Breathing New Life into Leadership

In 2025, I experienced a transformative year in the classroom. The semester started off strong but, about halfway through, attendance dropped significantly. For some lectures, I had fewer than 10 students in a classroom that could hold 55. The students who did show up looked tired and struggled to contain their yawns. I couldn’t pinpoint why students were staying away, but I knew I had to do something.

I threw everything at the challenge. I gave out tickets that students could earn by engaging in class, redeemable for candy. I played upbeat songs before lectures, and used bright colours for my slide decks (I even wore matching colours). I launched a “Dragon Cup Transformational Leadership Speech Contest” to encourage heartfelt sharing. For early Friday morning classes, I invited students to do laps with me around the empty building to shake off their lethargy. 

The results were gratifying. Attendance increased steadily despite “midterm fatigue” and “end of term blues.” Students were visibly more engaged during in-class activities, and the classroom felt warm and welcoming. We acted more like a small community and less like a collection of individuals. 

I’m convinced there is something within my experience that organizational leaders can learn from. As a people manager, ask yourself this deceptively simple question: In what ways can you be a breath of fresh air — to turn disengagement to connection? What would it take for you to lead with your heart, and be met by the hearts of your staff?

An energizing response

Too many workplaces are stale and lifeless. According to the 2024 Gallup State of the Global Workplace report, one in five employees worldwide feel lonely. The report found that global employee engagement had fallen, costing the world economy US$438 billion in lost productivity.  

Having grown up in Nanjing, China, my response was to lean into the common Chinese concept of ren qi (人气). In Mandarin, ren (人) means “human”, and qi (气), at a superficial level, refers to “air” or “atmosphere.” At a more applied level, qi can refer to “energy”, “ambience” or the “feel” of a place. Therefore, ren qi refers to the perceived energy generated by people’s activities, energy, spirit, identity and unity. Ren qi is low in a sprawling urban area with empty streets and no pedestrians. It is high when there are busy shops, beautifully decorated boulevards and people promenading.

In the workplace, ren qi is low when you walk into an office building and see empty halls, locked office doors, underused lounges and quiet common areas. It is low when people feel they should keep their head down and avoid interacting with colleagues. Ren qi is very low when you or your staff are “quiet quitting.”

By contrast, ren qi is high when offices are busy and workers are buzzing, gossiping and celebrating colleagues’ birthdays. Yes, it is a professional workplace, but it is also a people place: you can sense emotions at play and excitement or even anxiety — the presence of a breath of “human air.”

According to traditional Chinese medicine, we all have qi in our bodies. If we think of qi as energy, then it is through interactions that we communicate our qi to each other — either positively uplifting or negatively dispiriting. As humans, we need direct engagements with each other to feel the energy and the qi. Ren qi adds to the sum of our individual energies whenever people interact in a positive way — sharing their positive attitudes, encouragement, role modelling, teamwork, ideas, mentoring or social capital.  

Looking inward is step one 

Do you want to boost the ren qi in your office? A good place to start is with a self-assessment. Ask yourself: Do you lead a collection of people or a community? Do you merely assign tasks and manage employees’ priorities, or do you have meaningful conversations with colleagues? Do you know each other at a human level or just at a device level?

It’s paradoxical how emails, remote meetings and text messages are said to “enable” people to engage with each other when, in fact, they are isolating technologies. Through our devices, we work together digitally but are physically separated. Engaging via devices is not true engagement. Devices facilitate the transmission of data, messages, maybe even ideas, but devices cannot effectively convey live emotions, vivid personalities, strong values, passions, beliefs, commitments or determination.

To release the energizing winds of ren qi, the most effective strategy is to lead as a living and breathing human being.

In practice, you first need to believe in your mission and staff. Belief is the foundation of confidence. When you are confident, staff will pick up on it and believe in you. In my classroom experience, if I did not believe in my own qualifications for teaching or that my students were high-performing learners, I could have reacted to the poor attendance by blaming myself for being a poor instructor, or the students for being lazy. Or I could have blamed ChatGPT or competing schoolwork for preoccupying my students. But none of these attributions are helpful; they only lead to self-doubt and amplify insecurities. Confidence is not about whether you look confident but whether you think confidently. 

Second, be an authentic leader. Project yourself as a warm and intelligent human being, willing to show flaws and vulnerability. Don’t hide behind computer or smartphone screens. People want to know who their leaders are, to see faces and hear voices. If you are stressed, don’t be reluctant to admit it. If personal challenges prevent you from showing up first thing in the morning, say so. If employees come up with a workaround you hadn’t thought of, let them know you appreciate their contributions. There is no shame in asking for help. The effect of being a human leader will also cascade. When you take the first risk of self-disclosure, your staff will risk too. Ren qi and energy levels will increase, the workplace will feel safe and creativity will flow.

Third, use your intuition. Positive energy, creative ideas, passion, confidence, determination, and trust — these are all invisible forces that can be highly influential. They can stem from your own intuition and manifest as charisma. If the job of a leader were simply to assess evidence and process and distribute information, then one day we could be led by robots. Intuition, not data, can help you improvise in the moment it is most needed. When ren qi is low, think about what your staff needs to be motivated and inspired; don’t ignore these needs in the name of productivity. If your employees are tired, can you provide breaks so they can catch their breath? If they’re bored, can you make work more interesting? In contrast to institutional managerial responses, using intuition should lead to humanist and creative actions. It may not seem “rational”, but it works at the “heart” level.

Lastly, create a vision of your leadership. A vision is not a plan; it’s an ideal to which you and your staff aspire. Above all, a vision must inspire. Secondarily, consider whether it is achievable in the short term. In my classroom, for example, I envisioned drawing a full classroom of students, even at 8:30 a.m. on Fridays. They would come to class for me, for their classmates, and to satisfy their desire to learn. I couldn’t be sure it was a realistic vision but it inspired me to make it a reality. Uncover your own vision for your work team so that that by the end of a busy year, you can celebrate together and reflect on your shared journey.

Looking back on my classroom experience this past fall, I made many unorthodox moves. All these actions broke deeply embedded stereotypes of how a university classroom should operate. I had to abandon my old belief about my role as a university professor and, instead, consider myself as a leader. They might have been risky or non-conventional choices, but they worked. They were born from my intuition for what was needed in that moment, and they brought out the intuition of my students. As a result, my classroom operated less as a lecture hall and more as a community of like-minded people.

 Your workplace can be a community as well, powered by the energizing winds of ren qi.