🌳 The enabling leader: lifting others, leaving a mark

Inspiring Connections - March 2025

Author

Anita Cassagne
March 03, 2025

Leadership isn’t just about making decisions or setting a vision - it’s about lifting others up. It’s about creating the space for people to grow, to take ownership, and truly shine. 

An enabling leader doesn’t just empower; they open doors, make connections, and create possibilities that outlast them.

This month, let’s explore what it really means to enable others - whether by recognizing their contributions, helping them take a bold new step, or simply being the person who sees their potential before they do. 

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How can you develop the enabling leader within you?

So far, we’ve discussed authenticity and curiosity in inspiring leadership. Being a great leader is also about enabling your team. An enabling leader empowers their team to be their best and ensures their contributions are recognized. Visibility leads to better opportunities, stronger engagement, and long-term success for your team, organization, and yourself.

💭  This month’s nugget focuses on visibility. Choose one moment this month to highlight the contribution of a team member or the team as a whole. There are many ways you can do this: share their success in a meeting, through an email to the executive leadership team, or via the organization’s communication channel. Be specific: show how their work directly supports your organization’s purpose.

Leadership nudges

The mark you leave

“Picture your last day at work. As you pack your desk, you're not just collecting objects but memories - the footprint you leave behind.”

I highly recommend reading this very thoughtful article from Gustavo Razzetti.

Most leaders focus on the next challenge, the next deadline, the next big project. But leadership isn’t just about what you achieve - it’s about the connections you create and the impact you leave on others.

What truly lasts? Not the strategies, not the metrics, but the way you made people feel, the confidence you sparked, the mindsets you shaped. That’s the heart of Inspiring Connections.

💭 Take a moment to reflect on yours using this simple yet powerful framework:

Step 1: Looking back - the footprint you created

→ How did you leave the team better? What’s one meaningful change that happened because of you? What exists today that wouldn’t exist without your leadership?

→ How did you help others grow? What limits or fears did people overcome because of your influence? How did you stretch them beyond their comfort zones?

Step 2: Looking ahead - the imprint that remains

→ What ways of working or thinking will continue? Imagine one, or five years after you leave. What behaviors or principles will the team continue to embrace - whether it’s how they challenge new ideas or how they support each other?

→ What will people say when you leave? If tomorrow were your last day, what would people mention first? What would they genuinely miss?

Final Step: write your legacy statement

Once you’ve identified the footprint that will outlast you, craft your one-sentence legacy statement. What’s the mark you’ll leave behind?

This is also a great exercise to do in teams - because reflection is always richer when shared.

Note from an inspiring leader

Meet Camille Gallard

Recently I was having lunch with an ex-colleague. I was going to ask him to share his inspirations in this edition of Inspiring Connections. We talked about his professional move and all that would be changing both professionally and personally. Talking about this led us to talk about the changes his wife made. Then it struck me. I should extend the featured leaders’ voices to outside of the corporate world. 

Get this: from a former video editor working for TV and for the well-known French singer Florent Pagny. She quit her job to follow her husband to Switzerland and look after their family. Then, back in France she got a diploma in pastry-making and finally, before eventually devoting herself to writing, she even did a stint in real estate. She is now a published author.

 I am delighted to introduce you to Camille Gallard  who made these courageous moves.

So, what does this have to do with this month’s topic, the enabling leader? Everything.

Camille writes about life. Her life. And the life of those around her. Her writing is poignant, honest, funny and realistic. She writes how she feels. What Camille writes about allows others to talk about how they are affected. She allows them to relate their feelings, good and less good. And she opens the doors to the unsaid. I encourage you to read what inspires Camille and reach out and connect with her.

It just might be a game changer!

“For many people, novels are a real source of inspiration, helping them to talk about their feelings without fear or shame, to see themselves in a different way, and why not, to contribute to change their lives.

Even though I have read a lot of novels, even though I have found inspiration in every book I have read, even though I have had several professional lives, I have  never thought I could ever become a writer !

To do that, I first had to allow myself to believe very deeply in my ability to ever write ‘THE END’. And that's something I could not achieve on my own.

My husband undoubtedly played a key role in making my writing dream come true, supporting me and even being the inspiration for the story of my first novel. 

Thanks to his unwavering love and support, I allowed myself to finally have some trust in my capabilities and accept that writing could be within my grasp.

And when I felt able to pull the first thread that would give my very first novel, my husband was the one who pushed me, encouraged me and gave me the strength to see it through. 

He was the one who gave me the inspiration to become the real me.

 

For me, inspiration is synonymous with emotions. And emotions do not exist without a connection to others.

I love emotions because they are at the center of life: to feel, to guess, to fear, to hope, to rejoice. Positive or negative, emotions are not only the starting point of inspiration but also their culmination.

Inspiration is in the air, all around us, in every step, every look, every element of life. All we have to do is catch it and transform it. For some, it's a direction to take to lead a team, for others it's an idea that becomes a technological revolution, an algorithm that transforms communication, a thought that becomes a song, an image that becomes a painting, and for me, inspiration is a thread that I pull to create stories : giving life to characters and inventing for them a trajectory in life.

Since 2019, I have written 5 novels.  

Each novel finds its inspiration in my everyday life, a word, a phrase, a fragrance, an attitude; each story tells something about life, focusing on the emotions of its characters and each line I write connects me to others.”

Giving you spring energy with this song 🎶

See you next month!

Anita Cassagne, Founder & Coach at The Laughing Willow.