Business energetics is the reason two leaders can say and do almost the same things, yet get completely different results from their teams. I explored this exact idea this week with Jean Walters, a personal growth consultant and seven-times Amazon best-selling author. Energy and metaphysics can sound, to a lot of leaders, like subjects for a wellness retreat rather than a boardroom. I used to think so too. Nearly fifteen years ago, when I was building a business unit inside the corporate world, nobody talked about energy. If you had raised it in a leadership meeting, you would have been quietly filed under “hippie” and never invited back. However, the more I have worked with teams, and the more time I have spent around horses, the more convinced I have become. Energy is not a soft add-on to leadership. It is the thing leadership is actually made of.
Why Business Energetics Is Not the Soft Stuff
Jean put it more plainly than I ever have. You cannot get away from the universal laws, so you may as well know how to use them. Whether you believe in metaphysics or not, everyone in your business is walking around radiating a mood. That mood is either building your people up or wearing them down.
For example, Jean told me a story about a woman who was warned by her doctor that she would need a second liver transplant within the year. The reason was simple: she had been carrying anger and negativity for years. Sitting in the same waiting room was another woman on her fourth transplant, someone who complained constantly and saw the worst in everything. The first woman took note. She decided to change how she showed up, and returned twelve months later needing no transplant at all. I found that story genuinely startling. Not because it proves some mystical point, but because it illustrates something we already sense intuitively: what we carry inside us does not stay inside us. It leaks out, into our bodies, our teams, and our households.
The Mission Statement Nobody Can Recite
This is where the conversation moved somewhere I think every leader needs to sit with. Jean asks every business owner she works with the same opening question: tell me your mission statement. Almost without fail, the answer is some version of, “it’s on the wall, but that’s about it.” We have all seen it: values printed on the breakroom poster that nobody could recite if you stopped them in the corridor.
Importantly, the trouble is not that the words are wrong. Instead, the trouble is that a mission statement said once and then laminated is not the same as one that is lived, repeated, and felt. Your team needs to hear it, see it enacted, and experience it in more than one form before it becomes real to them. Otherwise, you are the leader standing at the front convinced everyone is aligned, while your team is quietly doing something else entirely.
Attention Is the Real Currency of Leadership
What struck me most, and what ties so closely to the work I do with horses, was Jean’s insight about attention. She talked about walking into someone’s office, noticing the baseball memorabilia on the shelves, and using that as the way into a working relationship with him. Rather than trying to make him relate to her interests, she met him in his. It sounds almost too simple to matter. And yet, how many leaders actually slow down enough to notice what their people care about, let alone use it?
What My Horse Knew Before My Team Told Me
I shared with Jean my own version of this lesson, learned the hard way. There was an entire summer when I could not catch my own horse. My energy was so focused on what I wanted from him that I had built no relationship at all. Months later, I discovered my team felt exactly the same way about me: scary, intimidating, too focused on the task to be approachable. My horse had been telling me the truth the whole time. I simply did not have the language yet to hear it.
The Ripple Effect You Take Home With You
That is really the heart of what Jean and I explored together: the idea that we are all creating a ripple effect, whether we mean to or not. That ripple travels further than we think. It moves from the leader to the team, from the team member’s day at work into their evening at home, and from there into how they treat the people they love.
Jean’s point about responsibility was the one I keep returning to. We live in a culture that is quick to blame, and quick to decide someone else is the difficult one. We are much slower to ask what we ourselves are bringing into the room. For instance, Jean shared an example of an employee who chose forgiveness toward a difficult boss, rather than resentment. As a result, the entire dynamic shifted. It is a reminder that we are rarely as powerless in these situations as we feel.
Listen to the Full Conversation
There is a great deal more in this business energetics conversation than I can fit into a single blog post. Jean shared an exercise for sceptics who cannot get their head around energy at all, her thoughts on why rejection is almost never personal, and a generous offer of three free chapters from her book, The Journey from Anxiety to Peace, available on her website.
If any of this has struck a chord, whether it is the mission statement gathering dust on your wall or the ripple effect you might be sending home with you tonight, I would love for you to listen to the full episode. Settle in with a cup of tea, take note of what lands for you, and then tell me on LinkedIn which part challenged you most. If you would like to explore how business energetics shows up inside your own leadership team, take a look at our Unbridled Teamship Roadmap or get in touch directly. Your team, and quite possibly your horse, will thank you for it.
Show Notes
00:45 Meet Jean Walters
01:46 Business Energy Basics
03:54 Mindset And Health Story
06:01 Proving Energy To Skeptics
08:29 Grounded Leadership In Chaos
09:27 Mission And Employee Strengths
13:49 Ego Free Hiring And Appreciation
17:47 Avoiding Negativity And News
19:16 More Engagement Strategies
20:05 Rejection Proof Selling
21:29 Know Your Audience
22:29 Leaders Build Relationships
23:22 Forgiveness Changes Dynamics
25:32 Responsibility Over Blame
26:35 Ripple Effect Leadership
27:41 Horses Reveal Energy
31:22 Growth Through Polarity
33:36 Connect and Free Chapters
35:24 Final Takeaway Reflection
You can connect to Jean on LinkedIn here and on her website here.
