The power to enrich lives in the workplace
Leadership is not only about direction or outcomes — it’s about the effect we have on people. Drawing on Laura Archera Huxley’s You Are Not the Target, this note reflects on care, influence, and the quiet responsibility of shaping the emotional climate around us.
In her book You Are Not the Target, Laura Archera Huxley makes a quiet but profound observation about those who are fortunate enough to hold influence.
Over time, they tend to discover three things.
- First, we have far more power than we realise to make people better or worse through the way we treat them.
- Second, it is far more meaningful — and far more enjoyable — to make people feel good.
- And third, when we help others feel good, we often feel better ourselves.
This isn’t sentimentality. It’s responsibility.
Leadership is not only about direction, decisions, or outcomes. It is about the effect we have on people — the emotional and psychological climate we create around us, often without noticing.
Every interaction leaves a mark.
Every meeting, message, or moment either adds warmth or drains it away.
This note accompanies a short Cultivated Notes video reflecting on care, influence, and the often overlooked power we carry — not as targets of the world, but as shapers of it.
