My daughter told me something that hit me hard last week. She said the way I was cheering for her during her cross-country races wasn’t helpful.

I asked her why she hadn’t told me sooner, and she said, “I didn’t want to hurt your feelings.”

That’s the part that was hard to hear.

Because here’s the thing: cheering for her isn’t about me. It’s about her. My one goal has always been to support her in a way that helps her do her best. It’s not about HOW I cheer; it’s about WHY I cheer. If what I’m doing isn’t helping her do that, then I’m missing the mark.

That conversation didn’t hurt my feelings at all, because it wasn’t personal. It was feedback about how I could better help her succeed. As leaders—whether we’re leading our families, teams, or businesses—we have to make sure that what we’re doing is actually helpful.

Since then, I’ve started asking her teammates a simple question: “What do you need from me?” The answers have been all over the place—from very specific requests to simply, “Just voices, lots of voices.”

It’s easy to fall into the trap of thinking, ‘This is how I would want someone to cheer for me,’ or ‘This is what I needed when I was in their shoes.’

But leadership isn’t about only doing what works for us; it’s about showing up in the way that works for them. It’s about listening to what each person truly needs and adapting to support them in the best way possible.

It may seem simple, but I think this gets overlooked far too often in leadership. We can’t always give people exactly what they need, but we can make sure we’re not doing the opposite of what we’ve set out to achieve.

That conversation taught me how to cheer for her in a way that truly supports her. But more than that, it gave me the chance to show her what it means to take feedback, make adjustments, and grow. No ego, no defensiveness—just a commitment to being better for the people we care about.

*For those asking why I didn’t share details on what she didn’t like about my cheering, I apologize. I post first on Instagram which limits the number of characters you can use.  Here are some of the changes she wanted: She wanted me to use more of a talking voice and not cheer loudly when she is far away (classic ‘mom- don’t embarrass me’ type of thing, but it is okay if another mom does it) and not to tell her things like “You got this hill!” but just tell her she is looking good and doing great. I am a massive XC fan and former runner (I even have a chapter in my upcoming book on leadership lessons from XC). I never tell anyone to go faster or tell them they aren’t doing a good job. The closest I would come to that would be to encourage them to look at a certain runner and try to move up to them or let them know who of their teammates is not far in front and encourage them to move up to help their teammate as that can get the mind off how crappy they feel and gives them a purpose of helping someone else.