Why Your Small Daily Actions Shape the Future of Leadership and Our World
Originally published in 2019, this article has been updated and refreshed for 2025 to reflect current insights on leadership, personal development, and the evolving role of nature-based practices in our rapidly changing world.
Quite recently, I met a friend at a popular beauty spot not far from where I live. It was one of those warm, late-summer days that feel like autumn's gentle rehearsal, perfect for sitting outside and taking in the views whilst catching up.
Now, I'm not particularly fond of strong perfume, but my friend had apparently bathed in the stuff. Whilst my senses eventually numbed to its overpowering aroma, the same couldn't be said for the local wasps. Within minutes, two or three were buzzing around our table, much to my companion's growing irritation.
I watched, somewhat bemused, as he swatted and swiped with increasing exasperation. The wasps persisted, dodging his flailing arms with impressive agility. I suggested we move inside—to no avail.
Then suddenly, he produced a napkin. Before I could react, he'd promptly squashed one of them. Dead.
As he struck, I felt myself flinch. No! Don't!
The 'problem' worsened as inevitably another wasp appeared, only to meet the same violent fate.
I was astonished—not just by his actions, but by the sharp ache I felt inside me. Fuss and melodrama aren't normally my thing. After all, they're just wasps, aren't they? Yet extinguishing these little lives so violently seemed needless, nonsensical, cruel.
Understanding What We're Really Dealing With
Here's what most people don't realise about wasps: they're not aggressive by nature. In fact, they're not trying to attack us at all. Like bees, they play a crucial role in our ecosystem, pollinating plants and controlling pest populations that would otherwise devastate our crops.
Around wasps, our objective really ought to be simple: stay calm and keep out of their way.
In these last, lazy days of summer, forced out of their nests by hunger or redundancy (when the queen no longer has use for them), they're simply searching for food. Put temptation in their path, and naturally they'll investigate. Try to bat them away, and they'll likely retaliate.
Here's the irony: killing a wasp hovering around your space is completely self-defeating. A dying wasp releases chemicals that warn other wasps of danger, making the remaining ones more aggressive. The more you swat, the worse the situation becomes.
(Obviously, I'm not talking about genuine swarm situations or severe allergic reactions—thankfully, these are relatively rare.)
The Stories We Tell Ourselves
Before I cast my friend as the villain in this tale, let's acknowledge the truth: most urbanised people simply don't care for insects (bees and butterflies being notable exceptions). Even passionate wildlife enthusiasts often justify dispatching an 'annoying' wasp as necessary pest control.
A quick search online reveals our cultural narrative about these creatures:
"Experts reveal why the evil insects target you"
"Murderous wasps and bees"
"Flying death-dealers"
We've created a culture that frames wasps as enemies—undesirable nuisances that must be eliminated. But why? Is it a case of 'sting or be stung'? Kill or be killed?
Are we so frightened of these tiny creatures that panic becomes our only response? Do we believe we have the right to trade a small being's life for a moment of potential discomfort?
More importantly: do we ever consider what this says about us or our capacity for leadership—whether in our families, communities, or organisations?
The Mirror of Small Actions
Perhaps it's time we did consider it. Wasps have survived for over 150 million years, making our 200,000-year existence as homo sapiens look remarkably brief. They're proven survivors—we're the newcomers still learning the rules.
Yet we're a species whose individual members wage war on single wasps while collectively threatening all life on Earth. We haven't yet mastered the art of living alongside nature peacefully and sustainably, respecting our fundamental interdependence.
Here's the crucial connection that we often miss: the same mindset that casually destroys a single wasp because it's inconvenient is precisely the mindset that, when scaled up across billions of people making similar "small" choices daily, has created our global environmental crisis.
Think about it: every day, millions of us make the same calculation my friend made—this small creature is annoying me, so I'll eliminate it. Multiply that dismissive attitude by every person who swats wasps, sprays garden "pests," chooses convenience over coexistence, and you have a pattern of behaviour that accumulates into something much larger.
The devastating evidence is now undeniable. A meta-analysis of 16 studies found that insect populations have declined by about 45% in just the last 40 years primarily due to habitat destruction, pesticide use, and climate change - all direct results of human behaviour and choices. Even more striking, recent studies in pristine wilderness areas—places with minimal human interference—are showing dramatic insect population crashes, with some locations experiencing over 70% decline in just two decades.
The pattern is unmistakable: whether we're directly destroying insects through pesticides and habitat destruction, or indirectly killing them through the climate change caused by our lifestyle choices, we are the common factor. The casual swatting of a wasp and the industrial-scale destruction of ecosystems spring from the same root—a species that consistently chooses elimination over adaptation, convenience over coexistence.
The connection isn't metaphorical—it's mathematical. When you multiply millions of small acts of environmental dismissal across billions of people over decades, you get exactly what we're seeing: systematic ecosystem collapse driven by our collective inability to share space with other living beings.
Leadership Starts with Self-Awareness
We can look outward and hold world leaders, governments, and corporations accountable for this crisis. We absolutely must demand urgent change.
But here's the uncomfortable truth: if we genuinely want to heal our world and reverse the damage, we must look inward first.
We need to examine our own unconscious patterns, blind spots, and destructive habits. Why? Because global problems are simply the collective result of millions of individual daily choices. The short-sighted, human-centred attitudes playing out on the world stage are seeded by the beliefs and behaviours that shape our everyday lives.
Consider these seemingly small decisions:
When we choose convenience over sustainability
When we buy cheap, disposable items we'll barely use
When we prioritise screens over genuine human connection
When we pave over green spaces for more concrete
When we leave our mess for others to clean up
When we choose comfort over walking or cycling
When we casually destroy small creatures that pose no real threat
Without realising it, we co-create the very cultures we despise—the ones destroying forests, burning fossil fuels, over-exploiting resources, polluting environments, and driving species to extinction.
The Leadership Lesson Hidden in Plain Sight
Looking back at that perfume-and-wasp incident, I've come to understand that my visceral response wasn't just sympathy for a tiny creature. It was a gut-wrenching realisation about how we operate as a species.
The harm we casually inflict on something small and seemingly 'insignificant' reveals the same mindset that scales up to damage ourselves, our communities, our organisations, and our planet.
This pattern doesn't stop with wasps, does it?
Consider how we treat the humans who represent minor annoyances in our daily lives—the slow cashier when we're running late, the colleague who asks too many questions, the homeless person whose presence makes us uncomfortable, the cleaner we barely acknowledge, the junior staff member whose ideas we dismiss without consideration.
In these moments, we often exercise power over rather than power with. We treat people as obstacles to our agenda rather than fellow human beings deserving of basic dignity and respect. We make them invisible, irrelevant, or disposable—just like that wasp.
Whether you're leading a team, raising children, or simply trying to live with integrity, this principle applies: our unconscious reactions to minor annoyances reveal how we'll handle major challenges.
The executive who dismisses junior staff concerns is the same person who might overlook environmental impact. The manager who cuts off the 'difficult' team member is practising the same dismissive pattern they'll use with inconvenient truths. The parent who swats first and asks questions later is modelling problem-solving through force rather than understanding.
How we treat those who seemingly have no power to affect our lives is often the truest measure of our character and leadership capacity.
Your Daily Practice of Leadership
If we want leaders—in business, politics, and society—who have the wisdom and compassion to guide necessary change, it starts with how we show up in small moments.
In our communities, our workplaces, our families, and with ourselves.
Because until the 'big' decision-makers finally act as we hope they will, it's how we demonstrate leadership in everyday situations that creates the culture we're all living within.
The question isn't whether small actions matter—it's whether we're conscious enough to recognise their power.
Every. Single. Day.
What small creatures—literal or metaphorical—are you swatting away without thinking? What might shift if you paused, breathed, and chose a different response?
What small creatures—literal or metaphorical—are you swatting away without thinking? What might shift if you paused, breathed, and chose a different response? Sometimes the most profound leadership insights emerge not in boardrooms, but in moments when we catch ourselves in these unconscious patterns. If you're curious about exploring how your everyday reactions shape your capacity to lead and relate to others, let's walk and talk.