Post by Tania Correia Assunção

On my way to vacation this morning, I noticed a man in the TSA line having a panic attack. He was minutes away from missing his flight, but something was keeping him from doing what he needed to do: ask for help. I approached him. He told me about the flight. So I told him he could move past us and ask others in line to let him through. He thanked me, but his body stayed frozen. He couldn’t ask the next person. Couldn’t ask the one after that. So I did something different. I turned to the entire line and said, out loud, that this man needed to move forward, and asked if everyone was okay with that. They said yes. And something shifted. What struck me wasn’t that he got on his plane. It was what happened in that moment: the people around him weren’t judging him anymore. They were witnessing him. And he was no longer carrying that alone. Watching my kids watch me do that, I thought about something from “Evan Almighty”- the moment Morgan Freeman tells Noah’s wife that God doesn’t work through miracles. He gives us opportunities to become who we want to be. Self-leadership isn’t just about managing yourself. It’s about recognizing suffering in someone else and having the grounded sense of self to respond. It’s noticing when someone needs permission to ask, and sometimes giving them that permission out loud, so everyone can hear. It’s leading in a way that makes space for others to do the same. That’s the kind of leader I want my kids to become. That’s the kind I’m still learning to be. Now, let vacation begin. #leadership #vacationmode

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