5 Lessons From 10 Years of Leading for the Greater Good
This year marks ten years of Newday, a milestone that has prompted me to reflect on a question that has been at the heart of our work from the beginning: What does it really mean to lead for the greater good?
Over the past decade, I’ve had the privilege of learning alongside hundreds of remarkable leaders, changemakers and people committed to creating positive impact. More recently, when I was invited to speak to 300 leaders and team members around their theme, All Kinds of Good, it felt like the right time to explore that question more deeply.
So, I went back to members of the Newday speaker alumni and asked them what leadership for the greater good meant to them. Their answers were different, but the themes beneath them were remarkably consistent. People spoke about impact, mattering, compassion, self-awareness, hope and taking responsibility for the part of the world we can influence. It reinforced something I have come to believe more strongly over the past ten years: leadership for the greater good is not reserved for people with impressive titles or enormous platforms. It is practised in the choices we make and the impact we have on others every day.
Here are five lessons I’m taking forward, and some simple ways you can put them into practice.
1. Measure your impact, not just your output
Dr Tom Nehmy, Clinical Psychologist and author of Inspired Life, Beautiful Death, captured one of the most important ideas in a single sentence: “Leadership for the greater good means realising that your life is not about you. It’s about your impact on others.”
Most of us are very good at measuring what we do. We count tasks completed, meetings attended, decisions made and goals achieved. But leadership invites another measure.
What happened to the people around us as we were getting all those things done?
Our impact is not limited to major decisions or formal leadership moments. It happens in the meeting where we encourage an idea or shut it down. The conversation where we listen or rush to the next task. The way we respond when someone makes a mistake. The energy we bring into a room. Whether we intend to or not, we leave something behind in our interactions with others.
Exercise: Try the leadership rewind
At the end of your day, mentally rewind three significant interactions and ask:
How did this person feel after being with me?
What did I strengthen in them?
What was my intention and did my impact match it?
This isn't about judging yourself. It is about becoming more conscious of your influence.
Over time, it may also shift the way you define a productive day. Instead of only asking, What did I get done?, try asking: Who is better because I was here?
2. The power of being seen
Another powerful theme to emerge was the human need to feel seen, heard and valued.
When I asked Dr Zach Mercurio, researcher, author and expert on mattering, what leadership for the greater good means to him, he described it as creating the conditions in which people feel worthy and capable of contributing to something greater than themselves. Madhavi Nawana Parker, CEO of Positive Minds Australia, author and speaker, similarly spoke about the importance of seeing, hearing and valuing every individual.
The idea of being seen has particular meaning for me. My own life was profoundly shaped by people, particularly my parents. They saw possibility before I could see it myself. It taught me something I have carried throughout my life: what we choose to notice in people can influence what they begin to see in themselves.
Leadership doesn't mean ignoring problems, poor performance or areas for improvement. But if our attention is constantly drawn to what is missing or wrong, we can overlook the strengths that give people something to build from.
Experiment: Look for what is strong
Choose one person you lead, work with or live with. For the next week, deliberately look for what is strong. What do they do naturally well? When do they come alive? What contribution might you have started taking for granted? What potential can you see that they may not yet recognise?
Then tell them.
Be specific. Rather than saying, “Great job,” explain what you noticed and why it mattered.
Sometimes one of the most powerful things we can do for another person is help them see something valuable in themselves.
3. Lead yourself before you lead the room
When we talk about leadership for the greater good, our attention naturally turns outwards. We think about our teams, customers, families, organisations and communities. But you are part of the greater good too. We cannot sustainably care for everyone around us while continually abandoning ourselves.
For me, this has meant learning to become friends with my nervous system and practising three simple steps:
Notice. Regulate. Respond. - Our internal state travels with us into every interaction. When we are stressed, threatened, exhausted or overwhelmed, we are more likely to react rather than respond. That can affect how we listen, communicate and make decisions. Self-leadership begins with noticing.
Practise the three-second check-in: Before your next difficult conversation, meeting or decision, stop for a moment and ask: What am I noticing in myself right now? You might notice tension, frustration, defensiveness, anxiety or simply tiredness.
Dig deeper: Then ask: What do I need to do to regulate myself before I respond? It might be one slower breath. A short walk. A glass of water. Taking a few seconds before answering. The goal isn't to eliminate emotion. It is to create enough space to choose what happens next. That small pause can change an entire conversation.
4. Create hope without pretending everything is okay
Hope is an important part of leadership, particularly when people are navigating uncertainty or change. But hope is not blind optimism. It isn't telling people everything will be fine when we don't know that it will be. Hope is helping people see that possibility still exists.
A leader can create hope by helping people identify a pathway forward, recognise progress that has been overlooked, reconnect with their strengths or understand how their contribution connects to something meaningful.
Sometimes it can be as simple as communicating: We can work through this together.
That message does not deny the difficulty. It reminds people they have agency within it.
Exercise: Ask a possibility question
When a team or conversation becomes stuck in the problem, try introducing a question that moves attention towards possibility: What can we influence from here?, What is one useful next step we can take? Or simply, What is possible?
Good leadership doesn't require us to have every answer. Sometimes our role is to help people believe there is still a way forward.
5. Look after your place
One philosophy that has stayed with me for many years comes from Dr Paul Callaghan, author, First National storyteller and former CEO. “Look after your place and all things in your place.” I keep coming back to the simplicity of those words.
Your place may be yourself. Your family. Your team. Your customers. Your organisation. Your community. Your environment. It is your sphere of influence.
When we look at the scale of the challenges facing our workplaces, communities and world, it is easy to feel overwhelmed. None of us can fix everything. But every one of us can take responsibility for our place.
Exercise: Map your sphere of influence
Take a piece of paper and write ME in the centre. Around it, write down the people, places and communities you influence, directly or indirectly. Your team might be there. Your family. Your clients. Your industry. Your neighbourhood. The places and environments you spend time in and have a responsibility to care for.
Then ask yourself: Where could I create a little more good?
Perhaps there is someone you need to check in on. A conversation you've been avoiding. A person whose contribution deserves recognition. A decision you could approach differently. Something in your community you could support. Or a small choice you could make to better care for the environment around you.
Don't start with everything that needs changing. Start with your place.
Small moments can create significant change
After ten years of Newday, perhaps this is what I am coming to understand most deeply. We often imagine leadership and impact at scale. We think about bold decisions, major initiatives and extraordinary acts of courage. But much of the good we create happens in moments nobody else will ever see. It happens when we ask rather than assume. When we listen. When we help someone recognise a strength they had forgotten. When we regulate ourselves before entering a difficult conversation. When we speak up when something isn't right. When we choose compassion. When we create hope. When someone leaves an interaction with us feeling a little more capable, valued or hopeful than they did before.
Perhaps that is how workplaces change. Perhaps it is how communities become stronger. Perhaps it is how we contribute to a better world. One interaction at a time.
Experiment: Your five-day greater good challenge
If you want to take these ideas beyond the page, try one practice each day this week:
Day 1 - Rewind: At the end of your day, reflect on three interactions and consider the impact you had.
Day 2 - See: Tell someone one specific strength you see in them and why it matters.
Day 3 - Regulate: Before a challenging interaction, notice your internal state and consciously regulate before responding.
Day 4 - Create hope: When you encounter a problem, ask, “What can we influence from here?”
Day 5 - Look after your place: Identify one small action you can take to make your sphere of influence a little better.
None of these actions is particularly grand. That's the point.
Leadership for the greater good isn't something we need to wait for an opportunity to practise. The opportunities are already around us. And perhaps the most useful question we can carry into each day is also the simplest: Who might be better because I was here?