The Energy We Waste Hiding Gaps

Have you ever needed a child to guide you through what you were supposed to already know how to do?

On a family vacation, I was driving through unfamiliar roads, and my old struggle showed up again, the one I have carried since I was young. I have spatial orientation difficulty, so left and right do not register instantly the way they seem to for most people. Oddly, I have  a nose for navigation and can drive quite confidently, except under the pressure, the two directions blur into each other.

My sons know about this handicap and support me by simply saying "my turn" and "your turn" instead of saying left or right.  This simple hack has helped me drive the family across the USA in their younger days, rather than struggle alone. When did you last let anyone see the exact spot where you struggle, instead of quietly working around it?

Sitting in that car, listening to my son calmly say "your turn" at every junction, I realised how much energy we  spent protecting ourselves  from seeing our imperfections.  And how unnecessary that effort can be because it saps us of so much joy. . My son  turned it into a system that worked without making me feel challenged. 

Are you solving problems privately that you could solve in seconds, if you allowed yourself to be vulnerable?

That drive taught me a leadership lesson no case study ever had. Self awareness for leaders rarely starts with big revelations. It starts with small acceptances , the ones we tend to guard the most, because they feel too minor and too personal to bring into a room. .

I thought about all the times at work I had done exactly what I did behind the wheel, working quietly around a gap instead of naming it. Reviewing a report twice before a meeting because I was not fully confident in one section. Asking a question in private that I should have asked out loud in the room. Each of these moments cost me energy, time and confusion, and a little distance from the people who could have simply helped if I had let them.

How fear has been quietly editing the version of yourself you show to the people closest to you?

The fear, when I looked closely, was familiar. A fear that competence and difficulty cannot exist in the same person at the same time. That admitting I have spatial orientation difficulty that undoes the years of decisions I have made well. It is a strange kind of arithmetic, and it does not hold up under any real scrutiny, yet it quietly runs in the background of so many capable people.

My sons never did any of that arithmetic. They saw that mom needed help , and they built a bridge to cross the gap, without judgment and without making it a bigger moment than it needed to be.

What would change in your leadership if the people around you knew exactly where you needed support, and simply gave it, the way my son did?

Authentic leadership is not about announcing every weakness in a meeting. It is about creating enough safety, in yourself first, that when a gap shows up, you can name it plainly instead of managing around it. 

This is what executive mindset coaching uncovers in leaders who look entirely put together from the outside, a long list of quiet workarounds, each one costing a small amount of trust, connection, or ease that could have gone better.

What would it feel like to simply say "I am not sure" and let anyone else's strength meet your gap, the way my son's did on that drive?

My spatial orientation difficulty has not changed. What has changed is how I hold it. I no longer treat it as how it  manages alone. On that vacation, "my turn, your turn" became more than a helpful trick for one drive. It became a clear reminder that authentic living and leadership is built exactly like that moment, one honest admission at a time, met by anyone willing to help carry it.

That freedom is available in far more places than a car full of family. It requires one honest question: where in your leadership are you still quietly navigating alone, when the people around you would gladly call out the turn if you simply let them?