Energising Leadership: The Overlooked Multiplier

A hands-on supportive leader

It is easy to say the world is moving fast and the pressure on leaders is relentless, but for those living through it, this is more than a truism. It is a lived experience. Leaders today are navigating complexity, fatigue, and increasing expectations—all while trying to keep themselves and their teams performing, motivated and aligned.

Yet there's a critical enabler of transformation and performance that often gets overlooked: energy. The message is clear and resonant: leadership that energises rather than exhausts isn't just a nice-to-have—it's essential for sustainable performance.

But energy isn't just a mood or an individual trait. It is a system-wide multiplier. When it flows freely, from individuals to teams to entire organisations, energy amplifies what's possible. When it is blocked, drained, or misdirected, even the best strategies falter.

Energy as a Strategic Asset

Energy needs to be reframed not as a "soft" leadership concern but as a hard-edged, structural asset—as essential to performance as strategy, capability or clarity. Energy is the fuel that powers organisations, teams and individuals. Without it, you can have the best designed system but it won't be able to run on empty.

Energy can be fuelled by appreciation, enabled by trust, and amplified through purpose. But it can also be disrupted by fear, blocked by bureaucracy, and drained by self-interest.

This recognition shifts energy from being seen as a personal responsibility to a shared, systemic one. It is a resource to be protected and cultivated. In organisations where energy flows, momentum builds, creativity ignites, and performance becomes sustainable. Where it is stifled, disconnection and inertia take root.

The challenge for leaders is understanding how to create the conditions where energy flourishes at every level of the organisation.

Individual Energy: Everyone is a Volunteer

One powerful insight is recognising that everyone is, in effect, a volunteer. People choose to give their energy, belief, and motivation. When they do, they go beyond what is expected and contribute fully. But this contribution isn't a given. Too often, organisations take individual energy for granted, failing to invest in the conditions that allow it to flourish.

At the individual level, energy is fuelled by appreciation and by the freedom to speak openly. This requires creating psychologically safe environments where everyone can have a voice and is respected for who they are and what they bring. Leaders need to show their own vulnerability, role modelling this for those around them.

We don't spend enough time understanding individuals—their strengths, motivations and what gives them energy. One simple technique is asking those you work with: "How are you out of ten—and why?" as a prompt for emotional honesty. We can't expect everyone to be a ten all the time, but if they're not, it's valuable to understand why and whether there's something that can be done about it.

Consider Doug Conant, the former Campbell's Soup CEO, who wrote over 30,000 handwritten notes of appreciation to his employees. It wasn't a gimmick—it was a daily discipline of recognition and connection.

At the heart of this is recognising that energy in organisations flows from the bottom up. Leaders need to engage at all levels and with all generations, not only to create energy but to energise themselves.

Team Energy: Connection, Safety, and Purpose

If individual energy is the spark, team energy is the flame. The most energised teams are those where people help each other, where they want their peers to succeed, where it feels safe to challenge and safe to care. These are teams connected by purpose, strengthened by psychological safety, enriched by curiosity and animated by appreciation.

A team's purpose is crucial, but sometimes hard to find. To discover this, teams need to truly immerse themselves in who they are there to serve—most commonly the human connection to their customers.

Importantly, the most energised teams aren't always the most high-performing in traditional terms. Rather, they are characterised by openness, diversity, and a sense of shared ownership. They aren't afraid to slow down to reflect, to check in with each other, or to invest in relationships. Appreciation flows openly, not as a reward mechanism but as a natural outcome of people being valued.

However, there are also challenges. Many teams suffer from invisible 'energy leaks'—the slow drains that come from lack of clarity, disruptive team members, or never having the space to pause and replenish.

Some teams are held back by unresolved dynamics or by individuals whose behaviour disrupts the collective flow. Others lack the time or permission to step back and ask themselves the big questions: Do we really have a common purpose? Are we pulling in the same direction? Do we understand each other's motivations?

These observations suggest that team energy is less about performance metrics and more about emotional coherence. It requires leaders to be attuned to atmosphere as well as action, and to see energy as both a mirror and a lever for change.

Organisational Energy: Designing for Flow

Beyond the team, energy must move freely through an organisation. Here, the focus turns toward design: how organisations enable or block energy through structure, process, governance and culture.

Based on the principle that energy flows from the bottom up, systems often unwittingly stifle energy—through excessive hierarchy, rigid routines, or an over-reliance on control. The result is that ideas wither, motivation fades, and transformation efforts stall.

Organisational energy grows when people are hopeful about purposeful, positive change,  feel trusted to act, when they are given freedom to contribute, and when their efforts are visible and celebrated. It also grows through rituals of appreciation and shared learning—not top-down broadcasts, but authentic showcases of what's working and why.

This extends beyond individual organisations to the harder challenge of energy flowing across organisations in the wider system. To solve some of today's issues, there is a need for organisations to come together with a common purpose, to collaborate to achieve success in delivering change for our wider society.

Leadership Energy: Modelling and Multiplying

At the centre of all of this is the leader. But not in the traditional, heroic sense. The most effective leaders are not those who push the hardest, but those who enable energy to flow by being present, vulnerable, and intentional.

Leadership that energises others starts with self-awareness. It's easy to burn out while trying to hold everything together. Leaders need support networks, honesty with themselves and their teams, and the courage to pause and slow down, to listen, to invite contribution rather than assume direction—but most importantly, to ask for help when they need it.

Leaders must ask themselves not just "What am I trying to achieve?" but "What energy am I bringing into the room? What energy am I creating around me?"

There's value in thinking about Stephen Covey's concept of the emotional bank account. There is a need to put in deposits of appreciation, empathy, and trust before drawing on someone's energy and commitment. People will stretch themselves, but only if they feel seen, valued, and supported. Otherwise, they retreat to self-preservation.

The Appreciative Imperative

Energising and appreciative leadership is no longer optional. It is strategic. It is systemic. And it is deeply human.

In a world where change is constant and pressure is high, people can't run on empty. They need leadership that sees them, supports them, and gives them space to contribute at their best. They need to feel that their energy is valued, their contributions matter, and their wellbeing is a priority.

The leaders who recognise this—who understand that energy is not just a personal resource but an organisational asset—will be the ones who create sustainable performance in an unsustainable world.

The volatility of today's environment creates opportunities for people to do things differently. Humans are naturally creative; we are learning machines. When given the opportunity to do something different, to try, and to improve, people are more than able to respond.

Your people are brilliant. Allow them to be.

This article explores the critical role of energising leadership in creating sustainable organisational performance. Visit our Forum page to find out more.

We would like to thank Roger Preece, Partner at Strengths Unleashed and Master of the Royal Foundation of St Katharine, for leading our recent April Forum on appreciative leadership. His insights and expertise were invaluable in exploring this critical topic. We're also grateful to all participants who contributed to a rich discussion on energising leadership. Peter Lewis, Partner at April Strategy, and John Vincent, Managing Partner at April Strategy, attended on behalf of our firm.