Centered leadership: How to re-energize

Before You Start

Goal: Identify your sources of energy and the activities that drain you, and decide on one sustaining practice to renew your energy before your next meeting.

Watch: "Centered Leadership: Energizing" — Joanna Barsh, McKinsey & Company. This is video 6 of a 6-part series. Members are encouraged to watch beforehand, but a quick recap at the meeting works too.

---

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.

What's one activity, at work or outside of it, that reliably restores your energy? How could you spend more time doing it?

---

💡 Key Takeaways · 5 mins

Learning to manage your energy is what makes sustainable high performance possible.

• Energy has four dimensions: physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual. Neglecting any one of them affects your capacity across all the others.
• High performance at work requires high positive energy. People often oscillate between the burnout zone (high negative energy) and the recovery zone (low positive energy). But you can cultivate high positive energy, instead.
• Energy boosters and drainers are unique to each person and worth understanding. What restores one person depletes another. Knowing your own list is the starting point for managing your energy well.
• Spending time on recovery isn't lazy, it's strategic. Leaders who build genuine recovery into their routines perform better over time than those who push through without rest.
• Gratitude and mindfulness are proven ways to boost energy. Even brief practices, such as a moment of gratitude or one minute of focused breathing, can measurably change how you feel and perform.

---

🏋️ Activity · 20 mins

Feeling and Shifting Your Energy (20 mins)

Step 1: Map your energy (5 mins)

Think about the four energy zones:

• Performance Zone: high energy, positive emotions (focused, engaged, motivated)
• Survival Zone: high energy, negative emotions (impatient, defensive, irritable)
• Recovery Zone: low energy, positive emotions (calm, peaceful, relaxed)
• Burnout Zone: low energy, negative emotions (exhausted, hopeless, withdrawn)

Share with your Circle: Where do you spend most of your time right now? Where do you want to spend more time?

Step 2: Identify your energy boosters and drainers (5 mins)

Write down:

• 3 activities or situations that reliably boost your energy
• 3 activities or situations that reliably drain your energy

Step 3: Share and strategize (10 mins)

Go around your Circle. Each person shares:

1. One energy drainer they want to address
2. One energy booster they want to protect or build

---

🎯 One Action · 10 mins

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

Complete the following and share: 'One energy-draining habit or commitment I am going to address is… and one energy-restoring practice I am going to protect or build 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