What Returning to USACE Reminded Me About Leading Well
Monique Farmer, APR, is the founder of Avant Solutions, a PR and communications consultancy that helps nonprofit organizations, government agencies, and small businesses elevate their messaging and build stronger connections with their audiences. She created Anvil Ready, an online communication strategy builder that aids the communication professional in creating communication plans.
I recently had the privilege of speaking to the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers’ Omaha District Leadership Development Program class for 2026 to 2027. For me, this invitation meant a little more because USACE was my first professional home.
The Corps was the first place I learned what it meant to work inside a large organization, support leaders, communicate with purpose, and understand how culture shapes the way people work together. There is something powerful about going back to a place that helped shape you. The surroundings may feel familiar, but you aren’t the same person who once walked those halls. Time has passed. Life has happened. Your perspective has changed.
My own career has taken me from the Corps to Corporate America, public education, entrepreneurship, teaching, and writing. Along the way, every stop has taught me something new about leadership and, maybe more importantly, something new about myself. That is where our conversation began.
Leadership begins with self-awareness
When we talk about leadership development, we often focus on how to lead other people.
How do I motivate a team?
How do I communicate better?
How do I manage conflict?
How do I build trust?
Those are all important questions. But I believe there is another question that should come first: Who am I when I lead?
Leadership has a way of bringing us face-to-face with ourselves.
Our habits.
Our values.
Our strengths.
Our blind spots.
Our fears.
Our reactions under pressure.
We can learn tools, read books, take assessments, and attend leadership programs. But at some point, real growth requires us to look inward. Before we can lead others with intention, we have to become students of ourselves.
Every environment teaches you something
One lesson I have learned throughout my career is that different environments reveal different parts of us. Sometimes you don’t realize how much a workplace has shaped you until you step into a new one. Moving from the Corps into corporate communications taught me to look more closely at organizational culture. Working in public education deepened my understanding of community and responsibility. Entrepreneurship forced me to confront risk and uncertainty in a new way. Teaching pushed me to explain what I know so someone else can use it. Writing challenged me to reflect more deeply on my own experiences.
Every room gave me new information about me. That is what I encouraged the class to pay attention to during their leadership development journey. Not just the material. Not just the assessments. Not just the exercises. Themselves. I asked them:
What energizes you?
What makes you uncomfortable?
When do you feel most confident?
What makes you shrink?
How do you respond when someone challenges you?
What happens when you do not know the answer?
How do you react when someone junior to you knows more about something than you do?
Those moments give us valuable information. Good leaders pay attention to that information.
Self-awareness should help you grow
I asked the leadership development peers to consider the following questions:
What do I value? Not simply the values listed on the wall or included in an employee handbook. What principles actually guide your choices?
What do I naturally bring into a room? Are you calm? Analytical? Encouraging? Decisive? Creative? Structured? Relational? Know your strengths
Where are my blind spots? What might others experience from you that you do not recognize in yourself?
Who do I become under pressure? That question matters because leadership is rarely tested when everything is going smoothly. Pressure reveals things. Sometimes it reveals our best qualities. Sometimes it reveals areas that need attention.
The goal of self-awareness isn’t to pick ourselves apart. I like to think of self-awareness as a mirror, not a microscope. We’re not trying to examine every flaw until we become overly critical of ourselves. We are simply trying to see ourselves clearly enough to make better choices.
Knowing is not the same as growing
Leadership development programs give us information. Feedback gives us information. Assessments give us information. Experience gives us information. But information alone doesn't create change. What we decide to do with that information can.
You may learn that you interrupt people more than you realize or that you avoid difficult conversations. You may notice that when you are stressed, your communication becomes short and sharp. You may also discover strengths you have overlooked.
The question is not only, “What did I learn?” The better question is, “What am I willing to do with what I learned?”
Growth requires participation. Sometimes that means asking for feedback. Sometimes it means trying a new behavior. Sometimes it means apologizing. Sometimes it means speaking up. Sometimes it means listening more. Sometimes it means doing something before you feel completely ready. You cannot chart a different path while insisting on remaining exactly the same.
Leadership shapes culture
Another important part of my conversation with the USACE Leadership Development Program class focused on culture. We often think culture is created at the very top of an organization. But culture is also built in small, everyday moments. What happens when someone makes a mistake around you? How do you respond when someone disagrees with you? What happens when the newest person in the room speaks? Do people feel comfortable bringing you bad news? Do people leave conversations with you feeling more confident or more cautious?
Those moments matter. Your behavior, repeated over time, becomes someone else’s experience of the organization. That is culture. You may not control everything happening around you, but you do have influence over your corner of the organization, and your corner matters.
You don’t need a title to lead
One of the messages I wanted the class to leave with was simple. Don’t confuse position with influence. You don’t need the biggest title in the room to lead. You can ask a better question. You can mentor someone. You can speak up respectfully. You can give credit and make room for a softer voice. Instead of merely pointing out the problem, help solve it.
Leadership is about agency. Even when you don’t control everything around you, you still have choices about how you show up. Never underestimate those choices.
The real leadership work is ongoing
As the members of the 2026 to 2027 class begin their leadership development journey, my challenge to them was not simply to study leadership. It was to study the leader.
Ask yourself: What do I want to understand about myself that I do not understand today? What leadership behavior do I want to strengthen? What do I want people who interact with me to experience consistently? What might I need to unlearn to become the leader I want to be?
Those questions aren’t meant to be answered once and forgotten. They are meant to travel with us. Leadership is a path, not a finish line.
Sometimes the path is clear. Sometimes it gets uncomfortable. Sometimes we reach a crossroads and have to decide whether we will keep doing what is familiar or choose something different. That is the work. Sometimes, going back home reminds us just how far we have traveled.
It was a pleasure to return to the Omaha District and spend time with leaders who are preparing themselves for what comes next. I left that conversation reminded of four things: See yourself clearly. Own your agency. Have the courage to grow. Choose your path intentionally. Because before you can lead well on the outside, you have to be willing to do some work on the inside, and that work never really ends.
Read more from Monique Farmer
Monique Farmer, PR & Communications Consultant
Monique Farmer, APR, runs a PR/Communication Consultancy, Avant Solutions, and is the creator of Anvil Ready, an online communication strategy builder that aids the communication professional in creating communication plans. She teaches at the University of Texas at Austin. Farmer spent 12 years working in the federal government prior to working in corporate communications for ConAgra Foods (now ConAgra Brands), then leading communication strategy for Nebraska’s largest school district. In March 2024, she published her first book, Chart Your Path: A 9-step Method to Getting Unstuck.
