“Transition is never graceful”
We live in an age obsessed with productivity and bottom lines. Leaders are told to grip harder, move faster, and never miss a beat. The irony is that the more tightly we cling, the more brittle we become. (We all know leaders who take this brittleness home to children, spouse and those who rather put the weight down..)
What if leadership wasn’t about holding on harder — but about learning to hold the weight lightly?
Data helps, of course. But it only speaks to the mind. To navigate real change — the paradoxes, the grief of endings, the pull of new beginnings — we need something that speaks to the soul. That’s where poetry steps in.
🌹 The rose whispers: “Love the unbecoming. Love the becoming something else. Don’t fear the unbecoming.” – M. Broder
And Mirza Ghalib, with his trademark detachment, reminds us: (Those of us who also love Urdu poetry, will interpret it, the translation is in brackets though.
“Baazicha-e-atfaal hai duniya mere aage
Hota hai shab-o-roz tamasha mere aage“
(The world is but a children’s playground; day and night it unfolds as a spectacle before me.)
The rose teaches us that unbecoming is not failure, but transformation.
Ghalib invites us to loosen our grip, to see life’s endless spectacle without being consumed by it.
I am working with a leader navigating a merger. On paper, the data is precise: financial synergies, headcount impacts, timelines. But what she is really holding contradictory: people grieving what was ending, others yearning for what was possible.
Think of a tree in autumn: 🍂🌱
- The leaves fall, even though they’re beautiful.
- Winter feels bare, but necessary.
- Renewal arrives only because of the letting go.
That’s the paradox of leadership: to take responsibility seriously, while remembering to hold it lightly. To allow unbecoming, so that new becoming can emerge.
✨ Where in your own leadership might holding the weight lightly change not just what you do, but how you move through it?