The Leadership Lesson I Learned at 2:17 A.M.
I used to think leadership meant rising above the mess of ordinary life.
Essay written by Hannah Howard
Last night, my four-year-old Julius woke up with a barking cough.
I went into his room in the dark and did the things mothers do. I gave him water. I gave him a chewable children’s Tylenol. I curled my body around his small, hot one and sang “You Are My Sunshine” in the half-whisper I use when I’m trying to keep the whole house asleep.
Meanwhile, my brain was doing math.
The next day was supposed to be my first real workday after vacation. It was supposed to be his first day at a new camp. We had already packed a lunch featuring turkey pepperoni, as per his request, and set out his favorite hot dog T-shirt. I had imagined a glorious productivity sprint: inbox, client work, edits, strategy, maybe even the kind of deep thinking that requires an actual uninterrupted thought.
Instead, at 2:17 a.m., I was Tetrissing my calendar. Could my husband take a morning shift? Could I move the call? Could I work during Bluey? How sick was too sick for camp? What kind of cough were we dealing with? How many hours of sleep could I lose and still be a decent mother, writer, editor, colleague, human?
Once upon a time, I thought leadership meant being exceptional. I pictured achievement. Recognition. A woman in a beautiful blazer walking onto a stage with great hair, a Steve Jobs mic, and impeccable boundaries. I thought leadership meant rising above the mess of ordinary life.
Now I think leadership means tending to what has been entrusted to you. Children. Communities. Ideas. Friendships. Teams. Drafts. Clients. The small rituals that help people feel safe enough to grow.
Motherhood has changed my understanding of leadership more than any job title ever could. It has taught me to make decisions with incomplete information. To stay steady while someone else melts down. To adjust, and adjust again. To think in both the next five minutes and the next five years. To care deeply without believing I can control the outcome.
That last part might be the hardest and most useful lesson of all.
In my work, I see this everywhere now. At ParentCo., the website I edit, leadership means helping overwhelmed parents feel less alone and more equipped for the day in front of them. In Write Up, my community for writers, it means creating a space where writers can be ambitious, vulnerable, practical, and human at the same time. In friendships, it means showing up with honesty, encouragement, and sometimes dinner. In my own creative life, it means protecting the work long enough for it to become what it wants to become. It means learning to be nicer to myself at 2 PM at 2:17 AM when my half asleep brain is churning with worries from the existential to the totally banal.
None of this feels separate from mothering. It all comes from the same place.
Care is a form of intelligence. Consistency is a form of vision. Stewardship is a form of power.
Yielding to what’s in front of us—and changing plans to make it work—is leadership, too. Our task is to meet what is in front of us, not what we expected it would be. And the truth is, the day ahead is not yet known.
I still want the big stages. I still want the books, the rooms, the conversations, the work that reaches people. Ambition is very much alive in me. But it has been reshaped by all these nights and mornings, by the packed lunches and fevers and deadlines, by the communities I am helping to build and the people I am lucky enough to love.
At 25, I wanted to be impressive.
At 39, I want to be trustworthy.
Today, I know that leadership is also about relationships. To lead means to care for other people. To be in charge of other people means relinquishing the myth of heroic individualism.
The idea that all of my time is luxuriously my own? That’s only true if I’m truly alone.
I want to be someone who can hold things with care. Someone who builds places where people feel braver and less alone. Someone who keeps singing in the dark while also quietly, stubbornly, reimagining the whole day ahead.
That feels more like leadership than ever.
— Hannah
Tell me in the comments:
What have you learned about leadership through your relationships and care for other people? What do you think modern leadership myths get wrong?
This year, I asked one of our WWC members if she would write about her experience inside of The Wise Women’s Council, my ongoing group coaching program. Previously, she wrote about changing her relationship to rest, slowing down to be present to her own life, and the dangerous trap of comparative joy. This month, we’re digging into our core values and how they help us make decisions about the way we show up to our lives. If you’re looking for a group coaching program for women, check out The Wise Women’s Council and apply to join.
— Sarah K Peck
Hannah Howard is the author of the memoirs Feast: True Love in and out of the Kitchen and Plenty: A Memoir of Food and Family. She writes for Food & Wine, Travel + Leisure, and Bon Appetit. Hannah lives in Chicago with her family and loves stinky cheese. Subscribe to her Substack, Letters from Hannah. She is also a member of The Wise Women’s Council.
