The Leader Who Disappears When It Gets Personal

Why It’s Easier to Be Strong for Others Than Honest With Yourself

Some people wear their hearts on their sleeves. I wear silence.

Not because I’m cold, but because I never learned how to face goodbyes, emotions, or the awkwardness of being seen.

Even now, I don’t know how to end things properly. When I left my first teaching job, I simply disappeared. No farewell. No closure. The last class I taught, none of my students knew it would be the final time they saw me. I walked out without a word.

Three years later, it happened again. Same place, same escape.

By then, social media had caught up. Former students messaged: “Sir, what happened to you?” I had no words. Not because I didn’t care. But because I didn’t know how to be seen in that moment.

To this day, I find joy when my birthday falls on a public holiday. Not because I want rest — but because it means I don’t have to show up. No one needs to notice. Just let the day pass. Quietly.

Strangely, I love celebrating others. I just don’t know how to celebrate me. I’ll plan your party. I’ll buy the cake. But for myself? I’d rather vanish. Not out of pride. Just discomfort. Or maybe shame. Or maybe something deeper.

And yet… I lead. I teach. I parent. I guide.

That’s the paradox. I can fight for others with all my strength.

But when it’s about me, I disappear.

The Mirror Moment That Found Me

It wasn’t a dramatic crisis that revealed this. It was something ordinary — a colleague’s farewell.

She wasn’t the closest person in the team, but when her last day came, a quiet sadness crept in. Not many noticed. But I felt it. A subtle ache. And I knew: this wasn’t just about her. It was about me.

Some farewells make you wish the person had left earlier. Others make you wish they would stay longer or return someday. Hers was the second kind.

It stirred what I now call a mirror moment — a moment that doesn’t test your leadership in public, but reflects your truth back to you in private.

And then came another one. A much harder one.

This time, with my son.

He had been caught taking something from a classmate. We had confronted him earlier in the week, but he denied it. Said the teachers checked the CCTV and found nothing. Today, the truth emerged. He had lied. He had taken it.

I didn’t shout. I didn’t rage. But I looked him in the eye and asked: “Are you ready to face the consequences?”

I explained to him the difference between taking a risk in business: a risk that helps people vs versus taking a risk that only benefits yourself and hurts others.

“If you think you can get away with this because you’re smart,” I told him, “you’re living like you’re the god of your own universe. But you’re not. You’re accountable to others. And to something greater than yourself.”

I had him write two apology letters — one to the friend, and one to the teacher. But I told him not to apologise to me. Not yet. That would only come when he chose to, from a place of real repentance.

Before I gave him the light stroke of discipline I had prepared, he cried and asked, “Dad, can you pray for me?”

I said, “You pray first.”

Through sobs, he asked God for two things:

That he would never do it again. And that he would be brave.

Then, just before I raised the cane, I hit my own palm … hard.

He flinched. “What are you doing, Dad?”

I looked at him. “I’m taking it with you.”

That moment taught me something I didn’t expect:

Sometimes, leadership isn’t about control. It’s about closeness.

It’s not about delivering punishment. It’s about sharing the weight of it.

What Samurai, Lincoln, and Honne Teach Us About Inner Leadership

This battle between visibility and vulnerability, between serving others and avoiding ourselves, is not new. Even the world’s greatest leaders faced it.

The Samurai believed the greatest victory wasn’t over others, but over the self. Before they mastered the sword, they trained in silence, self-awareness, and discipline. The unseen battles always came first.

Abraham Lincoln, during the Civil War, led with moral clarity — but in private, he mourned deeply. When his young son Willie died, he wandered the White House in grief. Leadership didn’t protect him from pain. It required him to walk through it.

In Japanese culture, Honne is your true inner feeling. Tatemae is the public mask. Society accepts the gap between them. But great leaders close that gap. They don’t just perform. They live true. That is the path I am still learning to walk.

Even Marcus Aurelius, emperor of Rome, reminded himself daily:

“You have power over your mind, not outside events. Real strength lies in mastery over the self.”

He ruled with external power. But he led from internal clarity.

What about me?

My mirror moments are quieter — a farewell I can’t express, a birthday I don’t want to acknowledge, a son I love more than I know how to lead.

But those mirrors do not lie. They keep asking the same question:

Will you face yourself? Or keep disappearing?

The Inner Flip That Changes Everything

Here’s what I believe now.

The opposite of leadership isn’t following. It is avoiding your own reflection.

You can inspire teams. You can make decisions. You can carry burdens.

But until you face the parts of yourself you’ve always run from, you’re still hiding.

Real strength is not how much you endure for others.

It is whether you can stay present when the story turns inward.

It is the quiet bravery of letting your son see you cry.

It is the discipline of not asking for apology until the heart is ready.

It is the grace to say, “I’ll take it with you.”

And so, I’m learning to stop disappearing.

I’m learning that leadership doesn’t begin when others follow.

It begins when I finally stand still… and face myself.