Surely, you know what pressure feels like.
You’ve likely felt it from family, colleagues, subordinates, superiors or from no one in particular, just an invisible weight pressing down on your shoulder. Pressure sucks.
And when you’re leading, that pressure often reaches its peak. People are watching, wondering: What’s your next move? Will it be the right one? Even when intentions are good, this constant gaze can trigger a state of fight or flight. You begin to believe that leading is all about doing: making moves, taking decisions, solving problems. But right there, something essential gets lost. Because that’s not all that leading is about.
At Women Emerging, we explore this idea using music through a beautiful exercise we call Silence Between the Notes. On our expeditions, explorers collect and share the sounds that resonate with them (You’ll find some of these at the end.)
Music, at its core, is made of sound and silence, and great music only happens when silence and sound are both held well. When leading, just like in music, the pressure to act, to play the next note can be overwhelming. But it takes courage to hold the silence. Without that courage, your leadership might begin to sound like tone-deaf melodies, off-key harmonies, or a soulless performance.
The music isn’t just in the notes.
It’s in the silence between the notes.
It is in holding the silences well that you begin to truly hear, both the sounds that resonate with you and the noise that doesn’t. With that clarity, you can discern, choose, and create harmonious music that reflects who you are, that is, lead in a way that rings true.
In a recent conversation with Anna Kuk, violinist, composer, and one of our first Women Emerging explorers, she shared something profound:
“In an orchestra, silence is a test. Anyone can play every note with flair, but it takes a different kind of courage to pause and hold silence with care, so something powerful can emerge.”
Silence, she explained, is not just an absence of sound. It is never empty. It is a presence in itself, the space where all possibilities exist before a note is played. An invitation for something to emerge.”
When we hold silence well, we rediscover something rare: our presence.
Not our performance, expectations or duties but our presence.
When you’re leading, demands flood in, asking you to perform, compare, perfect. In the middle of it all, silence can feel like a luxury, or even a betrayal of duty.
So here’s my question to you:
Are you courageous enough to hold the silence?
It may be the most powerful practice you cultivate while leading this week. Take a few minutes today to hold the silence. Reflect as you listen to these sounds below which we have drawn from the Silence Between the Notes exercise on our nature expeditions.
Wishing you a week rich in silence, sounds, and resonant moments of leading!
- Music with Water fall in the background
- 5 Minutes of Birds singing their morning song
- Music with Gentle waves on a shore
- Music with Wind rustling through trees
You can explore =Silence Between the Notes recordings and reflections from our explorers in the Nature Expedition below:
