Reflections on Connection-Centered Leadership - Issue No. 9: The Quiet Work Before the Summit

Photo Credit: Melissa Swonger; Pictured: Darin, Grace, and Ella Swonger; 2023

Last week I wrote about learning to walk again. Not metaphorically. Literally and emotionally.

There are seasons in life when the work is not about climbing mountains. The work is about taking the next step without collapsing under the weight of everything that came before.

When trauma fractures a life, healing does not begin with bold leaps. It begins with very small steps. One step. Then another. Then another.

What I have learned since then is something most people do not talk about. No one applauds the early steps.

People celebrate summits. They celebrate breakthroughs and victories. They celebrate the moment someone reaches the top of a mountain. But the real work happens long before that moment.

It happens when no one is watching. Well, often people are watching or at least know. But there is a reservation as they wait to see whether you will rise or fall. It happens in quiet decisions to keep going. It happens in choosing honesty over avoidance. It happens in learning to sit with pain without letting it define the future. And here is where the pivot is. We all have moments when we have to decide whether to go for vertical and internal validation over external validation.

The road is hard. Those early steps rarely feel heroic. Most of the time, they feel slow and uncertain. Sometimes they feel invisible. There are always moments when we think we’ve outshot our coverage, and we wonder if we heard God’s whispers correctly.

And that is where many people give up.

Not because they lack courage. Not because they lack strength. But because the progress is quiet and the climb feels endless. Many times it is also lonely. The quiet consistency of showing up. Just to God. Just to yourself. This is where the path to victory is forged.

The truth is that summits are built on thousands of unseen steps. Every mountain summit begins with walking up the base.

Over time, I began to see something else. The people who do the quiet work become different kinds of leaders. They lead with more awareness. They lead with more compassion. They recognize that every person around them is carrying a climb of their own. They recognize that there will be failures and setbacks along the way and have learned that they are part of the climb to the peak. We celebrate those, too!

Transformation rarely arrives in a dramatic moment. It unfolds through a process.

Awareness comes first. We begin to see what is true. Connection follows. We reconnect to God, ourselves, to others, and to the purpose that gives our lives direction. Then the movement begins. Step by step, something new is built because we are no longer who we once were.

The summit may still be far away, but the climb has already begun.

So here is a quiet question for today.

Where in your life are you still learning to walk?

And what mountain might be forming one unseen step at a time?

All my best as we summit together,                                                                   — Melissa, Architect of Connection-Centered Leadership The Sage Hill Project

Let's Celebrate: We invite YOU to share who is radically kind in your area. These are little actions that consistently create space for others with dignity, restraint, and patience. It can also be profound moments when someone walks in when the rest of the world walks out. Any way that you have observed someone else being radically kind, share it via email, DM, or "Get in Touch!" on our website, and we will recognize them on the wall. Texts (quotes when applicable; shortened when necessary) or pictures that are sent will be on "Laura's Page." We're building a different kind of Wall of Fame, one for the world changers.