IT IS 30C in the waterbag, it's dry and you're in the wilds of northwest Western Australia.

You're used to softness and comfort, but here you are with a backpack, leading a mob of strangers through unknown country.

I could embellish this story with details of what happens when a rose petal queen goes bush, to create a picture of incongruence.

But the truth is I don't know exactly what happened when Swan Hill rose-petal exporter Sarah Sammon joined her first Australian Rural Leadership Program challenge last month.

That's because the program's capers in the Kimberley are largely kept under wraps.

Suffice to say, says Sarah, it was challenging.

"They were extremely challenging circumstances and you needed to be able to think on your feet," Sarah says.

"Often we were leading with very little sleep and we didn't always have the time or the resources to be eating as well as we could."

Sarah, 31, and her mum, Jan Slater, started Simply Rose Petals six years ago.

First they sold cut flowers. Then, wilting under the pressure of heat waves, unreliable cool freight and seasonality, they realised they needed a better way of doing business.

Never fear. Sarah came up with a solution.

She discovered the process used to freeze-dry astronauts' space tucker worked just as well on rose petals and would do away with having to keep things cool and seasonal.

Now Simply Rose Petals exports dried rose petals, which are big in the bridal game, to 13 countries.

Most of us would say that makes Sarah a successful businesswoman, but guess what? Sarah didn't think so. (Any bells ringing here, gals?)

She pictured herself as striving to be a businesswoman.

In her own mind, she wasn't the real thing.

But during her Kimberley caper, reality dawned.

"For years I've been trying to educate myself as much as I could on business and leadership and I've been following a number of experts.

"I'd become so focused on trying to improve myself to be the perfect businesswoman, that I'd lost sight of the real me.

"I'd started to think my success wouldn't continue unless I kept changing in the way these other gurus thought I should."

This comes under "Giving Away Your Power" in the gals' own leadership book.

The Kimberley was her crucible.

Apparently after sweating it out each day up there, the team Sarah led would offer feedback on her leadership style, about what made them feel comfortable, what didn't and so on.

What Sarah discovered is that she could accept criticism without letting it undermine her sense of self-belief.

"I learnt to accept feedback a lot better," she says.

"In business you can hear a lot of feedback from staff and your business partners, but it's not always so easy to accept it and take it on board. But I learnt to accept the criticisms were often for right reasons."

I'm sceptical about leadership programs.

Yes, they're good for networking, but can leadership really be taught? Is it something you're born with, or can it be seared into you through experience?

For Sarah, experience and a good searing have worked well so far.

For ARLP details, click here. Applications for the next intake close on July 31.