June 2026
The Joy of Leadership

 

The New York Knicks winning feels like something bigger is cracking open. It isn't about basketball at all, not really. It's about something we've been starving for and didn't even know how to name: Collective Effervescence.

 

Émile Durkheim coined the term over a century ago, watching people gather around fires, rituals, sacred things — and noticing that something happens to us when we come together around something larger than ourselves. 

 

 

Collective Effervescence is what happens when thousands, millions, of strangers feel the exact same thing at the exact same moment.

 

Joy.

Hope.

Anticipation.

Belonging.

Together.

A ritual.

A belief.

A shared purpose.

 

And in that moment — for just a moment — everything that usually divides us simply dissolves.

 

Politics.

Income.

Age.

Background.

 

People remembering how to gather. How to celebrate. How to dream out loud, together, unguarded.

 

Collective Effervescence is proof of something we forget too easily: that joy is just as contagious as fear. That courage spreads exactly the way anxiety does. We get to choose which one we feed.

 

And here's what moves me most — what I'm witnessing isn't the product of ownership, or billionaires in courtside seats, or polished celebrity moments, or some decision made in a boardroom by people in suits. This kind of joy can't be manufactured from the top down. It is built, day after day, by a community of people who show up and choose — again and again — to build something bigger than their own name, their own glory, their own highlight reel. It is the people closest to the work, the ones with the least recognition and the most heart, who generate this electricity when they commit to each other and believe in something shared.

 

Leadership is hard. It can be brutally lonely. But it also carries within it an extraordinary, almost unbelievable power: the power to create joy. Real joy. The kind that starts as a spark inside a team, a company, a program — and grows until it spills out into the streets, into a city, into strangers hugging strangers.

 

This is what makes us human. Not the wins. Not the numbers. The joy. The shared breath. The laughter. The creativity. The feeling of being part of something alive. That's the gift. And it's ours to keep giving.

 

I want to introduce you to someone special. My co-facilitator and dear friend Whitney Swander. Whitney and I have been friends and colleagues for about 10 years. We have seen each other through many phases and evolutions. We've learned, unlearned, and given each other the one thing everyone yearns for: permission to change. Through this note from Whitney I hope you get a glimpse of how special she is and the good hands you will be in at the retreat.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Today’s work needs leaders who are self aware and can lead through uncertainty, risk, and change with grounded confidence. When leaders don’t do their own internal work, they work their issues out on their people and cause harm.

Teams thrive on two essentials: courageous leadership and effective communication. When leaders build trust and teams understand how to connect across different communication styles, collaboration deepens, innovation grows, and accountability sticks.