How Volunteering Has Shaped Me
When people ask me where I’ve learned the most about leadership, I don’t immediately point to my business education or professional experience in the corporate world. I often say: “Step into a volunteer role, and you’ll find yourself learning more about leadership than you ever expected.”
Over the past years, my journey as President of Professional Women International – Brussels has been one of the most transformative leadership experiences of my life. Leading an organization built entirely on the power of volunteers, fueled by shared purpose rather than hierarchy, has taught me about vision, humility, resilience, and influence in the most profound ways.
Volunteering isn’t just about giving your time. It’s about growing through service.
Many believe that leaders are born – that leadership is an innate trait. I believe that while some may have a natural inclination toward leadership, it is mostly developed, shaped, and refined through experience, especially through experiences that push us out of our comfort zones and into service of a greater mission.
That’s exactly what volunteerism offers: a real-world, real-impact school of leadership.
At PWI, I’ve witnessed how leading projects without the traditional levers of power (no salaries, no formal accountability structures) requires a deeper kind of influence – one based on empathy, inspiration, and alignment with purpose. It calls you to lead from the heart, to motivate through vision, and to foster a culture where everyone’s contribution is seen and valued.
Here are some of the powerful leadership lessons volunteering has gifted me:
🔹 Courage to step forward – Leading without title or authority teaches you to rely on your voice, clarity, and intention.
🔹 Emotional intelligence – In a volunteer-led team, kindness, patience, and empathy aren’t soft skills – they’re survival skills.
🔹 Strategic thinking with limited resources – You learn to do more with less. Creativity and innovation become your everyday tools.
🔹 Collaboration across diversity – You meet people from different walks of life, each bringing their own perspective. As a leader, your role becomes one of weaving these perspectives into a shared direction.
🔹 A deeper sense of purpose – Volunteering reconnects you to your “why”. It reminds you that leadership is about service and impact, not status or ego.
Leadership is not a position. It’s a practice. And the practice of volunteering is one of the richest, most authentic ways to develop it.
So whether you are at the start of your leadership journey, or in a moment of redefinition, I invite you to consider volunteering. Not just for the impact you’ll have on others – but for the profound transformation it will spark in you.
Volunteering didn’t just make me a better leader. It made me a more grounded, purposeful, and human one.
For more information about my work: https://www.barbaravercruysse.com/
#LeadershipDevelopment #Volunteering #EmpoweredLeadership #PWI #KindnessInAction #ProfessionalWomen
