Learning Leadership from Those Around You in Rapid Growth

Created by Sarah Choi (prompt writer using ChatGPT)

Rapid growth turns every hallway, call, and handoff into a live classroom. You do not have to wait for a course or a keynote to learn leadership; you can study it in motion, taught by the people you already work with. Coworkers and bosses display strengths in different ways—calm facilitation, crisp decision‑making, de‑escalation, clear writing, humane boundary‑setting, thoughtful handoffs—and each of these is a learnable move. The gift of a surge is that the lessons are plentiful and immediate, and the tuition is free. If you look closely, you can learn leadership twenty‑four hours a day from the people around you, often more usefully than you could from distant experts.

Begin by accepting a simple truth: everyone leads somewhere. The new hire who writes reproduction steps no one else could tease out leads by clarity. The support specialist who soothes a heated thread leads by tone. The project manager who limits work‑in‑progress leads by protecting focus. The VP who admits a miss and names the fix leads by humility and accountability. When you look for leadership in these forms, you start noticing it everywhere: in the subject lines that lower stress, in the one‑minute summaries that organize a room, and in the small but firm “not yet” that keeps quality intact.

Learning from those around you starts with naming what you value fiercely. After a meeting or thread lands well, take a minute to ask what, exactly, worked. Instead of saying “they’re great,” write a short description you can reuse: “She began the meeting by stating purpose and the decision we needed, then gave two options with trade‑offs, invited objections, and ended with owners and dates.” When you convert admiration into language—clear, behavioral, and specific—you build a shelf of patterns that travel. These descriptions belong to your personal Operator’s Compendium or a simple “Leadership Ledger” you keep close at hand.

Adopt one or two aspects at a time and keep them small. Leadership habits stick when you shrink them to actions you can do under load. If you admire a teammate’s calm, you can begin by pausing for one breath and restating the question before you answer. If you admire a manager’s decisiveness, you can commit to naming a decider at the start of a discussion and logging the decision with a review date. If you admire a peer’s writing, you can start your own updates with a one‑sentence headline followed by three short lines: what changed, why it matters, and what happens next. These are modest, actionable moves that you can practice today without becoming someone you are not.

As you adopt strengths from others, let yourself lean on their strengths while they lean on yours. Rapid growth rewards reciprocal leadership. If a colleague excels at de‑escalating customers, invite them to draft the first reply on a tense thread while you take point on the follow‑up plan. If your boss is a strong prioritizer, ask to pressure‑test your weekly list while you offer to run the next cross‑team unblock call. This mutual reliance turns a collection of individuals into a team with interlocking strengths. Nobody has to carry all styles; together you have enough for the pace you live at.

Treat your workplace as a continuous, portable leadership school. You can shadow without ceremony: sit in on a peer’s customer call, watch how they open and close, and note the words that moved the conversation forward. You can ask simple, generous questions: “When things get tense, what do you pay attention to first?” or “What was your thinking behind how you framed that?” Most people teach gladly when you honor their craft. Attribute what you borrow so your learning strengthens relationships rather than quietly copying. A line as short as “I tried your ‘two options with trade‑offs’ approach today and it unblocked us—thank you” tells the truth and deepens trust.

Create a tiny system so what you learn becomes usable later. A Leadership Ledger can be a plain document you update in spare minutes. Each entry can name the person you learned from, the quality they showed, the context where it worked, the exact words or sequence you plan to try, the smallest test you will run, and a date to review what happened. Over time, your ledger becomes a map of moves that fit your organization’s pace, your role, and your values. It keeps you oriented when external advice is too slow or too general for your reality.

Remember that leadership is a moving practice, not a static state. Your style will evolve as your responsibilities change and as the organization surges and settles. What you borrow today may not fit next quarter, and that is fine. The aim is not to harden into a new shape but to become more yourself under changing conditions. Learning from those around you is part of that evolution: your edges soften, your range widens, and you gain stances you can take at speed without compromising who you are.

Give thanks as you learn. Most people are underappreciated and unaware of their leadership strengths until someone names them. Offer praise that is specific, timely, and public when appropriate. You might say, “When you opened the meeting by naming the decision and time box, it lowered the temperature and helped us finish on time. I’m adopting that.” You might send a short note the next morning, or start a meeting with a “leadership spotlight” that credits a coworker for a move others can reuse. Gratitude is not decoration; it is a force that multiplies good patterns.

If you prefer a simple rhythm for the week, choose three people to observe, write what you admire in two sentences after each interaction, adopt one micro‑move from one of them for five days, and thank them by the end of the week for what you learned. In the following week, repeat with different people and a fresh move. This slow braid of observation, adoption, and appreciation builds your leadership muscle without adding weight to your calendar.

The beauty of this approach is its cost: it is almost free. Your coworkers and bosses are already demonstrating leadership at your exact stage and constraint set. Their examples come stamped with the realities you share—your users, your tools, your handoffs, your hours. By watching closely, naming clearly, trying small, and thanking generously, you get a twenty‑four‑hour apprenticeship inside your own organization. In a season of rapid growth, that is the rarest thing: learning that moves at your speed and serves your people right now.

In the end, strengthening your leadership through the people around you is an act of respect—toward them and toward yourself. You are not waiting for someone distant to grant you a playbook. You are letting the everyday brilliance in your circle teach you, and you are returning that gift by naming it, using it, and giving credit. That is how leadership spreads in a surge: person to person, move by move, with gratitude in the mix and integrity at the center.