How Do We Make The Courageous Leadership Of This Moment Stick?

In between the sounds of sirens and Cuomo briefings as background music, over the past few weeks, I’ve been present to some of the most inspiring and powerful virtual coaching sessions of my practice to date.

The leaders I’m supporting are:

 Providing their teams with safe spaces to truly talk about their fears and what is possible right now.

Breaking from the corporate layoff scripts to offer compassion and empathy in difficult conversations.

Modeling vulnerability to share how feeling emotions can equal strength. 

Stepping up to deliver on new products and business functions to meet the changing needs of their customers and the world.

Giving up on the perfectionism that has haunted them throughout their careers in exchange for direct communication and swift action. 

I am in awe of them. They are throwing out the rules of who they thought they should be, and they are standing firm in their own skin to lead as humans first. 

And yet, I have a lingering fear that as we begin to come out of this, leadership gains will be met with cultural amnesia. That there will be a gravitational pull bringing us back to what we know to be the rules and how it has always been. 

In order to combat this worry, for myself, for my clients and for all the inspiring leaders I’m reading about who seemingly came out of nowhere—I’m relentlessly returning to this question: 

How do we make it stick?

It happens each minute we notice how it feels to show up as courageous, imperfect humans.

 When we’re doing what we can to save lives. Being the support our people need. Providing space to cry and to laugh. Taking the lead without asking for permission. Offering to do the talk or the webinar before we know what we’re going to say.

It’s in remembering these moments. How they feel in your body. Writing about them. Talking about them with your people and inspiring them to become aware of what feels different now. How every moment feels like we must do what needs to be done. Continually asking ourselves, why would we do anything but? It’s a practice of remembering what’s at stake. Right now, lives are on the line. It’s a chance to wake up and realize it was always that way.