Have you ever no­ticed how dif­fer­ent­ly you feel when you are in the pres­ence of a true leader? The ex­pe­ri­ence is one of glo­ri­ous seren­i­ty. Your spir­it rests at ease, free from ten­sion and at peace. There is no en­er­getic dis­so­nance, on­ly har­mo­ny. There is no fear, no un­ease. Just ef­fort­less­ness of lead­er­ship.

Such lead­ers are rare. Why? Be­cause as an in­di­vid­ual, reach­ing the point where one’s spir­it is no longer at odds with hu­man­i­ty re­quires a jour­ney to in­ner ex­cel­lence. It is a path that few are will­ing to walk. The jour­ney de­mands courage to con­front un­com­fort­able truths, to un­earth buried pain and to face char­ac­ter flaws with hon­esty. In oth­er words, it’s a pil­grim­age that re­quires emo­tion­al grit.

When this jour­ney is avoid­ed, hu­man col­li­sions mul­ti­ply. An in­di­vid­ual at war with him­self or her­self, even un­know­ing­ly, will strug­gle to in­ter­act in har­mo­ny with oth­ers. This is why, along­side am­bi­tious new year goals for health and wealth, it would be use­ful to in­clude the pur­suit of in­ner ex­cel­lence.

True lead­ers have al­ready em­barked on this life­long jour­ney. Some have prac­ticed for years and made re­mark­able progress, while oth­ers are just be­gin­ning to step in­to the wa­ters. Re­gard­less of where they are, the re­sults are vis­i­ble and deeply res­o­nant. Every­one in their pres­ence (in­clud­ing the lead­ers them­selves), feels up­lift­ed.

In to­day’s busi­ness world, where so much is ar­ti­fi­cial, au­then­tic lead­er­ship is a breath of fresh air. While many strive to out­do one an­oth­er in build­ing brands, ad­vanc­ing ca­reers and dom­i­nat­ing thought lead­er­ship, true lead­er­ship re­mains qui­et. The more au­then­tic the leader, the more hushed the tone.

True lead­er­ship is root­ed in seren­i­ty. It is an­chored in in­ner con­trol and psy­cho­log­i­cal ground­ing so pro­found, that the leader rarely needs to raise his or her voice. Years of prac­tic­ing self-reg­u­la­tion and mind­ful be­hav­iour, have made these lead­ers re­sis­tant to be­ing bait­ed in­to dis­plays of ag­gres­sion or van­i­ty.

Ef­fort­less lead­er­ship is nat­ur­al, nev­er per­for­ma­tive. Iron­i­cal­ly, some of the most per­for­ma­tive lead­ers are found at the top of or­gan­i­sa­tions, where mak­ing the right nois­es and cul­ti­vat­ing the right net­works, can in­flate one’s net worth. Yet, true lead­er­ship is not about ti­tles. It is about traits so deeply em­bed­ded in char­ac­ter, that the leader be­comes mag­net­ic. This is why lead­er­ship can be found any­where with­in a busi­ness, not on­ly at the top.

In my work as a ser­vice trans­for­ma­tion con­sul­tant, one of the first pri­or­i­ties is to en­gage lead­er­ship teams in the jour­ney to in­ner ex­cel­lence. A leader can­not guide a team or com­mu­ni­ty ef­fec­tive­ly, with­out be­ing well on the road to self-mas­tery. With­out this work, the ship will in­evitably be cap­tained by ego, ar­ro­gance, self-cen­tered­ness, and di­vi­sive­ness.

True lead­er­ship emerges when a leader no longer needs to con­sult a text­book, a the­o­ry, or an ex­ter­nal con­sul­tant to make de­ci­sions that ben­e­fit em­ploy­ees, stake­hold­ers and the busi­ness si­mul­ta­ne­ous­ly. When the ques­tion, “What should I do in this sit­u­a­tion?” be­comes a re­sponse an­chored in both heart and head, the de­ci­sion tran­scends log­ic. It feels right. This does not mean lead­ers should avoid con­sul­ta­tion with teams or ad­vi­sors. It means that con­sul­ta­tion is dri­ven by a gen­uine de­sire to view choic­es through the lens of all im­pact­ed par­ties.

Ef­fort­less lead­er­ship is easy to recog­nise. It does not seek an au­di­ence. It at­tracts one. Peo­ple are drawn to lead­ers whose words and ac­tions are aligned to a high­er or­der, con­sis­tent­ly. This shows in­ten­tion­al align­ment with a core val­ue sys­tem. Em­ploy­ees are in­flu­enced by lead­ers who em­body these high­er-or­der be­hav­iours. Trust does not need to be man­u­fac­tured. It evolves nat­u­ral­ly, when con­sis­tent­ly pos­i­tive be­hav­iours be­come pre­dictable over time.

Ef­fort­less lead­er­ship changes the core char­ac­ter of a busi­ness. It imbeds an in­ter­nal steadi­ness that cre­ates the con­di­tions for peo­ple, cus­tomer and busi­ness growth. In­ter­nal tur­moil dis­si­pates, cul­ture flour­ish­es and em­ploy­ees de­liv­er their best per­for­mance, will­ing­ly.

The lead­ers of to­mor­row will not be those who shout the loud­est or net­work the hard­est. They will be those who em­body ef­fort­less lead­er­ship. They will be qui­et, ground­ed, au­then­tic and mag­net­ic. The chal­leng­ing times that we now face in T&T re­quire busi­ness lead­ers to sig­nal that the ex­haust­ing era of per­for­ma­tive lead­er­ship is over.

It’s time to el­e­vate ef­fort­less lead­er­ship and to ush­er in depth, over ego.