Magic in the Room #64: What is Intentional Leadership?
July 14, 2021
Many people are in leadership positions. They might be a manager with direct reports, a parent, or the president of a civic organization. These people have influence. However, few people are intentional in how they lead. In this episode of Magic in the Room, Hannah, Chris, and Luke discuss the elements of Intentional Leadership. Intentional leaders understand the practice of leadership, themselves, and the needs of the people around them. They can draw out the best in everyone.
Throughout the Magic in the Room podcast, there has been an entire series dedicated to EQ. The team has discussed the importance of the awareness of our emotional states and how they impact the people around us. Today, Chris begins the episode by asking his co-hosts and listeners to share what intentional leadership means to them.
Hannah shares how she focuses on understanding how she shows up and the impact that she can have. She believes that we gain awareness of our behavior and emotions by starting with ourselves because emotion drives all human behavior. Everything we do, everything we don't do, is influenced by emotion. These are just a few of the many reasons why Hannah believes that intentional leaders need a high level of EQ. This allows them to understand others and how their behavior is formed, shaped, and changed.
Luke has observed that some people are intuitively really positive leaders, but they embrace their style. They also seem to instinctively know what their organization is calling for. If people understand the discipline of leadership, they know themselves enough to know where they're effective, how they can leverage their unique strengths, and they know the people around them.
For Luke, there is something beautiful in the art of pulling all these things together and making good leadership decisions. For some, this will occur intuitively, and for others, it will be the result of a thought-out and strategized plan. But when reflecting on these beautiful emerging leadership experiences, we all have interacted with an intentional leader that made a difference in our lives.
On the topic of influence, Chris shares how he has had many experiences with people who might have had influence over him, but he would never define them as a leader. They influence because they have power. They sit in a different spot on the hierarchy. But in no way would he compare them to a leader or that they were good leaders. Leadership is something else.
We all are aware that we have influence and power. We can make this world better and the lives of the people around us with that power. Those of us who are aware of it have a moral obligation to be intentional in how we lead. Chris wraps up by discussing how everything comes down to our personal decisions and what we commit in this arena and invites listeners to share what intentional leadership means to them.
If you would like to start a conversation with Hannah, Luke, and Chris about intentional leadership or any topics we have discussed, please email your hosts at info@purposeandperformancegroup.com. Remember, you can also get a free Magic in the Room hat by going to www.magicintheroom.com.
In this episode of Magic in the Room, Luke and Hannah explore the concept of polarities. Tensions like purpose and performance, stability and change, or accountability and grace that are often mistaken for problems to solve rather than dynamics to manage. Drawing on insights from Barry Johnson’s work, they explain how these opposing forces are interdependent and must be balanced over time to achieve sustained success. Through practical examples and personal reflections, they show how over-relying on one side of a polarity leads to predictable “shadow sides” such as stagnation, chaos, inefficiency, or burnout, while effective leadership requires recognizing where you are on the cycle and intentionally recalibrating. The episode emphasizes that many recurring organizational frustrations are not failures, but signals of imbalance, and offers a more nuanced approach to leadership. One that replaces rigid either/or thinking with flexible both/and awareness to improve decision-making, team dynamics, and long-term performance.
In this episode of Magic in the Room, Luke Freeman, Hannah Bratterud, and Chris Province dive into the concept of “mattering,” inspired by Zach Mercurio’s work, and explore why it is a foundational driver of engagement, performance, and culture in organizations. They challenge leaders to move beyond assuming people matter to actively ensuring individuals feel that they matter by being valued and by contributing value to a shared purpose. The conversation highlights how mattering differs from belonging, why it cannot be replaced by perks or efficiency, and how leadership behaviors like attention, recognition, and presence directly shape whether people feel seen, heard, and understood. Through examples ranging from workplace dynamics to broader societal trends like social disconnection, they argue that disengagement, conflict, and even poor performance are symptoms of a mattering deficit. Ultimately, they position mattering not as a soft concept, but as a measurable, actionable leadership responsibility that underpins trust, resilience, and long-term success.