In any consequential challenge we will encounter complex relational dynamics. In these contexts, we often unknowingly and effortlessly fall back on familiar rules and roles. Once our role is identified – be it executive, mother, neighbor, friend, or teacher – we begin narrowing our choice points and subsequent actions, often looking to what we think is expected of that role or what we ‘owe’ to a certain individual or group affected by the challenge.

But roles – much like archetypes we find in personality tests – are not who we are. Our selves expand far beyond the roles we inherit or earn, even beyond the roles we think we have to fulfill to belong.

When we commit to the work of deepening attention, we inevitably come to the question of Who am I in this? because we realize we are a part of the system(s) we are attuning and attending to. Though humbling, we can no longer ignore that our actions and choices are inextricably linked to the outcomes of the system(s) we experience.

The first time I began to truly understand that acting beyond roles is leadership work was when I unexpectedly moved to rural Cambodia as a Global Human Rights Fellow.
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During one of my first days in Battambang I laid in a hammock reading a book about Pol Pot’s regime.

A colleague from the grassroots movement, who also served as my translator, came up to me and asked me about what I was reading.

“Who is the author?” he asked.

I showed him the name on the back cover and pointed at Yale University Press.

After a long pause, he said, “This isn’t even a book written by our own people.”

As he walked away, I put down the book and sat up in silence. Slowly swinging in the hammock, I began questioning my actions. Here I was, reading a textbook because I wanted to make sure I was educated before engaging with people. I wanted to show respect, I wanted to understand, I didn’t want to come across as ignorant or unaware. But instead, I was taking time away from making authentic connections, sharing lived experiences that could teach me far beyond what I could gather from reading – building relationships that could shape who I was becoming.

A few weeks later, I was sitting at a cafe with a group of grassroots leaders and met a man with a kind and gentle demeanor dressed in military clothing. After a brief introduction and a short conversation about his life and work, he asked me if I wanted to join his team in their mission to remove landmines. Their next stop was a school in a village a few hours away.

I quickly went to my homestay to pack some necessities and got into one of the SUVs with him, his demining team and a few international supporters who had come to bring equipment to their operation.

In the car ride I learned that he had planted countless landmines around his home country – first as an orphaned child soldier under the Khmer Rouge regime and then for the Vietnamese army that overthrew his village. Doing this was soul crushing and heart breaking. He witnessed people he knew getting killed and injured from the very mines he had planted, but he felt he had no choice but to follow orders at the time.

As soon as he had the opportunity, even before he had access to any equipment or formal techniques, he began using sticks and knives to clear mines he had planted. As dangerous as this was, he felt this was a meaningful way he could begin to undo the damage he had done.

When the UN got involved to support peacebuilding in the region, he received access to tools and training. After clearing hundreds of mines on his own, he opened his own demining nonprofit, an orphanage, and even a landmine museum, all of which are still operating today.

When we arrived at the school, the day’s work began for the team who called themselves Self Help Deminers. This is where I learned that removing landmines is not only life-threatening, it is also painstakingly slow, requiring meticulous and intentional movements in extremely hot conditions. Due to the remoteness of the land that still has unexploded weapons, the first step is often to remove the wild overgrowth – cutting tangled branches one by one, trimming tall native flora, clearing the way to be able to use the metal detectors – all while wearing heavy protective gear.

As the day came to a close, we spent the night outside under the stars at the emptied school. We lay on the ground sharing stories from under our pink mosquito nets. As varied as the stories were, there was one thing all the storytellers had in common: a deep sense of purpose that this was work they could do to heal themselves and their homeland. Clearing landmines meant they could provide safety to communities that had been deprioritized due to their poverty and remoteness.

Looking back, this was one of the first moments I began reframing what I understood about empowerment. Several of the deminers were landmine victims themselves. Witnessing how they used their freedom to engage directly with the challenges they had experienced – or even contributed to – revealed a deep sense of empowerment connected to purpose. Rather than waiting for someone else, absolving responsibility, or focusing on blaming evil actors, these individuals chose to collectively participate in healing work for themselves, their people, their land.

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I returned to Battambang with deep introspection.

As part of my fellowship I spent my days with incredible women leaders who were running for local office. They, much like the Self Help Deminers, had a strong connection to their Khmer roots. Their work was also often painfully slow, but undeniably meaningful. They knew who they were and they showed up to their communities by engaging deeply and enduring personal risk to make a real difference.

I, however, was not Khmer. I did not consider Cambodia my home. I did not even speak the language. As I deepened relationships with the people around me who felt a profound connection to their land, I suddenly felt very aware of my own Swedish Korean American non-Khmer identity.

A question that I could no longer shake was: Who am I in this?

Due to my appearance and experiences in the West, as well as my connection to the Member of Parliament (MP) of the province, I was often invited to speak and asked to share my knowledge on topics related to leadership and leadership development.

In the beginning, I declined all offers to speak publicly because I did not feel it was my place. I was there to learn from the women’s movement, the grassroots leaders, and the inspiring human rights work they were doing under complex and dangerous circumstances. I feared that using my voice beyond asking questions would take someone else’s space. I did not want to feed into the idea that they were lacking or that I had something important to share with them.

But as my attention and relationships deepened, a new invitation emerged from within: What if I participate as me, not for others? And as I stepped in, I discovered the shift from doing the “right” thing to learning through deep co-creation.

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Months after co-designing and co-facilitating leadership development workshops in remote villages with community leaders from the region, I received a phone call I will never forget.
One of the young women from the movement had just run for office in her local commune against a former Khmer Rouge incumbent who had held the position for decades.
“We did it,” she said. “Mari, we won!!”
Against all odds, after years of dedication and seen and unseen efforts, her unique voice and courageous acts of leadership – rooted with her community – disrupted the status quo and gave way to healing and hope. She was the first woman and the first young person to achieve this outcome in her community.
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When we become more aware of the dynamics we are facing and influencing, we begin to see that we have a choice of whether or not we want to act from our inherent empowerment. Deepened awareness is needed to awaken our inherent empowerment because it is often hidden from ourselves, tucked away in the pressures of the roles and rules we take for granted. But if we choose to act from this deep inner place, we give rise to an intention that is unique to each of us. Who am I in this? becomes What is it that wants to come true through me?

The question of empowerment does not stop with self-service. It opens the door to true collective purpose.

As leadership coaches we have the choice to define ourselves beyond our role description in service of a higher purpose. We have an invitation to hold our authority lightly and our authenticity with courage to participate in profound learning.

When we move from deepening attention to awakening intention, we begin to sense our capacity for freedom that transcends duty, moving us beyond expectation and into purpose in action. Here we see more clearly the true invitation of leadership coaching, which is to hold space with those experiencing a consequential challenge such that they draw from their inherent empowerment to discover, test, and become their own resolution.

In the Adaptive Leadership Coaching Certification Course we will explore how the act of leadership coaching raises mutual questions about identity, empowerment, and systems change. Moving into the fullest potential of our ethical commitments, we will take a closer look at what distinguishes leadership from authority in practice and experience what it takes to align with our clients on a shared, emergent, and adaptive intention.

Our next cohort runs from 30 January – 6 March 2025. 

Will you join us?