The Day My Youngest Graduated

A Leadership Reflection Wrapped in Motherhood

Today, my youngest child graduated from Year 12.

That sentence is much smaller than the feelings behind it.
What I’m sitting with today is a raft of emotions - pride, joy, relief, excitement, and a reflective sadness that’s hard to put into words.

This isn’t just about school finishing. It’s the end of an era. The era of lunch boxes (ok let’s be honest, for the past few years mainly lunch box shopping (as he’s been making his own lunches since mid-high school); uniforms (and paying for new ones including school shoes which he seemed to grow out of faster than I could feed him); of after-school chats in the car (well – before he got his license last year anyway); of assignments and homework and study and marks; and cheering from the sidelines (lot’s of that). It’s the final child crossing that symbolic finish line.

And with it comes a quiet shift in identity (mine and his).

For years, my days have been threaded with the rhythms of schooling. As a mother and a leader, I’ve often reflected on how parenting mirrors the work I do with teams and organisations. Parenting is leadership. It’s coaching, it’s feedback (solicited or not!), it’s emotional intelligence in action. It’s about knowing when to speak and when to listen. When to set a boundary and when to soften (and oh boy, isn’t that the hard bit).

It’s about leading with heart, boundaries (flexible ones in my world) and structure, and trying to do both on four or five hours of sleep.

Today, I watched him walk across that stage, confident, happy and full of potential, and I realised - this is the moment all those years have been leading to. And yet, it also feels like a goodbye.

Not a sad goodbye, but a transitional one.

The job of leading our children never really ends. But it does evolve. And like all good leadership, it requires us to grow with it.

As he steps into his next chapter, the door opens wide for him. But another one gently closes behind us (another one of those silent lasts we all experience – at least this one I am aware of).

To those of you marking a life change, whether it’s personal or professional, be gentle with yourself. Growth is emotional. Leadership is personal. And the most powerful moments are often the quiet ones we don’t post on social media.

But today, I’m making an exception. Because I’m proud, yes. But I am also full of other feelings. And I’m deeply grateful to be his Mum.

Here’s to the endings that shape us and the beginnings that call us forward.