"Why should we pay for leaders to find themselves?" is a question that has been posed to the researcher numerous times in her career as an executive coach. The link between self-awareness and leadership is at best ignored and more often dismissed by organisations as irrelevant. The problem posed by this study was that all too often organisations focus on leaders' performance and tangible results only. Instead, it is important to take a holistic leadership approach that integrates who the leader is with what the leader does. By looking at leadership learnings from a catalytic experience, the research connects the concepts of catalytic experience with self-awareness, personal leadership and leadership in an organisational context.