What My Grandmother Never Called Leadership
We confuse leadership with visibility. History suggests otherwise.
My grandmother never read a leadership book.
Neither did my mother.
They never spoke about executive presence, influence, or resilience. They simply did what the moment required.
As Vietnamese women, they came from a lineage whose stories stretch back nearly two thousand years. The Trưng Sisters led a rebellion against Chinese rule in 40 CE. Centuries later, Lady Triệu became another enduring symbol of what women carry when history asks everything of them. Vietnamese women have been fighting empires longer than the United States has existed.
When I learned those stories, they didn’t feel distant.
They felt like home.
Because I had already been raised by women like that.
Not queens. Not generals.
Women who carried families through uncertainty. Women who made impossible decisions without applause. Women who crossed oceans, started over, worked tirelessly, sacrificed quietly, and somehow still found enough tenderness to make a child feel safe.
My grandmother was one of them.
So was my mother.
Neither would have called herself a leader.
They would have said they were simply doing what had to be done.
Because history doesn’t only live in books.
It lives in the habits families pass from one generation to the next.
In the women who wake before everyone else and somehow go to bed after everyone else.
In the quiet decisions no one applauds because they were never made for recognition.
In the ability to absorb uncertainty without allowing everyone else to carry its full weight.
I don’t remember my grandmother calling herself brave.
I don’t remember my mother describing herself as resilient.
Those words belonged to other people.
To them, it was simply Tuesday.
It was simply what love looked like.
Looking back, I wonder how many extraordinary leaders have been overlooked because they never stood behind a podium, managed a company, or carried an executive title.
We often confuse leadership with visibility.
History suggests otherwise.
Some of the most consequential leaders never sought influence.
They accepted responsibility.
Maybe that’s why Vietnam remembers women like the Trưng Sisters and Lady Triệu.
Not because they fought.
Because when history demanded courage, they answered.
My grandmother and my mother answered different battles.
The battlefield changes.
Leadership doesn’t.
My grandmother never called it leadership.
Neither did my mother.
History did.
I just call it what I watched.
