Wilderness Reflections for Leaders
- Peter McLean
- Oct 30
- 2 min read
I'm in glorious Hobart, Tasmania, where I've been speaking at a conference. Following the event, I've been touring with one of my daughters who came to join me.
We visited Truganini lookout, situated on a thin land bridge of Bruny Island.
On one side are the crashing waves of the Southern Ocean, creating a long line of white peaks along a crescent beach stretching kilometres long. The white sands push into scrub and brush and stone upthrust against a blue sky blanketed with long white cloud.
On the other is a calm, peaceful fresh water inlet. The water is of a purity that can only be found on this point far out from the continents, almost at the farthest southern point of land on the globe. It's like a last protest of life before the cold winds and waters forbid anything else to stand against their dominion.
Seagulls call as they float by overhead, moving from wild ocean to tame inlet. The shallows of the inlet harbour black swans gracefully extending their necks downward, feeding in abundance and safety. The waters deepen in colour and mirror the light from the cloudy sky as they extend back to other islands and the forested hills and mountains of Tasmania.
On the lookout, a plaque describes the tragic story of Truganini, a brave indigenous woman, whose peoples suffered tremendously here by the hand of antiquarian colonists - harm both deliberate and unintentional. Even shared efforts to improve her people's lot were sadly unfruitful.
Elsewhere, a sign states that if one waits quietly on the boardwalk, as dusk and then evening approach, penguins make their way back to this island "neck" to sleep in their rookeries. It's a tradition they have maintained for millennia. One which modernity tries to protect. Perhaps it is a lesson learned.
In the calm and remoteness of this sanctified spot, it is a reassuring reminder that despite all the activities of business, the movements of geopolitics, the adoption of AI, the power plays of investments and economics, one's goals and visions, daily trials and successes, the lows and highs of leadership, there still remain those things which stand in tender testimony to that which endures: a beauty and a meeting of restlessness and stillness that no human hand can match.
Peter McLean
Lead With CLARITY
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