How to Walk into a Room: The Art of Knowing When to Stay and When to Walk Away

by Emily P. Freeman

A well-differentiated leader has clarity about their own personal core values. They can be separate from others while remaining connected with others. They can manage their own emotional reactions and therefore are able to take stands, to speak up, and to risk displeasing. It isn’t particular skills or techniques of leadership that count the most, but a leader’s ability to be present and engaged even when the system (or the group) is displeased.

People-pleasing is evidence of an unhealthy emotional system and is not a brush-it-away, bless-your-heart kind of bad habit.

People-pleasing is a serious problem and a dangerous cancer, and if you don’t find the courage to name it and the clarity to reject it, the prognosis is grim. It’s keeping you from your best work, your best rest, and it’s sabotaging your freedom.

When you’re trying to please the people rather than working to discern from a centered, wholehearted place, your work will never be enough. It will always exhaust you and never fully please those around you. Nobody wins and no one is free.

you also need to learn to make peace with crisis.

your job is not always to fix everything.

most crises can’t be simply resolved,

It is your well-differentiated presence, not your fancy technique or your ability to please everyone, that will make the biggest difference. The sooner you realize the myth of people-pleasing, the better equipped you’ll be to show up as you in the world, with confidence and peace.

Walking into a room as a leader means developing patience to follow arrows when what you really want is an answer. It means knowing the difference between peace and avoidance. It means learning how to make decisions because it’s time, not because you feel ready. And it means developing the practice of waiting even when you’re ready but you know it isn’t time. It means knowing and naming when something has ended, developing a practice of creating the closure you need, and honoring the closure you’ll never get.

leadership meant paying attention to my thoughts, feelings, and body. Leadership meant survival, tending, and doing what I could. Now leadership looks different. Now it looks like holding compassion toward myself for not knowing what to say then or how to say it well. And it looks like extending that same compassion to others when they respond in ways I may not understand. I have more tools, more space, more grace for myself now. But that day, I wasn’t ready. And being able to name that, to notice and honor it? That’s leadership too.

Lead yourself first. Quiet the noise. Clear the clutter. Silence the shame. And then? Consider that your next right thing might be disruptive, bring discomfort, or reveal a difficult truth. People-pleasing is keeping you from your greatest contribution, your brave yes, your strong no. What people need most are your solid presence and your steadfast insistence on being okay with or without their consent. We don’t need you to please us. We need you to lead us. But first you have to lead yourself.

Come, all you who are tired and travel-stained, footsore and famished; Come with your fellow travelers to find companionship and comfort. For here Jesus—who knows what it is to wander, watch, and wrestle in desert places—waits to meet us here and welcome us in, offering rest and renewal, solace and strength, for the journey still to come.

Discernment is a way of listening that integrates the movement of God, our deeply held desires, and our connection to the world around us. This means we have to find a way to access our feelings without dismissing, repressing, preaching to, or shaming ourselves for them. To walk into a room as a listener means we’re listening not only to the room around us but also to the room within, the interior home we bring with us, the shelter of our inner life.

What do I see? When you enter a room, look around and take note of who is there and who is missing. Pay attention to the light and the shadows, the seating and the doors. This is a practice of observation, not one of judgment. What do I hear? Who does the most talking, and what do they say? What sounds distracting? What sounds like home? What does love, joy, peace, and patience sound like to you? Do you sense these qualities in the room? What do I smell? Is it earthy, antiseptic, natural, or clean? Is it familiar, repugnant, or stale? What memories are evoked from the smells in this room? What smells curious? What smells like comfort? What feelings are emerging? What is the atmosphere like in this room you just entered? Is the air warm or cool? Do you want to open or close? Do you notice comfort or discomfort in your body or in the space around you? Are you aware of welcome or rejection? How do you know? What signals is your body giving you that you are anxious, welcome, free, ignored, or relaxed?

entered the same room in the past. What’s even more important than the decisions you make is the person you’re becoming while you make them.

I’m beginning to rest in the truth that roots are something we can take with us wherever we go, and that is good and beautiful in its own way.

Our hearts and minds are clear as we bear witness to the work of healing that is in motion as we place ourselves in the Light.

finishing well might simply mean finishing period.

chances are your exit may have felt heavy and exhausting. Walking into your next room might mean finding the courage to do just one regular next right thing:

What is mine to do? A borrowed question from Suzanne Stabile, and our answer may not come swiftly. But keeping it in mind as we walk into a room could protect us from potentially overfunctioning or trying to live someone else’s life.

Feelings don’t need to be fixed; they need to be felt.

As you enter a room, consider who you bring along: the people who have loved you, the ancestors you have never met, the God who sees you. We never have to walk into rooms alone.

What bothers you the most could be your first clue to your next right thing.

Knowing and naming what you have to offer—wisdom, resolve, clarity, joy, discernment, humor—is a gift to everyone in the room.

the discernment process is not, in fact, about simply going into a situation with a question and coming out with a clear answer. It is actually a formation process necessary to grow our faith, to teach us how to discern God’s voice, and to draw us into community.

My desire for us to know God together is not for the sake of knowing exactly what to do or choosing the right thing over the wrong thing or having the correct belief. But for the sake of knowing you are seen and loved, that you are not alone, that there is peace available, and you are not forgotten. Full stop. The end. No disclaimers.

Let the last thing end already.