YVONNE'S TAKE: Power through humility

This week, I had a rare kind of interview. It wasn’t the setting, though, that too was refreshingly understated. It wasn’t the subject, though, few people carry the title President of a country. It was the man himself. President Alexander Stubb of Finland, who introduced himself simply as Alex. No airs. No elaborate choreography. Just a handshake and a smile.

Now, I’ve done this for a long time. I’ve interviewed hundreds, maybe thousands, of people over the years. Presidents, Prime Ministers, billionaires, Generals. I’ve seen it all, power in full display. Motorcades in V formation, aides scrambling over each other, aggressive attempts to control the interview, layers of protocol and security. And then, there was Alex.

No motorcade. No mountain of handlers. Just a man walking into the room like he had nothing to prove. Because maybe he didn’t.

You see, Alex leads a country that could boast if it wanted to. Finland is one of the world’s most stable democracies. It consistently ranks among the top in education. Its economy is small but mighty, efficient, innovative, and deeply trusted. The country tops charts on governance, transparency, and well-being. If ever there was a nation with the credentials to flex, Finland would be it.

Which got me thinking: What does it mean to be powerful, without being loud? In a world where so many people equate strength with spectacle, here was a reminder that humility is not weakness. In fact, it might be one of the purest expressions of strength. Of course, humility should never exempt leaders from scrutiny, nor should it be used to mask a lack of substance. In the same breath, simplicity should never be mistaken for depth. Substance still matters.

It also reminded me to ask a deeper question: Who are we without our titles? Strip away the designations, the offices, the introductions—what remains? Would we describe ourselves by our titles, or would our achievements and, most importantly, our impact, precede our arrival into a room?

Over the years, I’ve come to realise that the people who leave the strongest impression are rarely the ones who flaunt their titles the most. They are rarely the strong-man types who make sure to stamp their presence, intimidate everyone in the room, control rather than influence the narrative, the ones who beat their chest, sometimes even literally. The ones who allow their team and hangers-on to intimidate and harass those around them. The ones who insist on the use of several prefixes before their name, prefixes so large in number that they make the reading out of their name an exhausting effort on the tongue. Perhaps the ones that leave the strongest impression are the ones who carry what they have with lightness, who let their character, not their position, speak for them.

So this week, I’m reflecting on that quiet kind of power. The kind that doesn’t shout. The kind that walks into a room and says, “Hi, I’m Alex,” and somehow leaves you knowing you’ve just met both a president and a person.