Leadership is emotional! There, I said it.It’s not something people want to talk about or even admit. But leadership, like life itself, is an emotional experience. As a leader, more responsibility brings more emotions into situations, and managing them is ultimately a significant factor of success. This is because a leader is not only responsible for their own emotions; they also share responsibility for the emotional wellbeing of their team. In leadership circles, we refer to this as motivation and morale.

It does not matter if you are leading an organization or simply leading your life, whether your team consists of thousands or merely family and friends. Your ability to lead and persevere in the face of adversity will be defined by your ability to think above your negative emotions.

This is not to say that negative emotions should be ignored. On the contrary, they often provide an excellent catalyst for action. They just should not be the guide. Emotions lack the rudder of mindful consideration and tend to direct our actions down an unproductive and frequently regretful path.

The mantra think before you act is timeless. The maturity to manage and lead beyond our emotions has always been at the foundation of quality leadership. However, today, the burdens being placed upon this skill have never been more extreme or pervasive in scope. Each day’s news cycle carries with it issues of intense concern ranging from climate change to active-shooter events, along with seemingly irretractable social and political strife. This constant load, piled atop the looming threat of AI’s workforce disruption and the pace of technical change in general, can easily feel overwhelming. How do we navigate and prosper in such demanding and often unfamiliar circumstances? By learning from the examples of great but often unrecognized leaders that are all around us.

It is a friend who navigates the day’s obstacles large and small with tenacity and grace. It is a supervisor who can compartmentalize organizational challenges and difficulties at home to pause and share a lesson that will stay with us for a lifetime. And, occasionally, it is a mother, like Scarlett Lewis featured in this issue, who when faced with unthinkable loss, finds the courage to choose love and start a movement to better the world.

It is never the intent of STRIVE to have a theme for an issue. In fact, we often describe the publication as intentionally random. However, it is not uncommon for the providence of fate to weave a common thread between articles not originally envisioned. That is the case with this issue.

In the pages that follow you will find stories from leaders who understand and exemplify one of life and leadership’s most important truths: What defines an individual is not what happens to you, it’s what you do about it!