Centered leadership: How to engage with courage and confidence

Grow your confidence by stepping beyond your comfort zone. This is video 5 of a 6-part series on centered leadership by Joanna Barsh, director emeritus at McKinsey & Company.

Before You Start

Goal: Build the confidence to step outside your comfort zone, face fear, and take the risks that move your work and impact forward.

Watch: "Centered Leadership: Engaging" — Joanna Barsh, McKinsey & Company. This is video 5 of a 6-part series. Members are encouraged to watch beforehand.

Meeting Agenda · Approx. 60 mins

  • Member Updates · 10 mins
  • Icebreaker · 10 mins
  • Key Takeaways · 5 mins
  • Activity · 20 mins
  • One Action · 10 mins
  • Wrap-Up · 5 mins

👋 Member Updates · 10 mins

Go around your Circle and share personal updates. Keep them brief and focused on significant changes or important decisions since the last time you met. It's OK not to have one every month. If you have a One Action update from last time, share that too.

🧊 Icebreaker · 10 mins

Invite everyone in the group to share. Keep answers to one or two minutes per person.

Think of a time you did something that scared you and it worked out. What made you take the leap, and what did it teach you?

💡 Key Takeaways · 5 mins

Engaging is about learning to move toward your fears instead of away from them, and discovering that action is almost always better than waiting.

  • Hope and fear coexist in every meaningful risk. The goal isn't to eliminate fear, it's to let hope show you the upside while fear informs your preparation.
  • Ownership is a choice. Taking ownership of your future, and deciding that what happens to you is your responsibility, not just what happens to you, is a fundamental mindset shift.
  • Most feared outcomes are worse in imagination than in reality. A pre-mortem — thinking through exactly what you'd do if the worst happened — makes the risk more manageable and the action more possible.
  • Acting builds confidence; waiting erodes it. Every time you engage despite uncertainty and it works out, you build evidence that you can handle what comes.

🏋️ Activity · 20 mins

Rethink Outcomes Activity (20 mins)

Step 1: Identify your opportunity or risk (3 mins)

Think of something you've been avoiding: a risk you know you should take, an opportunity you haven't pursued. Write it down.

Step 2: Map the outcomes (7 mins)

For your situation, write down:

  • If I act: What's the best realistic outcome? What's the most likely outcome? What's the worst realistic outcome?
  • If I don't act: What's the cost of staying where I am? What do I lose by waiting?

Step 3: Share with your Circle (10 mins)

Go around the group. Each person shares:

  1. The opportunity or risk they identified
  2. What they noticed when they mapped the outcomes of acting vs. not acting
  3. One thing that would help them move forward

🎯 One Action · 10 mins

Commit to one concrete action, big or small, you'll take before next meeting.

Complete the following and share: 'One risk I've been avoiding that I am committing to take this month is… and the first step I will take is…'

Go around the Circle and share (1 minute or less per member). Vocalizing it helps hold each other accountable.

📅 Wrap-Up · 5 mins

Before you break, lock in the basics for the next meeting — and close on an energetic note. Go around your Circle one by one and finish the sentence:

Now I am feeling… (choose one word).

  • Set the day, time, and location
  • Choose the next topic or resource
  • Confirm who's leading the discussion
  • Decide how you'll stay in touch in between