I have been thinking a lot about humility in leadership and what it really means to lead people well.

I recently sat in a group conversation where someone spoke about the idea of leaders being willing to stay behind and sweep the floor or take on the role of the janitor when everyone else has gone home. It was such a simple example, but it stayed with me because there was something much bigger in it. It made me think about how easily we can confuse leadership with status, and how important it is that we do not.

A title can open a door, give you a seat at a table and create opportunities that may not have been available to you before. But a title should never change the way you see other people, and it certainly should not change the way you see yourself.

For First Nations people, I think this is particularly important because our understanding of leadership comes from somewhere much deeper than a position or an organisational chart. We come from families and communities where leadership has often been demonstrated through service, responsibility, cultural knowledge and simply being there for people.

Our Elders have carried knowledge without needing recognition for it. Our aunties and uncles have supported families and communities without needing a title beside their name. People have led by showing up, doing the work, looking after others and carrying responsibilities that were often never seen by the wider world.

There is a lesson in that.

Leadership is not about being better than anyone else. We all have different strengths, different experiences and different responsibilities, but none of those things make one person more valuable than another.

Sometimes I think we can become so caught up in the language of leadership that we forget this. We talk about leaders, emerging leaders, senior leaders and influential leaders, and before long, the title can start to become part of our identity. We can begin to believe that because we have been given a particular role, we somehow deserve to be treated differently.

We cannot let titles get to our heads.

Because what happens when the meeting is over? What happens when the cameras are gone, the introductions are finished and there is no recognition to be received? Are we still willing to stay behind and do the work?

That is where I think humility becomes such an important part of leadership.

The person who is prepared to sweep the floor, clean the room or do the job that nobody else wants to do is not somehow less of a leader. In many ways, that willingness tells us more about their character than any title ever could.

Good leaders are there from start to finish.

They are there when the work is exciting, but they are also there when it is difficult. They do not only show up when there is something to gain. They stay when things become uncomfortable. They listen when they could easily speak. They make space for other people to contribute, and they understand that their role is not to hold all the power but to use whatever influence they have to create opportunities for others.

For First Nations leaders, there is another layer to this. Our cultural obligations do not disappear because we have stepped into leadership. If anything, they become even more important.

We still have responsibilities to family, community, culture and the generations coming behind us. We still have a responsibility to remember who we are and where we come from, particularly when we find ourselves in spaces that may once have felt out of reach.

We should be able to walk into a boardroom with confidence and know that we belong there, while still being able to walk back into community and sit down, listen and learn.

That balance matters.

Humility does not mean making yourself smaller or pretending that your achievements do not matter. It means being proud of what you have accomplished without believing that your accomplishments make you better than someone else.

It means being able to celebrate another person's success without seeing it as a threat to your own.

It means understanding that the person sitting beside you may know something you do not, regardless of their position, education or title.

And perhaps most importantly, it means remembering that you did not get there alone.

There are people who walked before you, people who opened doors, people who shared knowledge, people who challenged you and people who believed in you when you were still finding your way. When you step into leadership, you carry some of that with you.

So perhaps the real question is not what title we hold, but what kind of person we are when we hold it.

Are we still approachable? Are we still willing to listen? Are we still prepared to do the work? Are we still making room for others? Are we still connected to the people and community that shaped us?

Because titles change. Positions come and go. The rooms we are invited into will not always be the same.

But how we make people feel, how we treat people and what we leave behind will say far more about our leadership than any title ever will.

Perhaps good leadership is not about being the person everyone notices when you walk into the room.

Perhaps it is about being the person who is still there when everyone else has left, quietly doing the work that needs to be done.

Maybe that is where leadership begins.

Nicole Brown is currently studying a Masters in Social Change Leadership as part of the Atlantic Fellows for Social Equity.