Leaders Bring The Weather

Leadership Circle has a monthly series on Surfacing Creative Leadership. Yesterday's focus: the creative competency called "composure". During the session, one of the presenters repeated a phrase that I've heard many times before - "leaders bring the weather". Perhaps I heard it differently yesterday because I can't stop thinking about it.

Leaders bring favorable weather when they have connected deeply into soul work and spiritual awareness - as though the leader has become a channel for something far greater than what is happening right now in the meeting. Maybe this is what makes great leadership so rare.

Dry Idea's "never let them see you sweat" commercials are representative of the false notion that we can hide our fear or anxiety or frustration; leaders really can't hide the sweat. When they try to fake it, they come across as indecisive, aloof, controlling, critical.

The leader's unsettlement makes it difficult for team members to invest their discretionary emotional energy in the work that they are here to do. The quality of people's thinking degrades. Relationships degrade. Work product degrades. This is hugely costly to the leader and the organization.

If you're a leader who wants to explore the weather you're bringing, reach out. This isn't easy work by any means. It is important.