Leadership is often framed as knowing what to do, charting the path and mobilizing others to follow. But the deepest leadership moments rarely begin with certainty. They begin with saying yes – an act that is at once brave, humbling and transformative.
Saying yes is not just consent or ‘going along to get along’. It is a signal that you are ready to step into what is being asked of you, even if you don’t yet know where it will lead. It is the willingness to let go of old burdens – what’s no longer mine to do? – in order to receive what is generously being given to you.
The Double Act of Yes
In our work with leaders around the world, we see that profound change does not emerge from individual brilliance alone. It arises when people come together to hold space for one another – space where uncertainty is tolerated, where emergence is allowed, where the next step is discovered rather than imposed.
This kind of space is not passive. It requires discipline: the discipline to listen deeply, to resist premature closure and to honor what wants to emerge in a team’s work. Saying yes to such space is an advanced leadership practice, because it demands trust – trust in others, trust in the process, trust that something meaningful will come forward if we can stay with it long enough.
Every true yes carries within it a double motion. It’s both letting go and receiving. When my colleague Mari Haraldsson wrote about her own journey, she named the moment of saying yes not as a confident leap but as a surrender – of releasing the story she no longer needed to carry, in order to receive a possibility that was literally singing to her soul.
This is why yes feels courageous. To say it wholeheartedly is to give up control, to acknowledge that you cannot sustainably shape by force of will. It is to become porous to what the moment is offering, and to meet it with the best of who you are becoming.
Practicing Yes in the Leadership Moment
So how do we practice this? Not in grand declarations, but in small leadership moments:- Saying yes to listening longer than feels comfortable.
- Saying yes to letting go of a role, a relationship, or a responsibility that no longer fits.
- Saying yes to the possibility that someone else’s idea may carry the seed of what’s needed now.
- Saying yes to your own next step, even if you cannot yet see the ground beneath it.
Each yes is an opening. Each yes is a rehearsal for courage. Each yes is a quiet act of faith that your leadership is not about controlling outcomes, but about making yourself available to the work that wants to be done through you.
In a world that urges us to double down on certainty, efficiency and control, the invitation to say yes is radical. It is a practice of leadership that is both deeply personal and profoundly collective.
And when enough of us practice it together – letting go of what we no longer need to carry, receiving what is truly ours to hold – yes, the world itself can begin to shift.
If this invitation resonates, consider joining our next leadership workshop – a public offering from ACA where leaders come together to practice this advanced discipline.