Lead­ers are peo­ple too. They face per­son­al chal­lenges, dodge curve­balls that cir­cum­stances throw at them and nav­i­gate the ebb and flow of this pil­grim­age called life. In essence, they trav­el through sea­sons just like every­one else. With lead­ers, though, the ef­fect of their re­spons­es is am­pli­fied over a larg­er or­bit, as it rip­ples across the peo­ple, the cul­tures and the busi­ness­es that they lead.

Lead­ers should not be obliv­i­ous to the sea­sons of their lives. When they ig­nore the teach­ings of these sea­sons, the penal­ty is that they in­flict pain on oth­ers. When they are aware, the ef­fect is an agency that con­verts in­to pos­i­tive so­cial chem­istry and lead­er­ship cur­ren­cy. They be­come agents of pos­i­tive mo­men­tum, thrust­ing peo­ple and busi­ness­es in­to ac­cel­er­a­tion mode will­ing­ly. There is an ac­cept­ed be­lief that lead­ers en­trust­ed with the mis­sion to lead change are au­to­mat­i­cal­ly equipped to do so ef­fec­tive­ly. The records show that those who ac­cept this fal­la­cious as­sump­tion blind­ly are of­ten dis­ap­point­ed.

What is vis­i­ble to the naked eye is the leader’s style. Of­ten, what is hid­den is the un­der­ly­ing lead­er­ship iden­ti­ty that is be­ing forged by the cu­mu­la­tive im­pact of the many sea­sons of the leader’s life. Each sea­son brings its own malaise and mag­ic. How lead­ers re­spond to these ex­pe­ri­ences and the wis­dom that is lift­ed de­pends heav­i­ly on the state of their in­ner ar­chi­tec­ture and the po­ten­cy of their learn­ing curve.

One fa­mil­iar sea­son is the reign of ter­ror. It’s when lead­ers have al­lowed them­selves to be at the mer­cy of life, be­com­ing em­bat­tled and em­bit­tered. They hold grudges, em­bark on vendet­tas, en­force tit-for-tat rules when wronged and wreak hav­oc on cul­tur­al peace. They are ruled by trau­ma, hurt and un­re­solved is­sues.

Re­mark­ably, they can still be func­tion­al­ly ef­fi­cient and ex­cel­lent at achiev­ing tar­gets. Some may even be over­achiev­ers, re­act­ing to be­ing ex­posed to dis­parag­ing re­marks made dur­ing child­hood about their in­tel­li­gence.

In com­pul­sive re­tal­i­a­tion, they ded­i­cate their lives (sub­con­scious­ly) to over­achieve­ment, in or­der to com­pen­sate for the child­hood hu­mil­i­a­tion.

Then there’s the sea­son of self-reck­on­ing. In this sea­son, lead­ers pur­sue karmic cleans­ing. They place their wrong­do­ings un­der a mi­cro­scope and per­form acts of resti­tu­tion. They seek and en­gage in acts of for­give­ness and pur­sue heal­ing from un­re­solved trau­ma. It is a jour­ney to iden­ti­fy the root caus­es of emo­tion­al or spir­i­tu­al fa­tigue and to en­gage in restora­tive rit­u­als that recharge mind, body and spir­it. This sea­son teach­es the pow­er of sec­ond chances and the truth that every­one pos­sess­es re­deem­ing qual­i­ties. Here, lead­ers recog­nise that not every­one has had the priv­i­lege or op­por­tu­ni­ty to em­bark on a jour­ney of self-en­quiry and self-remap­ping.

Con­se­quent­ly, it’s a time when lead­ers are more in­clined to be­come coach­es.

The sea­son of per­son­al restora­tion plays one of the most pow­er­ful roles in sculpt­ing iden­ti­ty. It’s recog­nised when lead­ers ex­pe­ri­ence an epiphany and go on a pil­grim­age to “dis­cov­er them­selves.” Typ­i­cal­ly, it is a self-in­duced jour­ney of in­ner en­quiry seek­ing to val­i­date one’s pur­pose in life. This sea­son of­ten ar­rives dur­ing ex­is­ten­tial ques­tion­ing. Lead­ers be­gin to feel the yearn­ing to go be­yond sim­ply ex­ist­ing and to be­gin liv­ing mean­ing­ful­ly.

En­light­ened lead­ers in this sea­son be­come con­vict­ed with new truths. They re­alise that peo­ple mat­ter, de­vel­op a rev­er­ence for life, em­brace open­ness to di­ver­si­ty and end their ten­den­cy to judge oth­ers. They come face to face with them­selves and their im­pact on the world. They feel com­pelled to im­print in­ter­ac­tions with care, rev­er­ence and dig­ni­ty. They be­gin to lead from a hu­man-cen­tred sweet spot and reap re­wards that in­clude high scores on lead­er­ship trust and in­tegri­ty.

The beau­ty of these sea­sons is that they are not per­ma­nent. Their role is to en­able the alche­my that pro­duces great lead­ers. The man­date fac­ing those who wish to be­come great lead­ers is clear. Pause, name your cur­rent sea­son and ex­e­cute the lead­er­ship as­sign­ment for that sea­son be­fore the win­dow for achiev­ing lead­er­ship suc­cess clos­es.