Energy and Leadership

Welcome back to Everyday Leader. Shannon and Conrad here. Today we are going to focus on energy -- what it is, what it has to do with leadership, and how to work with it.

In co-active coaching, there are two primary energies: being and doing. Space on one side, action on the other. Most leadership training lives in the land of doing -- behaviors, skills, outputs. We want to explore the other side: who are you being as a leader? What is the energy you are sourcing from and bringing into your work?

We are human beings, not human doers -- and especially in Western culture, we are very good at the doing part. This is an invitation into being. Which is really just: how are you showing up? What is your come-from?

The simplest baseline: are you energetically open or closed? Are you here, or are you somewhere else -- in the past, in the future, in worry? That is not abstract. That is a real and practical question you can ask yourself right now.

And energy has three sources. The first is within -- your own internal resources. For me, one of mine is calmness. An energy of steadiness, like fall. That is something I can access and bring intentionally. What are yours?

For me, it is compassion. That is one of my core inner resources. And we can source energy from each other too -- from relationship and collaboration. Shannon and I do this together. We have different strengths, and we draw on each other. If a deck needs careful attention to detail and flow, I would ask Shannon to bring her calmness into it. That request -- and the energy she brings in response -- yields a different result than if she came in rushed or stressed.

The energy we bring into things has an impact -- on ourselves and on others. There is energy within, energy from other, and energy between people in a group. And as leaders, we can tune into all three. We can ask: what is the energy here? What is being called for? And what do I need to create -- not just in my words, but in the space itself -- to evoke what I want?

A simple example: I could not find the scissors I had just put away. I was frustrated -- that completely understandable, very human frustration of looking for something you know should be right there. And I noticed: I have a choice here. I can stay in the frustration, which makes finding the scissors harder. Or I can shift my energy. Not for anyone else. Just for myself. Because I have agency over that.

And this is where the third source of energy comes in -- the one beyond self and other. In the Catholic tradition, when you lose something, you pray to Saint Anthony. Whatever your relationship to that practice, what it actually does is make you slow down and reach outside of yourself. It opens you to something larger. You do not have to do this alone. There is a lot working alongside you if you can tune to it -- nature, spirit, community, the unseen.

Three sources: within, from other, from the unseen. This is just the beginning of a conversation about energy -- there is much more ahead. For now, the practice is simply this: tune in. What is the energy you are bringing right now? What are you open to receiving? And what might be available to you if you reach a little further than yourself?

Great conversation. This is just the start. Thanks, Conrad.