Understanding the Wind: A Reflection on Awakened Leadership

Some people spend their lives trying to fix every messy part of their world before they step fully into their leadership. They look at the external systems they're in, see the friction around them, and the immediate default setting is to jump straight into trying to change the world.

That is certainly the way I used to live. It created a heavy burden of perpetual striving. I felt that, with each success, the boxes just kept getting bigger. I even had a recurring nightmare that I had to run faster and faster as the ground crumbled beneath my heels. Speed and motion were my go-to.

But true transformation (what we value so deeply here at Awaken Coach Institute) asks us to look past the visible, frantic movement and connect with something much deeper: the vast and beautiful landscapes within, from which all good things naturally flow, in connection with what's wanting to happen.

If I'd known then what I know now about transformational leadership, my nightmare would have looked very different. The work was never to run faster. It was to understand what was driving the ground to crumble in the first place. That is precisely what Beyond Striving: The Paradox of True Transformation explores, and it sits at the heart of everything we teach in our coach certification training at Awaken.

Recently, our senior faculty member, Rishi Rongala, sent me a message that beautifully captures this shift from endless doing to a deeper state of consciousness. His words, reflecting on a childhood memory from India, capture this reframe on how we view power and leadership at Awaken.

I want to share his message with you, exactly as he wrote it to me:

Dear Christi,

I grew up in a tropical beach town on the east coast of India, watching coconut trees reaching up into the skies. Every time their branches moved, a pleasant breeze washed through the air. For a long time, I believed the trees produced the wind.

It was a logical conclusion. We had hand-fans made of dried palm leaves that produced a current of air when waved. Therefore, it made sense that to cool the heavy, humid air, one simply needed to make the trees move.

It was an innocent inversion of causality. The illusion held because the leaves were tangible. They could be touched and held. The wind was formless and abstract. To an untrained perception, the tangible form always appears more "real", and therefore more powerful, than the formless.

Today, as I watch the coconut trees sway with the welcome monsoon winds in Goa on the west coast of the country, I know that as intangible as the wind might be, it is the wind that possesses the power to cause the tangible leaves to move.

Yet, the highest levels of leadership still operate on that childhood illusion. When faced with friction, the immediate reflex is to ask what to do and how to do it.

But forcing action to generate impact is the equivalent of trying to shake a tree to produce the wind. Sure, I can find ways to make trees move, which involves immense, exhausting effort and almost zero returns. No amount of tactical execution can solve a structural deficit of presence.

Awakened Leadership is not anchored in action; it is anchored in state of consciousness. Action is not the source of power, it is the downstream consequence of it.

When perception is clear, precise action follows effortlessly. Until perception is clear, any action is merely a fluke.

The work is never to force the leaves to move. It is to understand the wind.

With all my love,
Rishi

When I read Rishi's words, I felt a deep settling in my body. How often do we, as coaches and leaders, spend our days shaking the branches? Looking at behavior change, measuring KPIs, rewriting strategies, and pushing through exhaustion, then wondering why the atmosphere still feels heavy.

As you move through your coaching and leadership conversations this week, I invite you to pause whenever you feel the urge to force an outcome. What happens when you sit with these inquiries:

• How might I be trying to shake the tree in this moment?
• What is the wind doing?
• What would it be like to cooperate with the wind right now?

Where in your coaching or leadership can you notice the wind's movements? I would love to hold a safe space for your reflections in the comments below.

Presence Is the Work: Why Inner State Drives Outer Impact

Rishi's letter names something that experienced coaches recognize immediately: no amount of tactical execution can compensate for a structural deficit of presence. A coach or leader who is internally scattered, reactive, or performing from fear will find it hard to create the conditions for genuine transformation in others, regardless of their technique.

This is why the ICF's highest-level competencies, those assessed at PCC and MCC, go beyond method. They ask whether the coach can embody a quality of presence that allows the client to access deeper truth. That quality is developed through your own inner work.

In coach training at Awaken, this means learning to notice when you are shaking the tree: rushing toward solutions, filling silence, managing the conversation's direction. And developing the capacity to settle, to listen, to cooperate with what's already moving. You can explore the practices that support this in our post on centering and grounding in transformational coaching.

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About the Author

Christi Byerly, MCC, is the founder and CEO of Awaken Coach Institute. Her coaching process motivates you to build a community of empathy and grace around you, and to live your mission as part of something bigger than you are. With over 15 years of coaching experience, Christi has trained hundreds of new coaches and maintains a thriving practice focused on depth, presence, and authentic transformation.