Leading Lightly: Lower Your Stress, Think with Clarity, and Lead with Ease
Jody Michael
Greenleaf Book Group Press (June 2022)

 “The only thing worse than being blind is having sight but no vision.” Helen Keller

One of my favorite statements about leadership is in this passage from Lao-tse’s Tao Te Ching:

“Learn from the people
Plan with the people
Begin with what they have
Build on what they know
Of the best leaders
When the task is accomplished
The people will remark
We have done it ourselves.”

I was again reminded of that passage as I began to read Jody Michael’s book in which she focuses on a transformation process that she identifies as Mind Mastery®, a “measurable ability to engage constructively in life and work every day, no matter which stressors you encounter. It is your capacity to consistently respond to challenges with optimal performance in the moment and requires minimal recovery time afterward.

“Mental fitness starts with the recognition that the real drivers of your leadership results are the hidden habits of your mind — the powerful, unseen and entrenched perspectives you hold about yourself, others, and the world.” Warren Buffett once described these habits as being “too light to notice until they are too heavy to break.”

Jody Michael offers this helpful reminder: “Leading lightly means that no matter what happens during your day, you have the capacity to approach [and respond to] everything with enduring ease and clarity. It is a state of being that naturally arises when you have learned to let go of your internal noise and emotional clutter.” If not leading “with ease,” those with supervisory responsibilities will be able to lead with less stress, therefore much more effectively.

I think that the business world today is more volatile, more uncertain, more complex, and more ambiguous than at any prior time that I can remember. For many (if not most) leaders, developing Mind Mastery® can be of invaluable assistance.  More specifically, it will help to

o Prevent pressure from becoming severe stress
o Create mental fitness
o Pinpoint the causes of pain
o Accelerate personal growth
o Clarify shared and individual accountability
o Accelerate professional development
o Enrich workplace relationships
o Improve communication, cooperation, and (especially) collaboration
o Increase positive and productive engagement
o Reduce/minimize incivility

Yes, these are ambitious objectives but certainly worthy of a best effort by everyone involved. This book cannot achieve these objectives but the material in it can help people to achieve them and they must DO IT TOGETHER. Human communities are healthy only in ways and to the extent that most (if not all) of their individual members are…and help each other through the inevitable disruptions and disappointments. We all need both anchors and sails.

Helen Keller’s observation reminds us of the importance of sharing a compelling vision. This is what Jody Michssel may have had in mind when sharing her thoughts and feelings about multi-dimensional “fitness” within and beyond a workplace culture. Fitness of heart, mind, body, and soul (or spirit if you prefer). It is no coincidence that companies annually ranked among those most highly admired and best to work for are also annually ranked among those most profitable, with the greatest cap value in their industry segment.

Those who lead lightly have highly developed emotional intelligence (especially empathy). However different great leaders throughout history may have been in many (if not most) respects, all of them attracted followers.  Long ago, Theodore Roosevelt observed, “People won’t care how much you know until they know how much you care.” More recently, Maya Angelou reminds us,  “I’ve learned that people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel.”

Here are two concluding suggestions: Highlight key passages, and, keep a lined notebook near at hand while reading Leading Lightly in which you record your comments, questions, action steps (preferably with deadlines), page references as well as your responses to the questions posed and to lessons you have learned. (Pay close attention to the “Key Points” at the end of chapters.) These two simple tactics will facilitate, indeed expedite frequent reviews of key material later.