I’m just emerging from a 48-hour leadership retreat where we blended spontaneous creative thinking, deep reflection, cultural immersion, personal reflection and growth and practical project scoping — all while strengthening a working relationship that will matter deeply in the years ahead.
I call it leadership alchemy.
Sound appealing?
When we consciously step away from operational leadership and enter the creative bubble, something shifts. Space opens. Possibility expands. The quality of the work transforms — from lead to gold.
In my experience, three things make that transformation possible:
- A willingness to loosen structure in service of intention — clarity about the what, without over-engineering the how
- Permission (for yourself or the group) to truly free-flow
- The courage to collaborate with the space itself — to sense more deeply, listen more carefully, and trust what emerges
This time, we worked with art, music, culture, meditation, deep conversation, good food, silence, laughter, and vulnerability. The result? A bold new project in its earliest, most alive form.
So little of this exists in our day-to-day leadership lives.
What might change if it did?
Moving from “I don’t have time” to “I choose to create the space” is, in itself, an act of courage and transformation. Turning the leaden to golden…