Monday Mornings, Kind Leadership, and the Power of Words

For a lot of people, Monday mornings feel heavy.

Sometimes it’s tiredness.

Sometimes it’s dread.

Sometimes it’s something much deeper that no one else can see.

There was a time in my life when I often didn’t turn up to work on a Monday.

Not because I didn’t care.

Not because I wasn’t capable.

But because I was in active addiction and alcoholism.

I was working in recruitment in the oil industry at the time. I was good at my job — driven, intuitive, results-focused — but I was also exhausted, hungover, and often running on no sleep at all. Mondays were the hardest.

A gentle question

One day, my manager called me into a meeting. It wasn’t formal. There was no disciplinary tone. He was a gentle man, a good teacher, and someone with excellent people skills.

He said something like:

“Louise, you always seem to take Mondays off. Is there a reason for it?”

No accusation.

No judgement.

Just a genuine invitation to talk.

I wasn’t ready.

I was defensive.

I told him I’d been ill and doubled down on protecting myself.

After that, I even started taking different days off — trying to prove a point. That’s what denial does. It keeps us safe until we’re ready to face the truth. And I wasn’t ready then.

I left that role in 2005 and went on to build a strong career in recruitment, and later HR. I eventually landed what felt like my dream job — working for BP around 2010/2011.

When I shared the news on LinkedIn, that same manager messaged me.

He said: “Congratulations on your new role. Cream always rises to the top.”

The sentence that stayed with me

I was shocked.

In my head, I’d always assumed I’d been a problem employee. A bit of a thorn in his side. Someone he tolerated rather than believed in.

I hadn’t realised how much respect he had for me — until he said it out loud.

That one sentence did something profound. It gave me self-belief at a time when I didn’t yet fully have it myself. No one had ever spoken to me like that before. And I will never forget it.

I got clean and sober in April 2012. I’m now approaching 14 years sober.

Since then, I’ve built my own HR and recruitment business. I’ve worked at senior levels. I was recently the Mayor of my town. I grew up in care and genuinely never expected to still be alive — let alone living a life that once felt completely out of reach.

This isn’t a story about addiction

It’s a story about people.

It’s about what happens when leaders choose:

• curiosity over accusation

• kindness over judgement

• conversation over conclusion

You cannot tell someone what’s wrong with them.

No one could have told me I was an alcoholic — it would have broken me. I had to come to that realisation myself, in my own time, when I was ready.

But how we hold people while they’re struggling matters more than we often realise.

Words matter.

Tone matters.

Patience matters.

Sometimes a single sentence — spoken without agenda — can stay with someone for the rest of their life.

Warts and all

I don’t overshadow.

I don’t perform.

I don’t have different versions of myself for different rooms.

I am honest — warts and all — because that’s where trust lives.

I accept who I am unconditionally today, and because of that, others don’t need me to pretend. They can meet me as they are.

Leadership doesn’t require perfection.

It requires presence.

It requires humanity.

It requires the courage to be real.

This belief sits at the heart of my work at Mindful People. Creating workplaces where people don’t have to hide. Where honest conversations are possible. Where performance and compassion are not opposites — but partners.

And to the people who were patient with me before I was ready — thank you.

You changed my life, whether you realised it or not 🌿🫶

#kindleadership #humancentredleadership #psychologicalsafety #recovery #wordsmatter #gettingvulnerablesaveslives