The promotion had been available for six months. Everyone in the team knew it. Several people had been told, informally, that they were strong candidates. Kwame was the strongest, and he knew it, and he applied for nothing. He watched two colleagues put themselves forward and was relieved when neither got it. He told himself he was waiting for the right moment. He told himself he needed more experience. The honest answer — the one he had not yet said aloud — was simpler: he was afraid of what it would mean if he tried and failed. And so he kept holding back, and the right moment kept arriving and passing, and the gap between what he was and what he was allowing himself to be grew wider without either of them moving.

When the director announced a new internal leadership programme and asked for nominations, Kwame's manager nominated him without asking. Kwame almost declined. Instead, he attended. He led a session. He made decisions he had previously deferred to others. He disagreed with a senior colleague in a meeting and turned out to be right. He was not transformed. He did not suddenly become someone different. But he had, at least once, done the thing rather than imagining why he couldn't. When the promotion opened again a year later, he applied. He got it. The main difference between the Kwame who had held back and the Kwame who stepped up was not skill. It was one decision, made imperfectly, in the right direction.