulling you back toward the middle, so you rarely have to worry about overshooting for long. What you do have to worry about is never leaning at all.
The risk is almost never that we lean too far toward kindness. The risk is that we never lean at all, because we are too busy wondering how it looks.
Too kind for a day
Imagine a world where everyone was too kind for a single day. Too generous, too patient, too willing to listen. It sounds absurd, and of course it would need a correction by evening. But sit with the picture for a second. That is not a disaster. That is the kind of overshoot we could use a great deal more of, and it costs almost nothing to try.
You can drag or tip the momentum of the world your way, even in a small way. Not by announcing it, not by posting about it, but by being the thing. I have learnt, slowly and often the hard way, that if you really want something you can usually have it, provided you are willing to become the source of it rather than the audience for it. If you wish the world were cleaner, be cleaner. If you wish it were happier, be happier. If you wish it were kinder, be kinder. If you wish people listened more, listen more. Be the change.
How this shapes the way I lead
I try to lead this way on purpose. When I advise a founder or a leader, or a team, I do not want to sell them a version of me that performs well in the room and disappears afterwards. I would rather do the small, unglamorous thing consistently than say the impressive thing once. That is also why I care so much about how ideas get made and shared, which is the whole reason I built our approach to podcasting the way I did. A podcast is a promise you keep on a schedule, and keeping it is the leadership, not the launch.
The same principle runs through how I think about process. It is easy to admire people who talk beautifully about culture and values. It is much rarer, and much more useful, to watch what actually survives a busy week. When the calendar is full and everyone is tired, the real values are the behaviours that still happen. Everything else was decoration. If you want to know what a team truly believes, do not read the wall poster. Watch the last hour of a hard Friday.
Advisory and delivery, one system
This is where advisory and delivery have to meet. I can help you see the boundary and decide where to lean, but a decision that never becomes a repeated action is just another nice thing said in a meeting. So I keep strategy and delivery joined up. I do the thinking with you, and my team at TIM Africa does the building, so the change we agreed on actually shows up in the work week after week rather than fading once the enthusiasm does.
None of this is complicated, and that is rather the point. Leadership, at least the kind I trust, is not a clever position you argue for. It is the quiet decision to become, in your own small corner, the thing you keep hoping other people will be. You will not fix the whole world by Friday. But you can tip it, a little, in the direction you want, and that small lean is worth far more than another day spent wondering what people think of you. So stop rehearsing the words. Be the change.
Questions people ask
Is it wrong to care what people think of me?
No. A healthy amount of caring is how we fit into teams and society. The problem starts when managing the impression quietly replaces doing the work.
What does "be the change" actually mean in practice?
It means becoming the source of the thing you want rather than the audience for it. If you wish the world were kinder, be kinder. Lean hard toward it through repeated action, not announcements.
Isn't leaning too hard in one direction risky?
On this topic the world tends to pull you back toward the middle, so overshooting rarely lasts. The far bigger risk is never leaning at all because you are too busy wondering how it looks.
How do you keep a change from fading after the meeting?
By joining strategy to delivery. A decision that never becomes a repeated action is just a nice thing said once. I do the thinking with you and my team at TIM Africa does the building so the change keeps showing up.
Decide where to lean, then make it repeatable.
Strategy from me, delivery from my team at TIM Africa.