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personal leadership comes through solitude.
Solitude offers ways for leaders to obtain greater clarity.
I don’t consciously think about it when I’m running, but an idea or the answer will suddenly pop into my head—either as I’m running or quite often soon after I finish.
He also finds solitude while working out. “I don’t run with anyone, I don’t work out with anyone.”
I needed to lead them, not command them.”
“All the most important decisions in my life have come in moments of solitude.
I realized that the relationships are more important than reaching the summit,” Tommy says. “The journey, the relationships. That’s the beauty of the climb.”
His war papers are replete with documents and notes that he wrote not for any official purpose, but specifically to distill his own thoughts.
“It’s crazy to play music in the car. It’s one of the only times you can think.” Another is the shower, a place where a person is usually protected from outside inputs.
“You’ll see things like these cupcakes that look amazing. And people copy them. But on the inside they’re phony, because the person didn’t create it themselves. We’re getting more of everything, but less of what is authentically ourselves. If we spent more time alone, creating something that might not look as amazing but is more authentic, we’d value ourselves more.”
“Silence and solitude allows me to ground myself, to be conscious of what’s going on inside me, what I’m feeling,”
Silence and solitude creates a sacred space, an elongated space. The space gives you time to develop a creative response to what you’re feeling. Otherwise there is only reaction.”
“A lack of silence and solitude leads to anxiety,
“An effective leader is the person who can maintain their balance and reflect, when a lot of people around them are reacting,”
the books are portals to reflective solitude,
“Solitude allows you to reflect while others are reacting,”
use solitude to draw on your reading and your past experience, to create some distance from what is happening around you
“I use solitude to regain a sense of control,”
One part of her identity as a leader was a willingness to ask questions. “You want to show you’re in charge, but also that you’re learning and don’t know everything.
every leader has her emotional limits, and there is no shame in exceeding them. What distinguishes effective leaders from inferior ones, rather, is their ability to restore their emotional balance.
“The time for introspection is before you need it.”
Dan trained for and ran in the Hartford Marathon and then got into trail running.
“solitude is not the reward for great leadership. It’s the path to great leadership.”
A leader can mark off sixty or ninety minutes on his calendar each day for time to think.
Find space for solitude.
get you away from your computer and all the distractions that go with it.
Physical exercise also releases nervous energy, and can thereby help to restore emotional balance. The same is true of meditation.
Solitude routinely yields insights a leader does not expect,
Extroverts gain energy from interaction with others, while introverts lose it. And introverts gain energy from solitude, while extroverts lose it.
A leader who embraces hard thinking can lead himself, and then others, through the process of finding effective solutions.
all the benefits that solitude provides: clarity, creativity, emotional balance, and moral courage.
It is only this kind of leader—clear, balanced, courageous—who truly leads.
