What If We’ve Been Measuring the Wrong Thing in Leadership?
Emotional Atmosphere as the Most Overlooked Leadership Metric
For years, I did what many of us were taught to do at the end of each year:
Sit down, get serious, and set SMART goals.
Specific. Measurable. Achievable. Relevant. Time-bound.
For a long time, that approach worked.
But over time, something became impossible to ignore.
The process no longer ignited anything in me.
Not because I lost ambition.
Not because goals are wrong.
But because I realised I had been measuring the wrong output.
When Motivation Isn’t the Problem
👉 Emotional fatigue in leadership is often not caused by lack of motivation — but by frameworks that prioritise efficiency over vitality.
When I slowed down enough to listen, this became clear:
What drained me wasn’t effort.
It was pressure without aliveness.
I wasn’t unmotivated.
I was trying to energise myself using frameworks designed for efficiency — not vitality.
That realisation led me to a different question.
Not as rebellion, but as curiosity:
What if the most important output of leadership isn’t performance — but presence?
Redefining Output in Leadership
SMART goals are excellent at optimising what gets done.
But leadership is not only about results.
It is also about how people feel while pursuing results.
Because long after strategies are forgotten, and targets are revised, something else remains.
As Maya Angelou once said, “People may forget what you said or what you did — but they will never forget how you made them feel.”
That insight reframes leadership entirely.
Emotional Atmosphere as a Leadership Metric
I’m not abandoning goals.
I’m upgrading what I measure.
Because the most influential output of any leader is the emotional atmosphere they create.
The nervous system state they bring into a room
The tone they set under pressure
The emotional footprint people carry with them long after the meeting ends
This isn’t soft.
It’s deeply practical.
Teams don’t just respond to strategy.
They respond to safety, clarity, and presence.
Why Not Every Thought Deserves Authority
Another part of this shift has been learning not to take every thought so seriously.
Many of our thoughts are not insightful at all.
They’re inheritance.
Old rules.
Conditioned fears.
Mental habits are shaped by systems built for a different era.
When thoughts are observed rather than obeyed, space opens up.
And space is where conscious choice lives.
Peer Pressure from Dead People
Many of the “shoulds” that still shape leadership culture were created:
in another era
under completely different conditions
by people who are no longer even alive
Yet we still let those invisible expectations define pace, success, and worth.
That’s not best practice.
That’s peer pressure from dead people.
Once you see it, it’s hard to unsee.
A Different Place to Begin
So I’m still setting goals.
But I’m starting somewhere different.
Instead of asking only:
What do I want to achieve?
I’m also asking:
What do I want people to feel after interacting with me?
More grounded.
More courageous.
More seen.
More alive.
I don’t have the complete answer yet.
But I know this is a better place to begin.
Beyond Smart Leadership
If your goals no longer excite you, it may not be a motivation problem.
It may be an outdated definition of output.
We don’t necessarily need better goals.
We need better measures of what truly matters.
Taking life seriously enough to show up —
but lightly enough to stay free.
That’s not stepping away from leadership.
It’s the next evolution of it.
Reykjavík, Iceland, December 28th 2025.
FAQ
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It means focusing primarily on performance, results, and efficiency while overlooking the emotional atmosphere leaders create.
Leadership impact isn’t only about what gets done — it’s also about how people feel while it’s getting done, and what stays with them afterward.
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Yes. SMART goals are effective for structuring tasks and outcomes. The issue isn’t goal-setting itself, but relying on it as the only measure of success.
When emotional atmosphere and presence are ignored, motivation and vitality often decline over time. -
Emotional atmosphere refers to the felt experience people have in a leader’s presence — including psychological safety, clarity, trust, and calm.
It’s shaped by tone, nervous system regulation, and how leaders respond under pressure, often more than by what they say. -
Leaders can start by paying attention to qualitative signals: how people show up in meetings, levels of openness or tension, and the emotional aftertaste of interactions.
Simple reflection questions like “How did people feel after this conversation?” are often more revealing than traditional metrics.
Personal branding, leadership and development books by Rúna Magnús
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