Leading from the Middle
By Ryan Kennedy
Nearly twenty years ago my mom gave me a piece of advice I’ve never forgotten.
She told me that leadership is as much about taking responsibility as it is about reading the moment—knowing when to step forward without waiting to be asked, and when to stay quiet and step back.
At eighteen, I nodded as if I understood. It took a few more years to realize I didn’t.
My first “real” job out of high school was with the Royal Canadian Naval Reserves, where I served for eight years. Working with a cross-section of Canadian men and women, it didn’t take long to learn that leadership and rank weren’t necessarily the same thing.
Most of those summers were spent living and working aboard Maritime Coastal Defence Vessels (MCDVs). (Coincidentally, as I write this, some of those very ships are being retired from active service.) On one deployment, just as our MCDV was entering a small port in Nova Scotia, the weather closed in, and the channel narrowed quickly.
The captain, a man with decades of experience and more stripes on his shoulders than anyone within hundreds of kilometers, looked uneasy. This certainly wasn’t his first time docking this MCDV, but something was different this time.
Beside him stood a junior officer, still learning the ropes, only a few years out of officer training, who had grown up sailing those same waters. He knew the currents, the shoals, and how the wind moved across the hills and through the channel.
The junior officer sensed the captain’s unease just as I did. He didn’t raise his voice. He didn’t take charge. He simply began offering quiet, steady advice.
The captain, to his credit, listened.
In due course, we were through the channel and safely tied up along the dock. The junior officer left the bridge to see to his assigned work; no fanfare, no self-congratulation.
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That junior officer didn’t have the authority to lead in that moment. He lacked the years of formal training the captain had. He’d never commanded an MCDV, in training or otherwise. And for all intents and purposes, he had no business leading the Captain, but he did anyway. Not through rank, but through calm confidence, competence, and respect.
The setting has changed since then, but the lessons haven’t. The uniforms and titles are different, but the dynamics often look the same.
Years later, in my own career, I’ve seen the same dynamic play out in boardrooms and project teams. The best professionals, the ones who eventually earn command, are those who learned to guide with calm competence rather than volume or title.
It was my mom’s lesson come to life. Leadership wasn’t about asserting control. It was about reading the moment: knowing when to step forward, and when to step back.
Operating in the middle teaches you that quickly. You’re accountable without always having authority. The lines between responsibility and control blur. Much of the work is invisible: bridging gaps, fixing problems quietly, helping others succeed.
In professional services, the ‘middle’ often looks like the associate balancing client demands with partner expectations, or the manager translating strategy into execution. It’s rarely glamorous, and even more rarely celebrated, but it’s where judgment, calm, and quiet influence are most visible. It’s where future leaders are forged.
Somewhere along the rocky coast of Nova Scotia, I learned that you don’t need rank to lead. Influence is built through credibility, consistency, and composure—not from title or a seat at the board table.
The best leaders I’ve known, in the military, in private practice, and in Fortune 500 companies, aren’t loud or self-congratulatory, and they’re rarely at the top. They inhabit the vast “middle,” where they lead by example. They steady the ship when others lose focus.
Almost every career begins somewhere in the middle—between taking instruction and setting direction. How you lead from that space often determines how far you’ll go.
If I could offer one thought to anyone learning to lead from the middle, it would be this: be confident in what you know. A leader doesn’t have to fill every silence or have every answer. You don’t need a title to make an impact, and you don’t need recognition to be effective.
Real leadership often happens quietly. Not when you’ve been given command, but when you provide calm in the current, when you're steadfast when others waver.
Learn to steady the ship before you’re asked to captain it. That’s what leading from the middle really means.
Ryan Kennedy is a Consultant at Amrop Rosin in Calgary.
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