When Letting Go Becomes a Leadership Strategy

December has a particular way of slowing us down, not in pace, but in attention. It invites leaders to see the year not as a checklist, but as a series of experiences that shaped who they’ve become. And when we take the time to notice these moments, something meaningful happens: letting go stops being an emotional act and becomes a strategic one.

This year, I found myself watching leaders in different contexts, organizations undergoing restructuring, teams navigating uncertainty, individuals stepping into new roles, and the pattern was always the same. Growth didn’t come from pushing harder. It came from creating space. From releasing what was no longer aligned. From allowing new insights to surface.

Letting go doesn’t mean forgetting the past. It means honoring what it taught you and deciding what deserves to come with you into what’s next.

Experience as a Teacher 

One of the most consistent things I observed in 2025 was how people responded to experiential work. Whether through coaching conversations or the Unlock Your Brilliance Game, every experience created a pause, an intentional interruption in the speed of the everyday.

This year alone, I guided leaders and teams through gamified sessions where strategy wasn’t discussed, it was lived. They weren’t sitting through presentations; they were thinking, deciding, reflecting, adjusting. They were experimenting with ideas in real time.

Something powerful happens when people step out of familiar patterns and into a shared experience:

 

They hear themselves again.
They see what they’ve been carrying unnecessarily.
They make sense of the dots they hadn’t connected.
They realign decisions with who they’re becoming, not who they were.

This is the part of experiential leadership development that I find the most transformative: people uncover clarity that was already there but had no space to surface.

A Year of Experiences That Mattered

As I think about this year, I realize how much of my own learning came from experiences too.

Launching the Unlock Your Brilliance website, bringing an international version of the game to life in both the US and Brazil, facilitating sessions with groups from different industries each moment taught me something about how leaders grow.

But here’s what I learned most clearly: the tools matter, but the experience is what creates movement.

A strategy session becomes more than a meeting when people feel safe enough to think honestly.

A coaching conversation becomes transformative when someone finally says out loud what they’ve been avoiding.

A game becomes a leadership workshop when insights translate into action.

These moments reminded me that leadership is not defined by the number of decisions you make but by the quality of the space you create inside yourself to make them.

What Letting Go Looked Like This Year

Throughout the year, I saw leaders let go in ways that surprised even them.

Some let go of the idea that they needed to have all the answers.
Others let go of perfectionism to make room for collaboration.
Some released outdated roles or expectations that no longer matched who they had become.
Others simply let go of the urgency that had been running their days.

Letting go wasn’t dramatic. No big declarations. No forced reinvention.

It was subtle. Internal. Quiet.

And because of that, it was powerful.

When leaders let go, they don’t lose anything; they gain perspective. They gain energy. They gain the ability to step into the new year without carrying the weight of strategies, habits, or narratives that no longer serve their direction.

The Present as a Leadership Space

One theme I kept coming back to this year is this: the present is where leadership actually happens.

We often think leadership is about planning the future or analyzing the past. But real leadership, the kind that changes teams and cultures, happens in the present moment, the space between awareness and action.

The present is where you notice what feels tight, heavy, or outdated.
The present is where you hear the impulses that guide your next step.
The present is where clarity becomes physical, almost tangible.

You can’t let go in the past.
You can’t let go in the future.
You let go now.

And when you do, the future rearranges itself accordingly.

As Organizations Enter 2026

Looking ahead, 2026 will be a year of transition for many organizations. Hybrid work shifts, talent expectations, leadership fatigue, cultural redesign; change is already happening. Teams don’t need more information. They need integration. They need presence. They need leaders who can interpret context with honesty and move with clarity.

This is why letting go is not a soft leadership skill.
It’s a strategic one.

A leader who steps into January already overloaded cannot build momentum.
A leader who steps into January aligned, even if not fully defined, creates space for the new to take shape.

Teams feel that difference immediately.

How Experiential Learning Supports Letting Go

In every experiential session I facilitated this year, one thing became clear: leaders don’t need more content. They need space to experience themselves in new ways.

Around a table, whether physical or virtual, people stop performing. They think differently. They see differently. And often, without being prompted, they let go of what was blocking their clarity.

When a group plays the Unlock Your Brilliance Game, for example, something interesting happens: people stop talking about goals and start seeing them. They stop intellectualizing decisions and start making them. They connect with strengths they had forgotten. And they recognize challenges not as barriers, but as invitations for alignment.

That’s why experiential learning matters in moments of transition. It gives form to insights that were previously shapeless.

A Reflection to Close the Year

As you end this year, I invite you to reflect on your experiences and what they taught you.

 

Ask yourself:

. What experiences shaped the leader I’m becoming?
. What no longer fits the person I am now?
. What deserves space, real space, in the year ahead?
. What is the quiet shift I’ve been avoiding?
. Where do I feel energy expanding?

Leadership doesn’t renew itself through pressure.
It renews through presence.

Letting go is not an ending.
It’s the leadership space where the next chapter begins.

 

With brilliance, ✨
Lu