When Leadership becomes a balancing act: Must you choose a side to Lead?

MANYYEARS AGO, I worked in an organisation that had no HR department. There was a personnel manager. It was not perfect, but it functioned.

Then the organisation grew. Systems evolved. And it became clear that what we needed was not just personnel management, but a fully functioning Human Resource Department. So an HR Manager was hired.

For a moment, it felt like the dawn of something different. But instead of becoming the magnet that draws management and employees together, HR slipped comfortably into the arms of management.

The department that should have been neutral ground, a balancing scale, became a sword defending one side. A quiet we and them culture took root.

Employees who once walked taller at the mention of “HR” now grumbled.

“This feels worse.”

“Who is speaking for us?” “Do we even have representation anymore?”They felt

voiceless. Exposed. Left to fight battles that should never have been theirs. Back then, I knew almost nothing about HR, only a conviction. A conviction that HR was supposed to be the bridge, not the barricade.

A mutual entity inside the organisation. The one who sees both shareholder and staff. The one who reframes emotionally charged decisions so fairness does not get swallowed by fear or favour. The one who gently turns the microscope a little to the left and says, “Don’t forget Sue.” “Have we considered how this affects Tim?”

Some leaders are inspired by the good they see. I have always been inspired by the gaps, the places where people fall through. I have always gravitated toward the battle behind the scenes, for those whose voices tremble too much to advocate for themselves. Has it been easy? No.

Has it been uncomfortable? Often. Have my motives been misunderstood?

Many times. But at the end of the day, I am, at my core, a servant leader. And servant leadership often lives in the tension between two sides, wishing you would pick one.

Welcome back to The Workplace Mirror. Today, we examine a question quietly haunting many leaders: Must leaders take sides?

We live in a culture where different is often interpreted as opposition. Where an alternative perspective is labelled disloyal. Where neutrality is viewed as weakness. Where healthy disagreement is discouraged because it disrupts comfort. And so leaders are pressured, subtly or publicly, to declare which “team” they are on. But a leader who is too quick to take sides loses the moral authority to lead the whole.