Holding Possibility is Like Tending a Garden
Adam Quiney
Executive Coach | Transformational Coaching and Leadership for Leaders of Leaders
Once you become enrolled in possibility, you will often find yourself frustrated by what happens next: you become unenrolled in that possibility.
This is the nature of possibility, and is part of the path of transformational leadership.
The transformational leader recognizes this fact, and commits to the kind of support that allows them to distinguish when they’ve fallen out of possibility, and find their way back to it.
To lead in this way is to get enrolled in possibility, become unenrolled in possibility, recognize that this has happened, and get supported to return back to possibility — over and over again.
When we relate to enrolling ourselves in possibility as something to be finished, we are left frustrated and create significance when this cycle happens.
“Ugh! I already took the time to create a compelling vision, but now it doesn’t seem that interesting to me. In fact, I just want to avoid doing this. There must be something wrong with it. Maybe I just aren’t that interested in taking this on like I thought I was.”
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Of course you’re not — to engage with possibility is to lean into the unknown. To lean into the unknown is scary, and when scared, our resistance will show up.
Our resistance closes the doors to possibility and pushes us back to the status quo.
“You know what? Maybe things aren’t that bad after all. Our company doesn’t need to double profits, we’ll be just fine if we keep making a ten percent increase year over year. I don’t mind my job. I could be happy just doing this. Maybe I just need to learn to be happy with what I have.”
Recognizing the inevitability of all of this, the transformational leader treats their possibility the same way they treat a garden. It is something to be tended, day in and day out. If you stop weeding your garden, it will become overgrown. If you stop working with your possibility, it will fade.
The transformational leader doesn’t make any significance about the fact that they’ve pulled back from their possibility. They recognize it as an inevitable part of the process, and get supported to get re-enrolled in possibility.