The Personal is the Professional: 4 Leadership Lessons on Community & Boundaries

When Delisa Abraham talks about strategizing resilience, she doesn’t start with big projects or five-year plans. She begins with her neighbours. 

With our Caribbean roots—mine Jamaican, hers Trinidadian—community means something special. It’s checking in on neighbours, sharing small favours, and knowing each other’s names are part of small island living. As adults living in Canada—she in Toronto, Ontario, and I in Winnipeg, Manitoba—we both noticed how easy it is to default to indifferent encounters that favour pleasantries over connection. 

The antidote, Delisa argues, is simple: micro-connections. These are small, regular interactions with others that, over time, compound into generational strengths and a feeling of belonging. They are the steady architecture of thoughtfulness and mutual care that underpins resilient communities.

Delisa joined me for Reyou Mindful Lunch in October to share her experiences with community, parenting and everyday resilience. As a single parent, veteran strategist, communication specialist, and award-winning keynote speaker, Delisa leads two Canadian businesses: 3CL Communication, where she serves as president and principal advisor, and Faith and Sparkles World, a social impact initiative she co-founded with her young daughter.

Delisa’s story about her mother’s apartment building says it all. She randomly connected with a Polish neighbour by saying “Good morning.” Years later, that connection has become a rhythm of kindness—updates about the kids, quick hallway check-ins, and small supports are mutually exchanged to this day. Nothing flashy. Just the kind of consistent care that builds resilient communities.

From where I sit in my professional and personal practice of combining mental wellness, strategy, and narrative development, Delisa’s lived practice mirrors a blueprint for entrepreneurs and leaders who are running hot—over-functioning and over-performing—but want to build teams that last.

Whatever you do or value in your private life is reflected in the professional space. How do you measure up when it comes to leadership, community and boundaries in your workplace?

Here are four key takeaways from our conversation—practical strategies you can implement right away.

1. Community Building as a Core Leadership Strategy

Delisa’s story about her neighbour reminds me that we must treat relationship-building like critical infrastructure. Relationships require time, nurturing, and reward. It’s essential to schedule time for relationship building. To name the various relationships that you have and their value to you personally and in business. More importantly, we need to reward those relationships with our time, honesty, clarity, and care. In startups and lean nonprofits, micro-supports like pair and peer check-ins and 10-minute debriefs can help lower feelings of workplace isolation and stress, surface risks early, and keep the workplace culture cohesive under pressure.

2. Resilient Parenting Mirrors Resilient Leadership.

Parents know that building a healthy and functional family system is a team effort. Delisa emphasizes that knowing your children’s world—friends, stressors, wins, and worries—presents opportunities for growth and mindset shifts for both parent and child. Leaders can mirror this with teams. The simple lesson here is to know the human context that shapes presence and performance. A monthly strengths conversation or a non-judgmental “what’s on your plate outside of work?” can prevent crises and burnout while deepening trust.

3. Why Professional Boundaries are Protective, Not Punitive.

In guiding her young daughter through an episode with bullying, Delisa modelled a boundary-and-belonging approach. She shared in the interview that she removed the harm to her daughter by changing schools, then set about restoring her daughter’s sense of safety while teaching her discernment and how to re-engage with the community. For organizations, this boundary-and-belonging approach could look like clear, enforced conduct norms, psychological safety protocols, and a restorative path back to collaboration that builds on practical conflict transformation approaches.

4. Leadership is a Practice, Never a Job Title.

From “Faith in Sparkles World” (a child’s storytelling project turned published book) to the Future Leaders program, Delisa helps youngsters build agency and confidence, alongside entrepreneurial skills and public-speaking chops. Isn't this what every leader wants as a minimum for their team? In the world of work, effective leaders cultivate this kind of self-leadership among their team through short storytelling routines, low-stakes demos, and rotating facilitation to normalize courage and clarity. For busy teams, “demo and tell” rituals increase accountability, sharpen narratives, and keep strategy inclusive and visible.

Delisa’s practice is not theoretical. It’s grounded in relationship-building moves that build confidence and community capacity. For entrepreneurs and leaders, the translation is simple: connect beyond the surface level, give people small stages early, listen deeply, and check in often. Entrepreneurship, like good leadership, is about celebrating activation, not perfection, and recognizing that while technology is a tool, communication is the skill. Nothing can replace that human-to-human learning and relationship.

Four things entrepreneurs and leaders can try this week.

As Delisa's practice shows, leadership is about moving with intention, not just compulsion. It's about aligning your values with your daily actions.

Here are four practical things you can try this week to build those "micro-connections" and strengthen your team's resilience.

• Add a ‘Good Neighbour’ Norm: Add a 5-minute “check-in round” to one team meeting or rotate a “community shout-out” to recognize quiet acts of support.

• Add Story Demos: Rotate a voluntary 3-minute ‘demo and tell’ at team meetings or office events.

• Create a Boundary Playbook: Have members write two sentences that name your team’s non-negotiables (e.g., respectful debate, no weekend pings without consent). Share and revisit.

• Practice deep listening: Book a 15-minute coffee break with a team member solely to hear about their current reality—no agenda, just context and good coffee.

Check out our Mindful Lunch and Reyou Studio Resources, where you can find additional insights and practical tools to help you integrate the principles of community, parenting, and everyday resilience into your leadership practice.

If you missed the live Mindful Lunch event, you can catch the replay at this link: Mindful Lunch with Delisa Abraham: Community, Parenting, and Everyday Resilience.

For folks who ground their leadership in spiritual practice, Delisa suggests Stormie Omartian’s The Power of a Praying Mom and other books in the series, available on Amazon.

If you’re an over-extended founder, manager, or program lead, we can help you build everyday resilience into your workplace culture with trauma-sensitive facilitation and narrative tools your team can use immediately and sustain with online events and toolkits available only in the Reyou Studio. Schedule a Strategic Needs Assessment to discuss your workshop, training, or consulting goals today.

---

About the Author

Dr. Patlee Creary is an adult educator, conflict-transformation specialist, workplace mindfulness & wellness facilitator, and nonprofit/leadership advisor delivering workshops and consulting in wellness, strategy, and narrative development. She’s also a mother to two feisty girls and one very chill cat. An accomplished author and avid blogger, Patlee explores mental health, resilience, community building, identity, and memory through visual and oral storytelling, and spends her spare time writing, reading, cuddling the cat, and chatting with her plants.