From Proving to Paving: Leading From the Inside Out

What does it take to stop leading from the front, not becauseyou are stepping away, but because you have realized that the most lasting impact comes from a different place? Rebecca Vermeulen, Vice President at Genentech and 2025 HBA Star Award recipient, spent over thirty years buildingher leadership identity around what she could accomplish and how well she could lead. And then she took a sabbatical that changed how she understood all of it.

In this episode, Rebecca and Sabine explore the successaddiction and what it takes to recognize it in yourself, the difference between leading from the front and sitting in the sea with your team, the inner voice that gets louder the longer you ignore it, and the ongoing weekly practice of catching reactive leadership and choosing the power of a pause instead. Rebecca also shares the book that shaped her thinking during the sabbatical and why she invested in an Enneagram coach to hold the shift in place.

For any leader who has wondered whether stepping back might actually be the most powerful thing they could do right now, this conversation is for you.

Find Rebecca Vermeulen at https://www.linkedin.com/in/rebecca-vermeulen-a401113/.Find The Ripple Network at theripplenetwork.com.

Key topics: leadership development, sabbatical, successaddiction, ego in leadership, women in leadership, legacy, organizationalchange