The Positive Energy Workplace

You lead your company. Your team. Your life. It's all good... Except when it's not.

I was working with a couple of clients this week helping them think through a big meeting next month for their team. The usual suspects showed up: What outcomes do we want? Why are we having it? Do we really need to have it? How can it be as meaningful as possible? How much time do we have? What might come up that we need to be prepared to work with? Who needs to be there? You know... that stuff.

I have a client who's everything you'd want in a leader.

Heart of gold. Fierce commitment to transparency. Deep desire to make people feel valued. A hunger to lead well that's almost palpable.

All admirable qualities. Essential, even. They're at the core of the kind of intentional, energetically present leadership that creates cultures where people thrive.

But like every strength, there's a shadow side. And hers? She's an external processor.

She thinks out loud. A lot. And while external processing itself isn't inherently problematic, when done unconsciously, it creates unintended impact: confused teams, deflated morale, misdirected energy, and conversations that suck the oxygen out of the room.

None of this is intentional. It's the last thing she'd want. But it happens.

And it's completely fixable.

If you're an external processor — or if you lead alongside one — this post is for you.

A couple of weeks ago I shared a word cloud that represented responses from a group of senior and executive leaders in one of my LinkedIn groups - "The Design & Innovation Leaders Network: A Private Community Building Creative & Authentic Cultures". The actual query was "What do you consider to be the #1 most important quality in leadership?"

What do you consider to be the number 1, most important quality in leadership? If you could have only one quality, take only one quality "with you", what would it be? No right or wrong answers here, just curiosity. Whatever is true for you is what makes you...you.