05/09/2026
Getting 250+ people to attend an event is hard.
Getting 250+ people to work together is harder.
I learned that while organising Saawan Queen — Perth's biggest ladies' pageant event.
The difficult part wasn't the stage.
It was getting everyone to move in the same direction.
Because when you bring a large group of people together, you don't just bring skills.
You bring:
→ Different opinions
→ Different preferences
→ Strong personalities
→ Different ways of working
→ And, occasionally, very different ideas of what's “right.”
And that's when leadership gets tested.
As the organiser, I had two choices:
Spend my energy deciding who was right.
Or keep bringing everyone back to one question:
“What are we trying to create together?”
That question changed the conversations.
Because when the shared goal became bigger than individual preferences:
People compromised.
People stepped up.
People started helping instead of competing.
And gradually, different teams stopped behaving like separate groups and started behaving like one team.
Leadership isn't about eliminating differences.
Leadership is about creating enough shared purpose that those differences stop becoming obstacles.