What’s Invisible to the Eye
Children’s television pioneer Fred Rogers’s favorite quote came from “The Little Prince”: "It is only with the heart that one can see rightly; what is essential is invisible to the eye." This quote holds so much for coaching leaders in crisis.
Many of us, especially if we tend toward extroversion, like to look outward for inspiration. We privilege what we can experience—and most important of all, measure—with our five senses. That’s what’s real.
Our bias toward the tangible, toward the visible, seeps into our leadership language. We want to see it with our own two eyes. Get our fingernails dirty. Sink our teeth into it. Face the cold, hard facts. Let the data drive us.
From this perspective, the quote from Antoine de Saint-Exupéry’s novella can seem fanciful, irrelevant, childish. After all, the line is said by a fox to a boy who lives on an asteroid the size of a house.
Yet, leaders who dismiss this quote miss the deep wisdom both Rogers and Saint-Exupéry are trying to convey. Being led purely by what we can see and measure writes off entire dimensions of the human experience, things like:
Emotions
Values
Ideas
Hopes
Assumptions
Beliefs
Responsibilities
Relationships
Suffering
Injustice
To be sure, researchers like to find fancy ways to quantify all of these things, to force the invisible into the visible. But doing this is like dissecting a frog to see what makes it live.
Ignoring the invisible, the intangible, can weaken and even harm us as leaders, especially when we’re trying to lead ourselves or others through crisis.
We muscle our way through without considering the pain we’re inflicting on ourselves and others.
We pressure ourselves to succeed without knowing why success is so important.
We soldier on without realizing how burned out we are.
We say what we think needs to be said without thinking about how that message lands.
We judge people as “stupid” or “incompetent” without understanding their stories.
We administer “cures” without fully understanding the “disease.”
If wé’re going to lead ourselves and others well, we need to learn to see what can’t be seen and listen to what isn’t spoken—especially when we’re stressed. Doing this connects us with ourselves and others.
Once we find that connection, we need to name the emotions and hopes, the assumptions and beliefs, the values and ideas, the responsibilities and relationships, and the suffering and injustice that we and others are experiencing.
And once we can name what's been hidden, we begin to make the invisible visible. That’s how change happens. That’s what connected leadership is.
That's what Rogers and Saint-Exupéry are trying to teach us.
My coaching can help you learn to do both things. Want to learn more? Book your free Discovery Session here.
