Leadership Doing: How We Recover and Radiate Presence

Abstract

We described equanimity as the ability to maintain dynamic balance and overcome disorientation in a fast-changing, information-rich environment. Perhaps when we use these words, people imagine dynamic balance to be something akin to Buddhist meditation or the latest health craze. While these may be worthy pursuits, the leaders we work with live in a world where fast action and difficult decisions are required. Yet even in the extreme pace set by competitors and market conditions, we have come across leaders who were “graceful while in motion,” fully present to everyone they met, and artful in their ability to recover from most situations they faced in their work and their lives. To highlight these qualities, let us jumpstart with a noisy evening in the Boston Garden, a center for basketball lovers around the world, then go to a counterexample with Salomon Brothers, and conclude with a remarkable Chilean business leader.