14 Leadership Lessons Learned Over 9 Years Of Working With The Same Group

During this Year 9 Snake Year, I’ve been reflecting on the journey I’ve walked with the 9 Initiates of the White Dragon Lineage.

I am celebrating that they hold their “black belt” - a path of devotion and integrity rarely chosen in a world addicted to shortcuts, quick fixes, and shiny things.

Thank you to each of them for saying yes to this path…
and for the many lessons we have learnt as a collective:

1. Discernment is the foundation

Not everything you feel or see is truth.
A bird’s-eye view is non-negotiable.
Clean leadership begins with clear perception.

2. Hold the field, not the drama

You are not a performing monkey and you are not their mother.
You are here to stabilise the field so others can meet themselves.

3. Shadows are your teachers

Every misstep, trigger, accusation, projection, or tantrum becomes training.
Each moment invites deeper reflection.
Learn to be the cause, not the effect.

4.Boundaries are sacred

Your time, energy, channel, and body are vessels.
Protecting them protects the work.

5. Leadership is seasonal

There are cycles of leading, dissolving, resting, integrating.
Honour the timing.
Honour the Solar Gateways.

6. Integrity is your only real authority

People follow the truth you live, not the words you say.
Integrity must be reflected in your actions — consistently.

7. You must walk the path first

Your initiations became your blueprints.
Your wounds became your wisdom.

8. A clean channel requires a clean life

Grounding, emotional maturity, and spiritual hygiene are non-negotiable and what keeps the work safe.

9. You are here to serve yet it's not about you....

You become the vessel.
Spirit leads.
Ego softens.

10. People will leave, honour their choices, bless them on their new path 

Some students outgrow you. Some are not an energetic match.
Some resist the depth you hold.
Some walk another path.
Your task is to let them go with grace —
without clinging, collapsing, self blame or closing your heart.
Non-attachment is leadership.

11. Betrayal and copy cats are sovereignty initiations

At some point, someone will take from you, imitate you, or turn away from you.
Not because you failed —
but because your work activated something in them they weren’t ready to hold cleanly.

These moments teach you to stay rooted:

• not collapsing into self-doubt

• not hardening your heart

• not shrinking your medicine

Betrayal becomes an initiation into unshakeable self-trust.
Copy-cats become proof that embodiment cannot be replicated.

12. Your community mirrors you 

Their clarity, chaos, or cohesion reflects your leadership frequency. Working on your self is non-negotiable.

13. It's ok to make mistakes, accountability is key 

You will get it wrong sometimes.
You will misread, overgive, underbound, misunderstand, or react.
The lesson is not perfection — it is repair.

Accountability looks like:

• naming the impact

• taking responsibility without self-punishment

• adjusting your behaviour

• keeping your heart open

Mistakes become initiations into humility, maturity, and trustworthiness. Thank you to the 9 for letting me be human.

14. Love is the final teaching.

Not soft love —
but spacious, discerning, boundaried, liberating love. An open heart is your greatest asset.

Nine years.
Nine students.
A Year 9.

The Ouroboros becomes a flying Dragon (that’s what my logo represents).
A lifetime of lessons.

This is the heart of spiritual leadership.
I am deeply grateful for it all.