So many of the people leaders we work with and know, and so many of the folks in our personal networks, experience the world’s crises as humans while being expected to lead others through them. They’re tasked with staying focused on the mission, and to get that done they have to put their worries off to the side. At times, the tension in that dual role feels impossible.
As I draft this piece, my messages are exploding with reactions to today’s latest attacks on humanity and ever-encroaching authoritarianism. We live in a world of constant breaking news and conflict overwhelming our senses and triggering our emotions. It’s a lot. So where do we go with our reactions, to process, and to check our logic?
Our Leader Lunches are designed as open spaces where the folks who show up bring whatever is most present on their minds. At our most recent gathering, feelings of having nowhere to go to release this endless stream of worries and fury and dismay surfaced. One of the folks who joined us asked, Where can I go to process what’s happening around me? Could this be that space?
This moment we had together confirmed something we’ve been thinking about a lot lately. People need intentional spaces to create and build connection - to vent, to express fears and worries, to experiment with ideas for action. Connection transforms isolation into shared strength and is, in and of itself, a leadership discipline.
Connection as Collective Strength
Leaders juggle personal reactions to global and national and local events, the impacts of those events on them, and the expectation of composure and compartmentalization necessary for continued leadership. That juggling happens whether you're leading an organization of 200 people, or a team of two. Without processing space, resilience erodes.
Peer connection reduces isolation and strengthens resilience. When people connect, they build a fabric of mutual support and shared wisdom. Expanding networks beyond immediate circles broadens perspective, offers new learning, and makes each person feel less alone. Connection is not an add-on. It is the infrastructure of resilient leadership.
How Connection is a Practice of Deepening EQ
Relationship management, which is the outward face of emotional intelligence, is where our capacity (or lack of it) becomes most visible to others. It shapes how we motivate, encourage, and steady the people with whom we interact. At moments when the world feels especially heavy, our ability to connect, listen, and respond with care becomes not just a “soft skill,” but the very practice that sustains teams. And yet, relationship management rests on the even deeper foundations of social awareness and self-management. The more we cultivate those inward practices, the more skillfully we can engage outwardly, offering clarity, energy, and steadiness for ourselves and each other.
Join Us
Resilience comes from connection, not solitary strength. The act of leaders gathering to say “I feel this too” is itself resilience. That is why our Leader Lunches remain open spaces: what comes up is what needs to come up. When leaders bring their rawest tensions, worries, and hopes into community, they are practicing courage, and weaving strength together.
How is what’s happening in the world shaping you as a leader? What spaces are sustaining you right now? And what might shift if you allowed yourself to bring whatever is most present into them?
In our next Leader Lunch Break, we’ll explicitly create the space to talk about the ways we’re impacted by what’s happening in our neighborhoods, our cities, our country, and the world. To do this well, we’ll aim to frame the space with care. We know folks don’t need an open venting forum that risks harm or re-traumatization. But what we’re hearing is that people do need space to think and talk out loud, to connect with people outside of their immediate networks, and to build connection, even if just for a few minutes.
Join us for our next Leader Lunch Break on Wednesday, October 1st at 12pm.