There is something beautiful about the person sitting across from me.

Their beauty is not in the way they look or in the way they dress. This would be far too material and I am not a material person.

Their beauty is not in the eloquent way they speak, or in the way they carry themselves — a quiet, subtle confidence that has me listening with care because I know deep down inside in my belly where all the questions lay, that they have something meaningful to say.

The beauty I see, in fact, is something I feel.

Their presence is comforting in a way that a long Sunday at home reading a book in the sunshine provides me comfort; or in those times when we were children and the days would fly, filled with the sounds of our confidence, our laughter and our joy, simply because we knew deep in our hearts that everything was going to be alright.

This is the thing that I feel with this person who sits across from me.

A feeling of beauty as they speak and they share something of themselves that has me thinking that every leader, in every room, in every moment of their career should be sharing.

Their beauty, profound, is in the way they share so intimately the various aspects of who they are, where they were and where they will be going — and with such vulnerability that I, and the others in the room with me, feel both safe and brave as we embrace — and are embraced — by a leader who is so very comfortable in their culture.

Throughout my career the volume of our own cultures was sadly turned down to its lowest possible setting, in favour of the culture of the leaders who set the tone, style and behaviours of the organisations we worked in. Organisations with leaders who were cultural-clones of one another, and predominantly male.

This I believe has left a sour taste in the makeup of our organisations and the creativity of our work — the confidence of our emerging leaders and a legacy we didn't have a chance to celebrate.

We were told that our culture must fit neatly inside a box, without any part of it spilling out over the edges to protect people from the discomfort of our differences.

We were told that our culture was important on certain days of the year — but not others.

We were told that our culture did not have a place in the boardroom, or the classroom, our work or our creativity; after all, these things had a culture of their own. They were preordained and we had to simply find and stay in our lane.

And for the some reason we believed these stories.

It is a wonder to me that my generation was able to grow through that experience and find itself anew. I don't ever doubt the gravitas and burden felt by those who had to carry the torch for the rest of us to follow.

A beautiful torch that has lit many paths.

I often think about this in my own leadership — how important it is to share openly and unapologetically, my own culture — the pride I have in it, what I have learned from it, its contradictions, curiosities, faults and opportunities alongside everything I have yet to learn.

I often think about how important it is to do this for others, and by doing so I have understood how very important it is do for ourselves.

They say we must be in service to others as leaders — every airport bookshelf is filled with books that tout this very notion — and I agree, we must serve those we lead, but never at the mercy of losing that thing that makes us who we are.

See you next week.