The wake is not what drives the boat. It’s just the trail left behind.
Too many leaders fixate on their past decisions, titles and experiences as if the wake explains the journey. It doesn’t. What moves you forward is the intention and energy you bring to the water ahead.
Leadership needs length, width and height.
Length – your craft
Length is your journey. It’s the stretch of experience, skill and practice that has shaped how you think, decide and act.
Your leadership story is like a river: beautiful and unique, with bends, drops and long calm stretches that brought you here. You’ve learned lessons, built expertise and survived mistakes. Over time, those moments form a story you tell yourself about who you are as a leader. But that story is a map of the river, not the river itself.
You begin to explain and justify. Why this happened. Why that choice made sense. The map becomes a pair of handcuffs. It keeps you defending what you already know instead of exploring what you could become.
To grow, you have to release that story. Honour it, then let it go. It served its purpose - it got you here. But it cannot take you further on its own.
Height – your purpose
Height is purpose. It’s the vertical lift that comes from knowing why you lead and connecting that to why others would choose to follow you.
Purpose transforms craft into conviction. It gives meaning to your work and clarity to your choices. It’s what steadies you when conditions change and what gives people confidence to follow you into the unknown.
Purpose is not found in what you say about leadership but in what others experience when you lead.
Width – your impact
Width is impact - the reach of your leadership. It’s how far your influence travels and how many others are lifted by it.
Real impact isn’t about scale or control. It’s about amplification through others. When you help people think and decide more clearly, your leadership starts to multiply.
Seeing in Three Dimensions
Length without height becomes routine, frustration, anxiety, stagnation.
Height without width becomes idealism, talk without action.
Width without either becomes noise, confusion, inconsistency.
Leadership that endures expands in all three. It draws strength from craft, direction from purpose and reach from impact.
The wake tells you where you’ve been. The river ahead is where leadership happens.
At High Impact Academy, we help you build across all three dimensions - so you can think clearly, decide wisely and lead with intent in a world that demands depth, height and reach.