Dear Change Leader,
I’m writing this newsletter shortly after the summer solstice, almost at the midpoint of the year, as people traditionally prepare for their summer holidays. Given this transition point, I’d like to explore the benefit of pausing in the midst of what continues to be a hectic year.
Imagine that you are participating in a long, challenging hike. You’ve been climbing up and down hills for most of the day, with far too few areas of level terrain. At times, you have caught glimpses of the summit you are trying to reach. But most of the time, with both the summit and your route frustratingly out of view, it’s been hard to know just how much longer you will have to continue on this trek.
But every now and again, you find yourself in an open clearing—perhaps a large tree-lined meadow—that allows you to look back on where you’ve come from. You’re able to trace the progress that you’re making. You recognize places where you’ve struggled, even considered turning back, but you know you made the right decision to continue.
From this pause point, you also notice that your final destination remains obscured. And the inevitable questions arise in your mind: How much longer will it take to reach there? Do I have sufficient resources with me? Will I be able to rely on my traveling companions if I stumble?
When you notice a cairn of rocks assembled next to the trail, your hopes lift! You are reminded that others have passed this way before you. They succeeded, and so can you.
Adding your own rock to the cairn, you adjust your backpack and resume your journey with a renewed vigor and resolution.
The Gift of the Clearing
In the relentless work of serving as a leader, surrounded by unending demands on our time and attention, we can easily forget the profound value of these metaphorical clearings. We become so focused on the next hill, the next challenge, the latest disruption, that we lose sight of the remarkable journey we’ve already traveled.
The clearing offers us something precious: a fresh perspective on this journey, the encouragement from those who’ve walked before us, and an opportunity to add our own stone to the cairn. Just as that weary hiker finds renewed purpose and encouragement, leaders, too, benefit from these moments. The clearing invites us to:
**See the terrain differently.** From the clearing, what looked like impossible obstacles from the valley floor reveal themselves as surmountable challenges. That devastating setback earlier this year? It forced innovations that became your competitive advantage. The team member who left? Their departure created space for someone who brought exactly the skills you needed.
**Recognize your place in the continuum.** The cairn reminds us that leadership struggles aren’t unique to our time or our situation. Others have faced similar challenges, found ways through, and left markers to help those who follow. Your current struggles are adding to your wisdom—wisdom you’ll one day pass forward.
**Chart your next moves with clarity about the journey, not just the destination.** While the final summit may remain hidden, the clearing shows you that progress is possible, that others have made it through similar terrain, and that your next steps—even if not your final destination—can be taken with confidence.
The Three-Level Clearing Practice
The most powerful clearings work at multiple levels simultaneously. As leaders, we need to apply these insights at three distinct but interconnected dimensions:
Level 1: Personal Leadership – Your Own Cairn
At the personal level, your clearing practice involves honest self-assessment and intentional development:
- Acknowledge Your Struggle Stones: Name the specific challenges that tested you in the first half of this year. Don’t minimize them—each struggle represents a stone you’ve earned the right to place in your personal leadership cairn. What moments pushed you beyond your comfort zone? Where did you discover capabilities you didn’t know you had?
- Honor the Trail Markers Left by Others: Identify the leaders, mentors, books, or experiences that guided you when the path was unclear. How did their wisdom show up when you needed it most? Consider reaching out to thank someone whose “stone” helped mark your way forward.
- Add Your Stone with Intention: What insight, skill, or perspective have you gained that could help other leaders? Write it down, share it with someone, or incorporate it into how you mentor others. Your struggles become guideposts when you’re intentional about the lessons they contain.
Level 2: Team Leadership – Building Collective Cairns
Your team needs clearing moments to see their shared journey and contributions:
- Create Team Retrospectives with Meaning: Go beyond “what went well/what didn’t.” Ask your team: “During what moments this year were you surprised by your own capabilities?” “Where did we support each other through difficulty?” “What wisdom have we gained together that we want to remember?”
- Share Trail Stories: Make space for team members to share moments when they struggled but pushed through, or when they received unexpected help from colleagues. These stories become part of your team’s collective cairn—reminders that you’ve navigated difficulty together before.
- Establish Team Markers for Future Travelers: Document not just your processes and procedures, but your hard-won insights about working together effectively. What have you learned about communication during a crisis? How do you support each other’s growth? These become guideposts for new team members or for yourselves during future challenges.
Level 3: Organizational Leadership – The Institutional Cairn
At the organizational level, clearing practices build institutional wisdom:
- Conduct Organizational Archaeology: Look back at your company’s journey—not just the financial metrics, but the moments of choice, the innovations born from necessity, the times when values were tested and upheld. What patterns emerge? Where has your organization shown remarkable resilience or adaptability?
- Capture Institutional Wisdom: Create systems to preserve the lessons learned from both successes and setbacks. This isn’t just documentation—it’s building cairns for future organizational travelers. How do you ensure that the wisdom gained from this year’s challenges doesn’t walk out the door when people leave?
- Design Organizational Clearing Rituals: Build regular practices that allow your entire organization to pause, reflect, and gain perspective. This might be quarterly reflection sessions, annual storytelling gatherings, or structured ways to celebrate not just achievements but growth through adversity.
From Individual Clearing to Organizational Vista
The most powerful clearings aren’t just personal—they’re shared experiences that build collective wisdom. Consider creating clearing moments for your entire organization:
- Team retrospectives that celebrate progress, not just identify problems. Make space for people to share moments when they surprised themselves with their resilience.
- Strategic planning sessions that begin with acknowledgment of how far you’ve come, not just how far you have to go.
- Leadership development conversations that help your emerging leaders recognize their own growth and capability.
The Paradox of Productive Pausing
Here’s what I’ve observed in three decades of working with leaders: those who resist taking clearings—who pride themselves on never stopping—often find themselves lost in the woods, working harder but not smarter, burning out their teams and themselves.
Meanwhile, leaders who embrace strategic pausing, who create space for perspective and reflection, consistently outperform their always-moving counterparts. They make better decisions because they’ve taken time to understand the terrain. They build stronger teams because they’ve created space to see each person’s contributions clearly. They sustain their energy because they’ve learned the rhythm of exertion and restoration.
Your Summer Solstice Invitation
As the longest day of the year passes into summer, I challenge you to identify when you will enter your next clearing. Not next month, not after the current crisis passes, but in the next two weeks.
Schedule it like you would any critical business meeting—because it is one. The meeting is with yourself, your progress, your lessons learned, and your path forward.
And when you emerge from your clearing, you’ll return to the trail not depleted, but energized. Not confused about direction, but clear about your next steps. Not alone, but connected to the larger journey you’re on with your team, your organization, and the leaders you’re becoming.
The summit is still ahead. But for now, in this clearing, take a moment to appreciate how far you’ve already climbed.
Onward and upward,
*P.S. I’d love to hear about your clearing experience. What surprised you when you looked back on your journey so far this year? Reply and let me know—your insights might help another leader gain perspective on their own path.*
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**What’s one insight you’ve gained about your leadership journey in the first half of 2025? Share it with someone who could benefit from your perspective.**
“$10M Landed in Our Account”—What Leaders Should Know About Sudden Growth
What would your organization do if a massive, unexpected sum of money landed in your account overnight?
No, it’s not a scam, nor a mistake on the bank’s part. Rather, it is something that almost 3,000 nonprofits have experienced over the last 5 years as they have gained the attention of Mackenzie Scott and her unorthodox approach to philanthropy.
In this month’s episode of NGO Soul + Strategy, I speak with host Tosca Bruno-van Ejfeijken about the organizational impact of transformational gifts.
Drawing from research and real case studies, we explore:
- Why many nonprofits experienced less internal conflict over how to handle the windfall than expected
- What “quiet phase” communications can do to ease transitions
- How to prepare for the end of the money—before it’s all spent
- What readiness actually looks like when growth comes suddenly
This is a timely conversation for leaders thinking about funding growth, internal alignment, and long-term resilience.
Listen to the full episode here
EFFECTIVE CHANGE RESULTS FROM INTENTIONAL LEADERSHIP
We’re a leadership and organization development consultancy. My team and I work with leaders like you to prepare for and lead successful change processes.
Here’s why our clients call us:
- Leadership Coaching: I support leaders as they navigate transitions into new roles or expanded responsibilities.
- Group Coaching and Learning Programs: Bringing groups of leaders together, I facilitate learning experiences and months-long programs that equip people to be effective change leaders.
- Effective Teams and Stronger Organizations: I work with leaders and their teams with tailored processes that increase their effectiveness, building layers of aligned teams that transform organizations.