My brothers took me everywhere during those precious weeks. We wandered through vineyards in southern Ontario, explored prehistoric fossil sites in Manitoba where ancient sea creatures once ruled, and walked the streets of my childhood neighbourhood – hardly recognisable as condos have replaced so many homes along the river; our single family home now divided into several apartments.
We spent time in the Whiteshell Provincial Park, that magical place where our family gathered every summer. I swam in a lake I know so well from my childhood — the peculiar brownish colour of the water so familiar to me. (It’s the muskeg). Hiked woodland trails that felt like walking back through my youth. Swapped mosquitos and marvelled at the many dragonflies, the tame red squirrels, the deer. We even saw a timber wolf on the road — a most unusual sight.
Here’s what struck me: Canada still feels like home in my bones. It’s in my DNA. The accent that creeps back into my voice within hours of landing. The way conversations flow about weather, hockey and the cost of groceries. The deep comfort of being understood without explanation.
But something has shifted. Decades in England have changed me in ways I’m only beginning to fully appreciate. I find myself seeing my homeland through slightly foreign eyes, feeling simultaneously at home and like a visitor.
This feeling isn’t new to me. I carried it throughout my corporate leadership roles too – that sense of deserving to be in the room while simultaneously feeling like I didn’t quite belong there. Walking into boardrooms where I’d earned my seat through competence and results, yet carrying this quiet uncertainty about whether I truly belonged in that space.
I see this same tension with the women leaders I work with. They’ve moved beyond where they started, yet they haven’t fully claimed where they’re going. They know they belong in rooms of influence and decision-making, but part of them still feels like they’re visiting rather than inhabiting those spaces.
Here’s what I’ve come to understand: when you’re evolving, when you’re stepping into larger versions of yourself, you inevitably outgrow some spaces while not yet feeling fully settled in others. The discomfort of not quite belonging anywhere is often the hallmark of someone who’s expanding beyond their original boundaries.
The real work isn’t about finding the perfect place where you belong completely. It’s about learning to belong to yourself so fully that you can create belonging wherever you go.
I may always feel caught between two countries, two identities, two versions of home. But this in-between space isn’t a problem to solve – it’s a perspective to embrace. It gives me the ability to see things others might miss, to bridge worlds that others experience as separate.
If you’re feeling like you don’t quite belong in the leadership spaces you occupy, maybe the discomfort isn’t telling you you’re in the wrong place. Maybe it’s telling you you’re exactly where you need to be to create something new.
Your voice matters precisely because it comes from this unique vantage point. That’s not a limitation – that’s your leadership edge
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