Boundaries.

A Commanding Officer came to me for advice.

‘I want to do this thing - without the Law getting in the way…’

A Senior Officer came to me for advice.

‘I looked up the Defence Law Manual, and I couldn’t find where it said I could do this thing…’

There’s often an assumption that the Law builds the roads for us to drive on.

That the Law gives us the permission and the rights.

But in practice, the Law does something subtler — and harder to appreciate.

It doesn’t pave the way for every possibility;

It fences off the cliffs.

It defines the edges, the hazards, the places where power would overrun the common good if left to its own momentum.

In Defence, in schools, in companies — everywhere people lead — the real work is in the unmarked space between those fences.

That’s where judgment, morality, and prudence live.

Where culture carries what rules never can.

Where we decide not just what we can do, but what we ought to do.

Law is a boundary line.

Leadership is how you play the game within it.