Finding My People… Again

By Sarah Brobeck, President & CEO of ALM

A few weeks ago, I recorded a podcast about finding my people. I shared how, early in my career, I attended Laundry & Linen College and discovered something far more valuable than education. I found a community of people who challenged me, encouraged me, and believed in me before I fully believed in myself. Looking back, I thought that season was about developing technical knowledge. Now I realize it was really about discovering the power of having people in your corner.

Over the past two years, I’ve experienced one of the most challenging seasons of my professional life. My team and I knew something wasn’t adding up. We asked questions, adjusted our strategies, analyzed the data, and kept looking for answers. Every time we thought we had identified the issue, we found ourselves back at the drawing board. As leaders, that’s what we do. We don’t stop when something doesn’t make sense. We keep searching until we understand it.

What I didn’t expect was how quietly that journey would begin to change the way I saw myself.

The longer the questions went unanswered, the more I began questioning my own leadership. Instead of asking what we were missing, I started asking what I was missing. I wondered whether I had lost the instincts that had served me well earlier in my career. I questioned decisions that once would have felt straightforward, and I carried a growing sense that somehow I was letting people down.

Eventually, we uncovered the answers we had been searching for. The challenge wasn’t a lack of effort or commitment. It wasn’t because our team had stopped caring or stopped trying. We discovered a technical issue that none of us had the expertise to recognize on our own. Ironically, we had invested in professional onboarding because we wanted to avoid exactly that kind of situation. We asked the questions we knew to ask, trusted the guidance we were given, and continued searching because our instincts kept telling us something wasn’t right.

Finding the answer brought relief, but it also brought grief. I thought about every strategy meeting where we questioned ourselves, every conversation where we wondered what needed to change, and every hour my team invested trying to solve a problem that wasn’t actually the problem. More than anything, I realized how easily responsibility can become self-blame if we’re not careful.

As I reflected on everything that had happened, my thoughts kept returning to that podcast episode. I realized this experience wasn’t just teaching me another lesson about leadership. It was reminding me of something I had learned years ago but somehow forgotten.

Once again, I found my people.

They weren’t the same people I met at Laundry & Linen College, but they played the same role in my life. They asked hard questions when I couldn’t find the answers. They brought expertise I didn’t have. They challenged assumptions, encouraged me when I questioned myself, and reminded me that leadership was never meant to be a solo journey. My team refused to stop searching.

Trusted advisors helped me see what I couldn’t see. My board responded with support instead of criticism. Looking back, I realize I wasn’t carrying this burden alone nearly as much as I believed I was.

For much of my career, I thought strong leaders were the ones who had the answers. Today, I believe something different. Strong leaders are willing to admit what they don’t know, surround themselves with people who know more than they do in certain areas, and have the humility to let others help carry the weight. That isn’t weakness. It’s one of the greatest strengths a leader can possess.

The older I get, the more convinced I become that our greatest achievements are rarely the result of individual talent alone. They are built through relationships, trust, and the people who choose to walk alongside us during both our successes and our struggles. I wouldn’t be the leader I am today without the people I found early in my career, and I wouldn’t have made it through this season without the people who found me when I needed them most.

If you’re walking through a season that has caused you to question yourself, don’t isolate. Don’t convince yourself that asking for help is a sign of weakness or that leadership requires carrying every burden alone. Find your people. Listen to them. Let them challenge you, encourage you, and sometimes even believe in you until you’re ready to believe in yourself again.

Looking back, I realize I didn’t just find my people once.

I’ve been fortunate enough to find them over and over again.

And each time, they’ve made me a better leader—and a better person.