Most leadership playbooks still carry old habits: control the plan, predict the future, move fast, and grow at all costs. That mindset can shrink our field of vision and crowd out people, wisdom, and the living world.
A space-based approach—Spaciology—offers another path: change how we shape the spaces within, between, and around us, so more choices can actually emerge.
Internal Space
Let’s start inside. Space begins within ourselves, and so when we pause and resist the reflex to respond, fix, or judge, we create conditions for more clarity. This pause is anything but passive; rather, it is active receptivity that lets the unseen surface.
Take five quiet minutes before a tough decision and journal not to “fix” your thinking but to see it. Ask yourself, “What is here that I am avoiding?”
This reflective pause can help you reclaim attention and focus on what is important (for more than just yourself) instead of reacting from habit.
The Space(s) You Lead
Now, let’s look at the shape of the rooms you lead. These spaces—offices, meeting formats, company rituals—speak before you do. A cluttered agenda or a performative town hall signals speed over substance.
Intention looks different: declutter a workspace to mirror the clarity you seek; design meetings with built-in silence so people can think. Ask yourself and others, “What kind of space would allow everyone here to feel seen and heard?”
This question communicates a simple message: you matter here.
Shared Space(s)
What about the space between us? Shared space is where dialogue, collaboration, and community live. It is not about winning a point; rather, it is about making room for truths to sit side by side.
Begin conversations by naming intentions rather than outcomes. Allow silence; not everything needs a response. Model curiosity over certainty. This posture lets complexity breathe and makes collective change possible.
In practice, this orientation to space transforms “hard conversations” into encounters where people can speak honestly without feeling rushed into agreement.
Space-Making
Spaciology challenges the hero habit in leadership—the desire for a single savior, a single answer, a straight-line win. This story is powerful but limited, as this moment asks for many voices, shared responsibility, and decisions that respect people and place, not just speed and scale
Space-making de-centers the hero and recenters relationship and reciprocity.
Space for Uncertainty
What does this look like in strategy? Three shifts:
From prediction to presence: Spend more time sensing what’s actually happening—in your team, your customers, your community—before committing to a course of action.
From growth at all costs to health and fit: Ask, “What’s important for the long-term health of our people and the places we touch?” Let that shape goals and guardrails.
From answers to better questions: Use open, honest questions to locate shared priorities: “What are we not seeing? Who’s missing? What would make a real difference now?”
Feeling the Space
Spaciology is not abstract theory; rather, it is a practice you can feel.
- Inside: Pause, breathe, notice.
- Outside: Design rooms, rituals, and agendas that slow the spin and invite care.
- Between us: Make dialogue a place where different truths can live together long enough to teach something.
Ultimately, leadership is the art of making space for what’s important (for everyone) and letting that clarity shape the next step. When we change the spaces from which we lead, our strategies change with them.
Explore the Space
- Watch for the first practical Encyclopedia entry—coming soon.
References
The following sources informed this file’s themes of decolonizing leadership, space as metaphor, and strategy.
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