The Automation of a Powerful Leader
Photo of a quiet morning by Jenna Nord Photography.
Fridays are pizza night in the Wildling household, but this Friday I was burnt to an absolute crisp. Somewhere in the daily 4:30pm calls I lost a part of my glow and this Friday call kept going.
As the call had been going. And going.
4:30pm. Every day. Take the call. No fail. This burnt to crisp Friday, At some point on the daily 4:30pm calls I realized the depths of my loneliness.
Charged with clearing desks from those laid off, we were working as fast we could, packing with care, and still were told we were not moving fast enough. Among complaints of pace, it was apparent that I did not run the data through the new AI tool so the summary would look “tidier”.
It’s easy to watch the numbers - it’s so tragically hard to tend the present moment in Corporate America.
Touching the data means you never have to deal with the messy humans the data reflects.
The physical labor of clearing desks stops cold when a team hands you handwritten post-it notes because they know the box is going out to a person they’ve been told not to contact.
I returned to my pizza at 9pm.
Image of my empty table captured by Jenna Nord Photography.
It took that cold piece of pizza for me to realize, the biggest automation threat to my team wasn’t in technology…it was in my own detachment and automated impulses.
I was the one being automated - lead the call, make the report, send the direction. Answer the Slacks. Immediately. Whim of the Customer. Summon of our HQ. Text. Etc. On and on.
And oh my, that’s the worst kind of automation. To own the automatic impulse of a powerful leader.
And somewhere in that automation, the truth gets lost and our north star for leading gets obscured.
My customer thought I’d be a more effective leader.
Yeah, me too.
Several weeks more of those daily calls I finally gave my notice. Not in anger. Not in sorrow. Not in agreement of the assessment of my capacity as a leader. The truth is I missed the hearth and moss of me. I needed me.
It was just time.
Time for me to take my remaining 4:30pm calls no longer hiding birdsong in the background.
Take my pleasure.
Time for legs up the wall halfway through my workday when they made me come into the office.
Take my pleasure.
Time for grass between my toes in the 2 minutes of “time back” between calls.
Take my pleasure.
Time to no longer laugh when he says “enjoy your two minutes back.”
Take my pleasure.
Time to recalibrate my eyes in the evening with candlelight and flames on my face.
Take my pleasure.
Time to lift heavy at 7am and find stability within my own body instead of answering the summoning Slack pings.
Take my pleasure.
Time to exhalt the women and village around me - tend to them, feed them, wash their feet, and build something with soul. Together.
Take our pleasure.
It is just time.
Undoing automatic impulses to respond to the calls, emails, scrolls, texts..it takes time, babe. Reconnecting home into yourself, your team, the vision of why you stepped into leadership in the first place…takes patience.
To recalibrate.
It takes silences. Messes. Senses. Visions. Sketches.
Everything that makes you human is what also makes you a leader.
Obscura North offers an invitation to take that pause and unravelling of automation…together.
You can absolutely lead. And stay human.
