It had been raining lightly all day in Franschhoek. A gentle winter drizzle softened the mountains and blurred the vineyards into muted shades of grey and green. A small group of industry colleagues had gathered for an informal day of conversation, wine tasting and viewing beautifully vintage cars. There were no presentations, keynote addresses or formal agendas. It was simply an opportunity to reconnect, exchange ideas and enjoy one another’s company away from the demands of our respective institutions.
The gathering concluded early that afternoon, and everyone dispersed to their hotels or evening plans. Later that evening, before we each travelled back to our own provinces, one colleague and I met for supper. We found a quiet restaurant, ordered steak and a cold beverage, and continued the conversations the day had begun. Without an audience or programme to follow, the discussion became more reflective. We spoke about leadership, its responsibilities, its contradictions and the burdens that seldom appear in annual reports or strategic plans.
Then my colleague asked a question that has remained with me ever since.
“Have you ever wondered what people say about you when you’re not in the room?”
The question lingered in the silence between us.
Leadership prepares us for criticism. It teaches us that decisions will be questioned and outcomes debated. It does not prepare us for the quiet pain of knowing that people often construct our character from moments they have never lived. We assign motives to decisions whose weight we have never carried. We judge sacrifices we have never had to make. In one another’s absence, we quietly dismantle a person’s character without ever understanding the burdens that shaped the choices we so readily condemn.
This is one of leadership’s loneliest realities.
Every leader lives with two identities. One enters the room, contributes, decides and leaves. The other remains behind, shaped by whispered conversations, assumptions and interpretations over which you have no control. That unseen identity often influences trust, credibility and reputation more than anything said during the meeting itself.
There is another sadness to this reality that belongs to South Africa.
We inherited more than a divided history. We did not emerge from our divided past knowing how to see one another without suspicion. Too often, we still carry invisible batons, not to wound one another physically, but to chip away at one another’s character through whispered judgments and assumed motives. Sometimes prejudice still follows the colour of one’s skin, and still supplies an easy explanation for who belongs, who is competent and whose authority must be tested. Yet not every act of diminishment belongs neatly at the door of race. Some come from insecurity, rivalry or the fear that another person’s presence reduces our own. The sources differ, but the effect is familiar: we reach for a chisel and take a little from one another.
It is tempting to dismiss this as gossip, an unpleasant but harmless feature of organisational life. It is not harmless. Institutions depend on honest information, disagreement voiced where it can be answered and trust that candour will not be punished in corridors later. Once the real conversation moves outside the meeting, the meeting becomes theatre. People nod, record decisions and save what they think for a smaller audience after someone has gone.
The answer is not a demand that every private thought be spoken aloud. Courtesy sometimes requires restraint, and leadership does not entitle anyone to hear every opinion held about them. The more important test is whether we would be willing to own our words in the presence of the person whose character they describe. If not, the conversation may be serving something other than truth.
Leadership offers no reliable way to control the person one becomes in other people’s stories. Chasing every whisper leaves no time for the work, while defending every misunderstood intention turns leadership into self-protection. One can only make decisions that remain recognisable without applause and refuse the easy intimacy created by diminishing someone who is not there.