Sailing the Great Cycles
How True Leaders Move Through Storming, Forming, and Norming
Storming. Forming. Norming.
This is not a trend; it is a law of nature.
True Leaders do not fight the tide—they read it, respect it, and ride it.
Neil Howe’s The Fourth Turning teaches us: history itself is not a straight road, but a cycle of crisis, rebirth, and flourishing.
Greg McKeown’s Essentialism sharpens the discipline: do less, but better, always at the right time.
In a world drunk on urgency, True Leaders must become something rarer: masters of timing, clarity, and essential action.
This is their story.
Storming: The Destruction That Sets You Free
Story:
Imagine a vast fleet sailing comfortably, until black clouds roll in. Winds tear the sails. Waves smash through proud vessels. In the chaos, illusions are stripped away: only what is essential survives.
The Fourth Turning frames this moment as Crisis: old institutions fail, old stories collapse. Essentialism reminds us that crisis is a brutal but effective editor, stripping away the trivial, leaving the vital.
Reality for True Leaders:
Storming comes for all. Economies crash. Strategies fail. Cultures fracture. It feels violent because it is—necessary violence to burn away excess and false certainty.
The Essentialist does not thrash and cling.
The Essentialist cuts deep, fast, and without regret.
True Leadership here means asking:
What must I eliminate before it eliminates me?
Key Principle:
Cut sooner. Cut deeper. Cut with compassion but without hesitation. Every day you delay, you bleed energy needed for what comes next.
Forming: The Quiet Rebuilding of Foundations
Story:
After the storm, the few surviving ships anchor on new shores. The work is slower now, quieter: new sails stitched, new maps drawn, new crews sworn in under new oaths.
In The Fourth Turning, this is The High, the period where new civic orders are formed, often quietly, out of the ashes of what failed. Essentialism tells us: this is the moment to protect the essential at all costs, refusing the gravitational pull toward overgrowth and scattered focus.
Reality for True Leaders:
The temptation after a crisis is to build everything, to rush and to prove vitality.
But True Leaders know: the future is shaped not by frantic expansion, but by precise, deliberate construction.
The Essentialist chooses the vital few: the right culture, the right systems, the right few strategic moves.
True Leadership here means asking:
Am I building what the future demands, or am I simply reacting to noise?
Key Principle:
Say "yes" sparingly. Protect the core. Lay stones slowly and with intention, knowing that today's choices will ossify into tomorrow’s institutions.
Norming: The Strengthening of the New Order
Story:
The fleet sails again, but now the ships are lighter, faster, truer to their mission. Crews move as one. The ocean, once a place of terror, becomes a vast opportunity.
In The Fourth Turning, this is The Awakening and The Unravelling: the period of flourishing, exploration, then slow fragmentation as new generations test the boundaries. Essentialism warns us: success itself becomes the enemy if we allow growth to outpace clarity.
Reality for True Leaders:
Norming feels safe, but it hides its dangers: complacency, bureaucracy, bloat.
True Leaders institutionalize only what must endure. They remain light, ready for the next distant storm.
They understand: "The seeds of the next crisis are planted during the harvest of this success."
True Leadership here means asking:
Are we codifying clarity, or just calcifying convenience?
Key Principle:
Stay vigilant. Reinforce what is essential, but leave the organization supple, ready to move again when the next cycle inevitably calls.
The Essential Story of True Leadership
In every cycle—storm, forming, norming—True Leaders act as timeless navigators, not frantic managers.
They recognize the storm not as failure, but as invitation.
They rebuild not frantically, but wisely.
They stabilize not through rigidity, but through clarity.
In a world addicted to doing more, the True Leader dares to do only what matters most, when it matters most.
Final Reflection:
Today, look with brutal honesty:
Which phase am I truly in?
and
What is the most essential action demanded by this season of my leadership?
Everything else is drift.
