The Greatest Gift We Can Give Each Other?

For four days I wandered among the misty mountains of Western Scotland.

Mountains older than memory.
Fathomless lochs holding the reflections of clouds and eagles.
Water tumbling, gurgling, down hillsides who have witnessed millennia come and go.

Bluebells.
Juniper.
Birch.
Gorse.

Silence.

The sort of silence that feels less like an absence…
and more like a presence.

Somewhere between the mountains, the waterfalls and the sea lochs…
I realised how little nature is desperate to be noticed.
Yet how impossible it is not to notice.

And then I thought of us.
Me. You.

And how leadership today often feels trapped in a race for visibility.

More communication.
More influence.
More presence.
More impact.

Yet pausing amongst those mountains I found myself wondering.
Wondering whether the greatest gift a leader can offer is not being noticed.

But noticing.

Then, on my return, I began reading a novel – ‘Theo of Golden’.

It is the story of a man who spends his precious time returning portraits to strangers.

Not solving their problems.
Not giving them advice.
Simply helping them feel… seen.

Because financial planning firms are full of people carrying invisible portraits.

The adviser who once passionately believed they would change lives.
The administrator who quietly holds everything together. Unnoticed.
The Operations Director carrying home worries that nobody sees.

And the founder…
who can remember every client story.
Yet, catching their eyes in the mirror, struggles to remember who they were before the business consumed them.

Western Scotland didn’t need me.

Those mountains will remain magnificent… whether I noticed them or not.
The eagle will still soar.
The waterfall still tumble.
The foxgloves still bloom.

It was me.
I changed.
I changed… when I stopped… paid attention… and noticed them.

And now I see this…
Perhaps the greatest act of leadership is not helping others become more remarkable.

Perhaps it is helping them see that they already are… remarkable.

Theo seemed to understand that.
The mountains… they reminded me of that.

And I returned from them changed.
Changed by what I had noticed.

Perhaps what people are longing for most…
People like me, like you…

Is someone willing to truly see them.

And I wonder…
When was the last time I offered that gift?