What Kind of Leader Are You When Times Get Tough?

Reflections from Days 2 & 3 in Durban

As Days 2 and 3 of the Lead with Humanity Leadership Programme unfolded, one question echoed through every encounter, every conversation, and every dusty road in the townships of Durban.

What kind of leader are you when times get tough?

It’s a question we rarely ask ourselves in the comfort of routine. But here, in communities where resilience is woven into daily life, the answer becomes impossible to ignore.

Today, as we prepare to leave the townships and head toward the next stage of our journey, one lesson rises above all others, leadership shouldn’t shift with circumstance. Who you are in the good times should be who you remain in the hard times.

⮕ Authenticity.
⮕ Presence.
⮕ Connection.

These aren’t luxuries reserved for when the calendar is clear and the pressure is light. They are the foundations that hold a team, a community, or even a family steady when uncertainty hits.

Across Durban’s townships, I was humbled to meet leaders with no formal training, no corporate frameworks, no carefully crafted development plans, yet they lead with an intensity of purpose many organisations spend years trying to cultivate. They lead with heart. With vision. With a fierce commitment to their values, even when compromise would be easier, quicker, or more comfortable.

Their leadership isn’t transactional, it isn’t performative, it is human. And that humanity creates followership not through force, but through meaning.

Standing in these communities, I was reminded that leadership has very little to do with title or tenure. It is about who you choose to be when it matters most, when the road bends, when uncertainty rises, when the stakes feel personal.

It is in these moments that our true leadership style is revealed… or redefined.

As I carry these reflections forward, I can feel the edges of my own comfort zone shifting, a reminder that growth rarely happens in familiar territory. And perhaps that is the point. The challenges that stretch us are the ones that shape us.

Now, we move on to the next adventure 🐘, a new place, new lessons, new discomforts waiting to teach us something we didn’t know we needed.

But I leave the townships with this truth firmly anchored, true leadership isn’t about title, it’s about who you are when it matters most.