Three Lessons from Three Leaders Who Shaped My Career

Some people measure their career in titles and company names. I measure mine in people — the leaders who shaped how I work, how I lead, and how I show up for my team.

Here are the three biggest lessons I’ve learned, each from a manager I’ll never forget.

Lesson 1: A Manager’s Success Lies in Their Team’s Success

I’ll never forget my first “big-girl pants” job. It came after a soul-crushing job hunt on the heels of the last financial crisis — months of rejection that saw me turned down more times than I care to count. Forget the glossy LinkedIn boast posts of graduates leaping straight into dream jobs at FAANG. Mine was an admin role organising domestic and international freight for mining and concrete materials.

It wasn’t glamorous. But it was full-time. It paid cash. And for a broke grad with a plan to zig-zag across the USA in nine months, it was gold.

This is where I met Ruth — my first manager. She had wild curly hair, a wicked sense of humour, and a way of moving seamlessly between high-level strategy with senior leaders and easy banter with truck drivers. She was always in demand, sometimes with a literal queue of people waiting for her input.

But no matter how busy she was, she always made time for me. If I had a problem, she’d drop what she was doing and say: “OK, let’s figure this out.” I never felt like I was wasting her time. She made me feel important — like I mattered.

From Ruth I learned that a manager’s real success is measured in their team’s success. And that comes from showing up, being present, and backing your people every single time.

Lesson 2: Calm Creates Trust, and Trust Creates Safety

Actual Footage: my wallet upon returning to Aus

After my USA road trip (and the inevitable return to being utterly broke), I landed in a very different kind of workplace — a small, family-owned pest control business on Brisbane’s south side. This was during a time when flexibility and remote work were still rare perks, not standard expectations. That’s where I met Rob.

It was the first time I’d been truly happy at work. I had autonomy, trust, and the chance to work on something big: building an app to guide pest controllers through termite inspections and automatically generate compliant reports. This was in 2016, just as Australian Standards for termite reporting had been beefed up, and Rob wanted to take away the guesswork entirely.

That app — Repora — is still the best of its kind in Australia. But Rob’s greatest impact on me wasn’t the product — it was his composure in the face of chaos. And there was a lot of chaos. Machines broke, customers cancelled at the last minute, schedules clashed, Google’s algorithm updates tanked our site ranking — you name it, we dealt with it.

And Rob never lost his cool. He’d pause, take one deep breathe, and say: “OK.”  That calm became contagious. It made me feel safe to be honest, even when the news wasn’t good. And that psychological safety meant problems got solved faster and with less drama.

From Rob I learned that calm is a leadership superpower. It builds trust, creates space for honesty, and turns chaos into something you can tackle together.

Lesson 3: Trust Flows from Transparency

Helping Rob build Repora showed me I was capable of more — and I wanted more. By then, the tech and product space was booming, and I was hungry to be part of it. That’s when I landed a role with Ivan, the best boss I’ve ever had.

Ivan had built a stellar team of product owners, and he led with radical transparency. He didn’t dodge difficult conversations; he faced them with honesty and empathy. And when problems needed escalating, they didn’t just vanish into a black hole — they got resolved.

It made me trust him implicitly. I knew that even when things were tough, I’d get the truth — and that my own honesty would be valued in return.

From Ivan I learned that trust doesn’t happen by accident. It’s built through transparency, consistency, and a willingness to have the conversations others avoid.

The Common Thread

Ruth taught me that your success is tied to your team’s success. Rob taught me that calm creates trust and safety. Ivan taught me that trust flows from transparency.

Different lessons, but one truth: it’s the people who make the job. When you work with leaders you trust — and who trust you — even the hardest challenges feel surmountable. And that’s the kind of leader I strive to be.