Why I Notice Who’s in the Room

I notice who’s in the room. Every time. Who’s leading the meeting, who’s on the board, who got asked and who didn’t.

It’s not paranoia. It’s pattern recognition after years of watching decisions get made about people who were never invited to help make them.

Representation in leadership isn’t a nice to have. When the people making the decisions have actually lived the thing they’re deciding about, the decisions get better. Simple as that. Not because lived experience makes someone infallible, but because it means the blind spots are smaller.

I’ve sat in rooms where I was the only person who’d actually lived what was being discussed. It’s a strange kind of loneliness, knowing something in your body that the policy in front of you doesn’t seem to know at all.

That’s why mentorship matters so much to me. Someone has to open the door before someone else can walk through it and eventually hold it open themselves.

Who opened a door for you? Have you opened one for someone else yet?

If you’re ready to step into rooms you’ve been talked out of, the Self Advocacy Collection is coming soon, built for exactly that. Link in bio, lighteningup.com.au.

Madeleine x