Good Vibrations
The room wasn’t designed for me.
The topic certainly wasn’t built to light anyone up.
Payroll training. Benefits administration. The kind of content that usually earns glazed eyes and a quick glance at the clock.
But presence isn’t optional — especially when you’re the one at the front.
That morning, I was called in last minute to lead the session. It was a new office, a team with its own rhythms and rules, and every reason to default to “safe and small.” My brain offered the usual script: What if you get it wrong? What if they resist? What if this room eats you alive?
But presence is a practice. And practice meant this:
I would show up as Karen — not a walking PowerPoint.
I would bring clarity, not a script.
I would meet them as people — not compliance boxes.
So I entered the room with one commitment: stay present, stay human, and lead the energy — not shrink from it.
At first, the usual nerves. The polite silence. The posture that says “we’ve seen this before.”
Then the shift.
A laugh. A moment of eye contact. A conversation sparked.
Soon the PowerPoint sat abandoned, and the room became what it should have been all along — a place for real connection. We spoke plainly. We clarified. We named what mattered. We even had moments of humor — without losing the thread of the work.
Here’s the truth:
Presence communicates more than process.
Energy leads more than expertise.
How you hold the room matters more than what you deliver.
And that presence is what people remember long after the session ends.
Later, as the room cleared, the subtext was clear: this wasn’t about payroll. It was about being seen. About dignity in the process. About leadership that meets people where they are.
Not every room calls for breakthrough moments.
But every room teaches presence — if we let it.
That day was a practice: Lead the room. Hold your center. Stay human.
No more. No less.
That’s leadership — unpolished and alive.
This piece is part of The Edit — presence-first leadership narratives from The Co.
