Your Feelings Carry Information. Leaders Who Read Them Lead Better.
Change creates emotion. Emotion creates energy.
That idea sits at the center of everything we teach at Change Enthusiasm Global. I got to dig into it again with Minter Dial on his podcast, Minter Dialogue.
We talked about journaling, mentorship, billion-dollar acquisitions, and even AI.
Before I founded CEG, I was a chemical engineer. One of the first things engineers learn is that energy doesn’t disappear. It changes form.
I’ve come to see feelings the same way. Frustration, fear, excitement, doubt.
Every one of them carries energy - and as a leader, you get to decide where that energy goes.
Here’s some of what came up in our conversation.
I Stopped Performing, and My Energy Came Back
If you’ve ever seen me speak, you know I bring a lot of energy into a room. That’s real. It’s who I am.
It just isn’t the whole picture.
I have low days. Days when I’m drained, frustrated, or off. For a long time, I hid those days behind a version of myself I thought people expected to see.
Eventually, I stopped hiding them.
That meant being honest about all of me: the high-energy Cassandra on stage and the Cassandra who needs to sit down and breathe.
Owning both took less energy than pretending, which surprised me. Holding up a persona is exhausting.
When I put it down, I had more to give.
People connected with me faster, too - they could tell I wasn’t performing for them.
Your team can tell as well. They notice when your words say one thing and your face says another.
My Journal Is Where I Hear Myself Think
Journaling is one of my most important tools for staying authentic. I use it in three ways.
I write about what moved me
A conversation that stuck with me. A moment on stage. A question I can’t stop turning over. My dreams, my curiosities, and the things I’m learning all go on the page.
I listen for the whisper
When I find a moment of stillness, I can hear my intuition. I call it a whisper. I don’t edit it. I let it land on the page exactly as it comes.
I write to my future self
This is the part that gets people’s attention.
I leave some pages in my journal blank. Later, I fill them with notes to the woman I’m becoming. Then I go back and read them.
My journal turns into a conversation between my past, present, and future selves. It reminds me that time doesn’t only move in a straight line. Who I want to become can shape what I do today.
Want to try it? Tonight, write a short note to yourself six months from now. Set a reminder to read it.
Your Frustration Is Trying to Tell You Something
So many of us were taught to leave our feelings at the door. Stay calm. Stay professional. Don’t let them see you sweat.
I understand why - I also think it costs us.
I call frustration, anger, and fear signal emotions. They’re data, and they’re telling you something needs your attention.
When one shows up for me, I get curious. What is this signal pointing to? What do I need right now?
Some days the answer is a hard conversation I’ve been putting off. Other days it’s a glass of water and a nap.
The same goes for your people. When someone pushes back hard in a meeting, their frustration is information. Get curious before you get defensive.
Confident Vulnerability Gives People Permission
Your team watches how you handle change and takes cues from you.
If you act like everything is easy, they’ll hide what’s hard. They’ll nod in the meeting and say what they really think in the hallway afterward.
I’m a big believer in what I call confident vulnerability. You share a real struggle and stay grounded as you do.
It can be as simple as saying something like this:
“This change has been hard for me too. I’ve lost some sleep over it. I also believe we’re going to come out of it stronger, and I want to hear what’s been hard for you.”
Both halves matter. The vulnerability tells people their feelings are welcome. The confidence tells them it’s safe to keep moving.
When leaders go first, everyone else gets permission to be human.
Grace Is Part of the Job
My calendar is full of flights, hotel rooms, and stages. I love this work, but it also wears me down.
So I practice self-empathy. When I’m drained, I give myself grace. I take a beat. I rest. If I need a nap, I take one, and I don’t apologize for it.
I can’t pour energy into an audience or a client team if I’ve run myself empty. Neither can you.
What Big Acquisitions Taught Me About People
Long before I started Change Enthusiasm Global, I worked inside major corporate acquisitions - we are talking billion-dollar deals.
The planning was impressive. Systems, finance, legal, supply chain. Every piece mapped out.
The people side got far less attention.
And that’s where I watched things break down. Employees wondered if they still had a place. Managers were asked to champion a future they couldn’t see yet. Nobody made room for what people were feeling.
Our national study at CEG found that 59% of Americans feel powerless when change happens to them (The Center for Generational Kinetics, 2022).
When people feel powerless, they slip into a victim mindset. This is happening to me. I have no say.
I help leaders move from victim to actor. An actor asks different questions:
- What can I control here?
- What can I learn from this?
- What’s my next move?
You might not control the deal, but you do control how you show up for it.
Yes, I Still Think Like an Engineer
Minter and I had some fun with this one. Does an engineering mindset help with human problems?
I believe it does. Engineering trained me to define the problem before I try to fix it. To look at what goes in and what comes out. To test my assumptions.
Those habits work inside organizations too, with one big addition: emotion has to be part of the equation.
Leave it out and your model is wrong from the start. A rollout plan can look perfect on paper and still stall because nobody accounted for fear.
The Most Human Thing We Have
We closed out our conversation talking about AI. It’s changing how all of us work, and fast.
AI can write, analyze, and predict. It can’t feel.
It will never know what it’s like to sit across from someone who just learned their role is changing. It won’t sense the room shift when a leader admits they’re scared, too.
The ability to feel, and to do something good with what we feel, belongs to us. As AI takes on more of our work, I believe that ability is what will set great leaders apart.
Start With One Practice
You don’t have to change everything about how you lead this week. Choose one.
- Write a note to your future self.
- Name a signal emotion the moment you notice it.
- Share one honest struggle with your team and stay steady as you do.
Small practice, repeated, is how emotional fluency grows. I’ve seen it in my own life, and I see it inside the organizations we partner with.
Ready to Build Emotional Fluency Across Your Organization?
At CEG, we help leaders and teams turn the emotional energy of change into growth and adoption. Our Change Enthusiasm® approach gives your people a shared language for what they’re feeling and practical tools to move forward together.
See how we work with organizations.
And if you’d like to hear the whole thing, you can watch my full conversation with Minter Dial on YouTube.
