13 Jan Breakthrough Leadership
Breakthrough Leadership Happens When You Stop Doing the “Right” Thing
In leadership, we’re often taught to follow the path: do what’s expected, check the boxes, climb the ladder. But, as the award-winning keynote speaker, Steve Fredlund shared with us, the most meaningful breakthroughs, personally and professionally, rarely come from doing everything “right.” Breakthroughs often come from doing the “unright” thing.
In January, we had the privilege of having guest speaker Steve Fredlund facilitate The Safari Way: A Roadmap to Leadership Fulfillment and Impact for Menttium’s Business Education Webinar Series. Steve is an award-winning keynote speaker, two-time TEDx presenter, and bestselling author of Do the Unright Thing: Memoir of a People Pleaser.
Steve was joined by Menttium mentors Adam Dill and Susan M. Barber as voices of experience sharing their candid stories about their career pivots, vulnerability, team building, and what it really takes to break through to the next level of impact. Their experiences revealed a powerful truth: great leadership isn’t about control or perfection, it’s about courage, clarity, and connection.
Embracing the Ups and Downs of Leadership
For Sue, years in large organizations and navigating constant mergers and acquisitions forced her to let go of what she couldn’t control and focus on what she could: showing up as a calm, steady presence for her team. That meant acknowledging fear, her own and others’, without letting it dictate her leadership.
Leadership moments aren’t defined by the absence of fear. They’re defined by how we respond to it.
Choosing the “Unright” Path on Purpose
Adam’s breakthrough came when he stepped off a clearly defined corporate career path and started asking a different question: What actually energizes me?
Instead of chasing the next expected role, he leaned into opportunities that allowed him to create, fix broken systems and learn, even when those opportunities didn’t look like promotions on paper. One pivotal moment came when he accepted an unexpected role in Canada, despite warnings that it would derail his career. The opportunity didn’t derail his career; it expanded it.
The lesson? You don’t need a perfectly mapped destination. You need clarity about the experience you want, what excites you, stretches you, and brings you to life.
Growth Lives Outside Your Comfort Zone
On paper, many transitions didn’t make sense in the moment. In reality, those opportunities built confidence, adaptability, and a willingness to learn without having all the answers. Breakthroughs often require trusting yourself before you have proof it will work.
Getting the Right “Peeps in your Jeep“
No leader breaks through alone.
Both panelists emphasized the importance of surrounding yourself with the right people. Not surrounding yourself with those who look or think like you, but those who complement you.
Great teams are built on:
- Trust and collaboration
- Energy and grit
- Willingness to learn and give feedback
- Different perspectives that challenge your blind spots
As Adam put it, strong leaders don’t fear people who are better than them at certain things, they rely on them. The goal isn’t sameness; it’s balance.
And just as importantly, culture is shaped by what leaders tolerate. Hiring someone who’s technically strong but culturally misaligned doesn’t just hurt the team, it erodes trust in leadership itself.
Hire for What You Can’t Teach
When it comes to building teams, resumes and experience matter, but they’re not the whole story.
The most impactful leaders focus on traits they can’t train:
- Resilience
- Positivity
- Curiosity
- Integrity
- How someone responds when things get uncomfortable
Skills can be taught. Character can’t.
Alignment to the mission, the values, and the team is what drives engagement, retention, and performance.
Breakthrough Starts With Intentional Leadership
So what does it really take to break through as a leader?
Sue challenged leaders to shift from constant busyness to possibility thinking. Asking not just what needs to get done, but what could be done differently or better.
Adam brought it back to identity: deciding what kind of leader you want to be and acting intentionally in alignment with that, even when it feels risky.
One of Adams most powerful leadership moments came from being vulnerable. By openly sharing personal challenges with his team, he created trust and a culture where people felt safe to bring their whole selves to work. Adam thought, as most leaders often do, that the “right” thing as a leader was to stay silent, focus on the business. In the end, he realized the most value came from sharing his personal challenge which many would have considered the “unright” thing to do.
The One Thing to Take With You
If there’s one takeaway from this conversation, it’s this: Leadership breakthroughs happen when you stop trying to be perfect and start being intentional. Don’t be afraid to take risks and don’t be afraid to put down your cape and help others become superheroes. And most of all, don’t be afraid to choose an adventure that feels true to who you are, even if it doesn’t look right to anyone else. That’s where growth lives.