Why presence is often the most expensive, and most honest, form of leadership
Many years ago, Aden, my eldest son one, fell sick in a way that did not resolve quickly. We went to a clinic, antibiotics were prescribed, and week after week there was no real improvement. The dosage increased and increased again, until he began vomiting.
Eventually, the doctor said what he should have said earlier. We needed to admit him to the hospital. So I did. My son was young, but unusually articulate about fear. When the hospital explained he needed a drip, he understood only one thing. His hand would be poked. To him it was not medicine. It was punishment. He begged, he promised, he negotiated like a small human trying to bargain his way out of something he could not name. He cried as if he would be killed.
That night taught me something I did not have language for then. Children do not always process pain as “necessary.” They often process it as “someone is doing something to me.” Even well-meant reassurance can land the wrong way when fear is already in control, because children read tone, posture, and emotional steadiness more than they read the content of our words.
The moment I had to choose between being liked and being responsible
In that moment, I did what every father hopes he never has to do. I held him down. I distracted him with his favourite cartoon. I spoke gently. I waited for a small window where he was calm enough to be caught, and then I nodded to the nurse.
The needle went in. He screamed like we were slaughtering him. Then he looked at me with fury and disbelief.
“Daddy, why did you do that?”
I tried to explain. I told him it was necessary. I told him it would help him heal. But he was not at an age where logic could outvote fear. The gap was too wide. So I said the only thing left.
“Trust me.”
I remember repeating it not because it sounded wise, but because there was nothing else to offer him that he could hold. He fought a little longer, then exhaustion took him. He fell asleep.
What changed everything was not my explanation
Over the days that followed, something quietly important happened.
I stayed.
I did not leave him alone with the drip, the pain, and the confusion. At night, I squeezed onto the bed beside him and held him until his breathing slowed. When he woke, I was there. When he cried again, I was there. Over time, as his body recovered, he began to sense what he could not understand earlier, that the pain was not proof of cruelty, it was part of care.
That was the first time I learned that explanation is not always the bridge. Presence is.
The same emotional pattern shows up in organisations
Years go in my first job, I found myself reacting to leadership the way my son reacted to the needle. Every conversation felt like it carried a hidden agenda.
My bosses could be kind, even encouraging, but there was always direction, performance, alignment. Because I grew up knowing only one kind of love that asked nothing from me except my well-being, I judged corporate leadership through the wrong lens. I assumed that if someone had a plan, they must be using me.
So I did what I thought was intelligent. I tried to “hack” people. I studied what they wanted. I learned how to deliver outcomes while keeping my heart guarded. I told myself I could see through the plot.
The older I get, the more I realise that what I called a “plot” was sometimes simply stewardship. A good leader cannot pretend the organisation does not exist. A good leader cannot spend resources, including human resources, without responsibility. They may care for you genuinely, and still have to carry direction. Both can be true.
The problem is not that there is an agenda. The problem is when the agenda is detached from care. At that age, I did not know how to separate those two.
When I became the one with direction, I saw my own mirror
When I started building Stellar, reality had no interest in my ideals. We were building in a competitive environment where people have options, and where financial gravity is real. There were seasons where we could not win on salary or convenience, so we leaned harder on vision, meaning, and growth.
People stayed. Some stayed longer than they would have if we had only talked about money.
Then an uncomfortable mirror appeared: I had an agenda too.
Not an agenda to exploit, but an agenda to stabilise, to survive, to build something that could serve families over time. When that “agenda” worked, it forced a second realisation to land even heavier. If you convince people to stay through vision, your life has to back up the vision. If it does not, the same words that inspire can become manipulation.
This is where leadership becomes exposing, because the difference between manipulation and stewardship is not whether you have a plan. The difference is whether you are willing to absorb cost for the people you are asking to carry the plan with you.
Trust often breaks before understanding arrives
In leadership, there are moments where a decision is made, a boundary is upheld, or a sensitive matter is handled, and someone experiences it as betrayal. Their reaction is not curiosity. It is pain. Pain does not want a lecture. Pain wants justice.
This is where many leaders panic and start explaining. They try to correct the narrative quickly. They add context, timelines, intent, logic. Sometimes all of it is accurate, yet it still lands like salt, because explanation can feel like defence when someone is still bleeding.
I have learned that in those moments the most responsible response is often slower and more costly. You acknowledge the wound. You own your part. You stay calm. Then you remain present long enough for your posture to become visible over time.
Trust is often restored the same way it is first built. Through consistency that does not run away when it becomes inconvenient.
A leadership test that is harder than it sounds
Here is the pattern I keep seeing.
People at different levels can experience the same action differently, not because one side is evil, but because perception is shaped by position, capacity, and fear. A child can experience medicine as punishment. A team member can experience stewardship as control. A leader can experience accountability as care.
The gap rarely closes through explanation alone. The gap closes when someone watches you after the painful moment and realises you did not disappear.
That is why a leader cannot rely only on being right. Being right is not the same as being trusted. Trust is built when people see that your direction is carried with empathy, and that your empathy does not collapse when direction becomes unpopular.
This is also why leadership development is not primarily about skills. It is about integrity under pressure. It is about the capacity to hold responsibility without turning cold, and to hold empathy without turning weak.
What I am practising now
I am trying to lead with a simpler internal rule.
If I must act before people fully understand, then I must stay close after the action, because the cost of leadership is not only making the call. The cost is carrying the emotional weight that follows the call.
In practical terms, that means I ask myself three questions:
First, is my agenda serving the people, or consuming them?
Second, am I willing to absorb cost personally, rather than pushing the cost downward?
Third, after the hard moment, will people find me present, or will they find me gone?
The quiet line between love and leadership
Parents plan for healing. Organisations plan for sustainability. Stewards plan for multiplication.
The question is not whether there is a plan. The question is whether the plan is held with integrity, empathy, and excellence, and whether the person holding the plan is willing to remain present long enough for trust to catch up with understanding.
The deepest leadership moments are not when people applaud you.
They are when someone looks at you with disbelief and asks, “Why did you do that?”
You have to live long enough, close enough, consistently enough, that one day they can finally see the answer without needing you to say it.
What is one leadership decision you made that people only understood later, after they watched your posture over time?
Daniel Loh (daniel@stellar.edu.my) is a content creator under the Newswav Creator programme, where you get to express yourself, be a citizen journalist, and at the same time monetize your content & reach millions of users on Newswav. Log in to creator.newswav.com and become a Newswav Creator now!
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