Consciousness is the new leadership
Why the leaders who let go will leave everyone else behind.
Eddie was on the hamster wheel again.
He’d spent three months trying to get his distributed team aligned on their Q3 strategy. Three months of version control hell, scheduling calls that felt like diplomatic negotiations, chasing down feedback from people who seemed to have vanished into the remote work ether.
He was convinced this was just how hard things had to be now. Remote work = everything takes forever. More process, more follow-up, more of that special kind of exhaustion that comes from herding cats across time zones.
Then something shifted. Maybe it was the fourth time he caught himself writing "per my last email" that he realized he'd become that guy. Instead of sending another status update that would get skimmed and ignored, he got curious about what each person actually needed to feel confident moving forward. Instead of another all-hands death-by-PowerPoint session, he had five-minute conversations. Instead of trying to control the process like some kind of workflow dictator, he started trusting his people to figure things out.
The strategy came together in two weeks. He didn’t a better system or download the perfect project management app. He stopped operating from the assumption that alignment had to be a blood sport.
I used to tell people that when we level up in their work, they might also live better, happier lives. That wasn't the point, but it seemed like that was a common side benefit. I've come to realize that I had it reversed—expansion is about a better, happier life that inevitably produces better results in their work. It's about the whole person. Creating growth in one area creates growth in all the others.
This reversal matters more than ever. The old models of leadership—command and control, mechanistic efficiency, the quarterly performance theater—are collapsing under the weight of a world that AI, hybrid work, and portfolio careers have made fundamentally different. What's emerging requires something we've never systematically cultivated: consciousness as the foundation of how we lead.
(And before you roll your eyes at "consciousness"—I'm not talking about crystals and chakras. I'm talking about being awake to what's actually happening instead of running on autopilot.)
The circle you're standing in
Draw a circle around yourself. Make it as big or as small as you want. This is your current understanding of reality. Everything you know and believe is in here. Everything you don't know is outside of it.
Most leaders are standing in circles that were drawn by the industrial age. Their mental models assume scarcity, hierarchy, and the need for thick skin. They've mastered the games of the previous era—the quarterly dance, the performance theater, the careful curation of what information flows up and down the chain of command.
But here's what's happened: the game changed while we were all busy getting really good at the old game.
When your team is scattered across time zones, when AI can handle the routine decisions you used to make (and probably do them better), when your best people are building portfolio careers that transcend your neat little org chart—the tight control that once felt like mastery now feels like trying to conduct an orchestra while wearing oven mitts.
What we use to protect us from failure also protects us from success. Playing not to lose is not a good strategy for winning. Playing small keeps you small.
You're playing here. You could be playing here. (Imagine the circles expanding outward.)
The expansion effect
There's a moment—you've experienced it—when something clicks and your world seems larger. When the thing you've been wrestling with like it's a greased pig suddenly makes sense, when all the "hard" dissipates and you know the thing, when the world of new possibilities replaces the struggle of the old.
This is the Expansion Effect. It's not theory. It's not even a best practice. This is native to us all. This is something you already do. You've done it thousands of times. What's different now is we're going to do it on purpose.
Ever had a mentor tell you something you didn't understand at the time, only to smack yourself in the forehead months (or years) later when it finally clicked? That's expansion happening naturally. Your circle grew, and suddenly their words made sense from the larger perspective.
You have already lived a life of expansion. Some of it was profound—those moments that split your life into "before" and "after." Other parts you may not have even noticed. But you've been doing this since birth. You’re already good at this stuff.
Why now, why this
The decentralized, adaptive organizations we need can't be built from the old circle. They require leaders who can hold paradox without their brain breaking, who can navigate uncertainty without needing to control every variable, who can create coherence without imposing the kind of rigid structure that makes everyone want to update their LinkedIn profile.
This isn't about soft skills becoming the main thing. This is about consciousness becoming the foundation that makes everything else possible.
When you expand, you care a little less about the games your previous self used to play. And that might make you better at them. Expansion gives you perspective and detachment on the things you used to do. You're no longer just in the game—you're also on the sidelines, in the stands, in the press box, watching it on TV. All at the same time.
You get to keep all the gifts and talents you had in the previous arenas, but you have a mastery of them that extends beyond the game. You'll use them effortlessly, and they'll get more results faster. More money. Better relationships. Happiness. Peace.
More money, better relationships, and peace in the bargain? I’ll take that all day long.
The competitive advantage of letting go
Here's the counterintuitive truth: in a world where everyone is grinding harder, the competitive advantage goes to those who can let go.
Most resources aren't actually scarce anymore, though it can feel that way when you're fighting for budget or headcount. That scarcity feeling promotes fiercer competition, which deepens the scarcity story. We compete for finite resources, which is conditioning left over from a time when resources actually were scarce—back when there was one mammoth and twelve hungry people.
But consciousness will make you better at everything you do, including the stuff you're already good at. Not needing thick skin is better than having thick skin. (Needing thick skin in the first place is what keeps you trapped in your current circle.)
Your current state is full of subconscious "shoulds"—about how leadership looks, how decisions get made, how success gets measured. Surfacing them allows you to let them go. It opens up the decision space that you didn't even know was there.
The maps you need
What's most necessary for expansion is simple maps. We're talking about some heady concepts and some deep experience. These take time and daily practice, and in some ways they operate in opposition to the culture of business. Business operates largely on mechanistic models that value efficiency and throughput—crisp, clear incentives that give quick "hits" of feeling satisfaction.
The problem is that the things we look forward to take on their own logic. They seem like the right things to do, but they're built on some assumptions about what those things will mean and how they will feel. We set these goals and then allow them to define our experience and our options.
The map must not become the territory. If the map is too precise, it becomes its own limiting mechanism because it says "this, not this." There is kind of a destination and kind of a direction, but those must never interrupt personal discovery.
The best part of the adventure is finding your way—not the destination itself.
What you can do right now
Here's what's beautifully counterintuitive: the path to expanded consciousness doesn't require a retreat, a life coach, or a complete personality transplant. It requires the opposite of what you might expect.
Your tools aren't the year, the quarter, the month. Your tools are the day, the hour, the moment. How you spend your days is how you spend your life, and the day is where your intentions actually live. You can do something with that.
Some things to know:
You already know how this works
You're going to expand anyway
You are what determines when that happens
I'll suggest things that will help you with this journey, and I need you to know that these don't have to be "forever" things. I want you to try them for just enough time that you notice the difference. That's all. Once you get attuned to the noticing, you'll have that awareness—and you might find different or better ways to tap into that awareness.
Today, choose one thing:
Remove something that competes for your finite attention. News, social media, the theater of work—whatever clouds your insight. Whatever you remove makes space for clarity. (I once spent a year without reading news and had the most productive, peaceful year of my life. Turns out the world kept spinning without my anxious monitoring.)
Or notice your stories. What stories do you tell yourself about how things have to be? What old scripts could you let go of? The story that good leaders work weekends. The story that if you're not stressed, you're not trying hard enough.
Expansion is not about trying, it's about allowing. More effort reinforces the current state. We’re looking for the right balance of prescription and exploration.
Expansion requires the removal of things that cloud your insight. Sometimes that clarity can be bracing. But letting go is what creates the most clarity.
The field beyond
"Out beyond ideas of wrongdoing and rightdoing, there is a field. I'll meet you there." —Rumi
The future of work isn't about better systems or smarter processes. It's about leaders who can operate from that field—beyond the binary thinking that keeps us trapped in circles too small for the world we're building.
That's the real competitive advantage. That's the new leadership. That's the work.