Creating Space Before We Need It

In this solo reflection, Nathan Freeburg explores how some of the most important leadership work happens quietly, long before problems appear. Inspired by a parenting moment, Nathan reflects on stewardship, foresight, invisible leadership, and the power of small, preventative actions that shape long-term growth. This episode invites leaders to step back from urgency and trust the slow formation that creates healthy teams and cultures.

What You’ll Learn

• Why preventative leadership often goes unnoticed
• How stewardship and foresight shape long-term outcomes
• The importance of creating space before growth is needed
• Why small adjustments made early compound over time

Resources

• Unfolded: Lessons in Transformation from an Origami Crane – Dr. Linda & Brian Schubring
• Leadership Vision Consulting: https://www.leadershipvisionconsulting.com

🎉 Unfolded is a National Bestseller!
#1 in Business & #5 Overall on USA Today
#17 on Publisher’s Weekly Nonfiction
📘 Grab your copy + get the FREE Reflection Guide!

Chapters

• 0:00 Welcome & Why This Matters
• 2:57 The Palate Expander Story
• 5:06 Preventative Action Over Urgency
• 6:35 Five Ideas For Quiet Leadership
• 9:33 Small Shifts That Change Trajectories

Transcript

SPEAKER_00: 1:46

You are listening to the Leadership Vision Podcast, our show helping you build positive team culture. Our consulting firm has been doing this work for the past 25 years so that people are mentally engaged and emotionally healthy. To learn more about what we do, you can click the link in the show notes or visit us on the web at Leadership Vision Consulting.com. Hello everyone, my name is Nathan Freeberg, and today on the podcast, I wanted to share something that I've been thinking about. I guess it initially started a few weeks ago when I took my daughter in for her first of what we now know will be many orthodontic appointments. Now, at first this started as I guess a simple reflection about space and about habits, about carving out small moments for what matters most rather than clinging to whatever feels most urgent. But the more I sat with this and the more time that I spent in the orthodontist office, well, this idea has kind of morphed into something a little, I don't know, deeper, but just broader. Something about stewardship, something about foresight, and the kind of leadership that works quietly in the background. So let me set this up just a little bit. My daughter, who's nine years old, recently got a palette expander installed. Now, if you're not familiar with what a palette expander is, let me tell you, it is a small, orthodontic, medieval-looking torture device type of a thing that's attached to the roof of the mouth. And twice a day for 10 days initially, I take this little tiny key and I slide it into this little metal hole and make an adjustment that's almost imperceptible. And it does this thing to her upper jaw where it expands over time. It's not dramatic, it's not fixing a pain, it's not responding to any sort of a dental crisis. In fact, for a long while, nothing is gonna really appear to be different at all. And that's kind of the point I'm trying to make here. A palate expander is preventative. It creates space, it does minimal work early so that bigger problems never have a chance to form later. Now, as I sat in the orthodontist office listening to all of this, it struck me that if we choose not to do this, if we don't put in this expander, if we don't spend the money, there likely wouldn't be any immediate consequences. Probably not for years, probably not even for, most likely, not even for decades, and definitely not until well after she's out of the house and off our dental insurance completely. And that's what really caught my attention. Not not the insurance part, but how the absence of pain can convince us that nothing needs attention. And that's where my thinking shifted from just being about habits to thinking more broadly about leadership and personal growth. So much of the most important work we do as leaders, and humans for that matter, looks exactly like this. It's quiet, it's incremental, and it's easy to dismiss because there's just there's no emergency demanding our response or our attention right now. So here are five, let's call them slightly baked ideas that I'd love to throw out there and share and to get your thoughts on. If you want to email me, you there's a link in the description. But just as we close out this year and start the next one, I'm I just I'm thinking about this stuff. So, first of all, there's this idea of stewardship. My daughter didn't ask for a palette expander. She doesn't fully understand what it's doing or its long-term value. But part of my role as a parent, as a leader, is to make decisions now that her future self will be grateful for. Leadership often asks us to do the same thing, to care for the people on our teams and in our organizations and the systems beyond the immediate moment, even when the payoff isn't obvious. Okay, the second idea here is this idea of foresight. A palette expander isn't about solving today's problem, it's about anticipating tomorrow's. Healthy leadership works kind of the same way. It's like paying attention early when change is still gentle instead of waiting until correction becomes costly. I'm sure you can think about someone in your organization who fits that description. Now, the third idea here is this idea of invisible leadership. So nobody ever applauds the problems that never happen. There's no celebration for a crisis that's been avoided, and yet much of our best leadership is found in the quiet, unrecognized work that creates stability and trust for others over time. The fourth idea here is trusting slow formation. The expander doesn't force anything into place, it simply creates room for healthy growth to occur naturally. Now, that's true for people and teams too. Growth unfolds when the conditions are right, not when we just push harder and harder and force it. And finally, the fifth one is there's resisting the urge to be the sole decision maker. I didn't have a short, catchy thing for it. Uh a palette expander, it well, it requires trust. It requires trust and expertise of the dentist and the little piece of metal in the process and in time. Leadership doesn't mean controlling every outcome, I don't think. Often it means just creating space, there's that word again, and then allowing others to grow into it. It's about creating the environment rather than forcing, just kind of like brute force there. Maybe that's what braces do. I don't know. That's probably a podcast for a few years down the road. But this does bring me back to something that Brian once told me years ago. It was this idea that if we can help someone's life trajectory shift by just like a degree or two, well, over time, that small, almost imperceptible change can make an enormous difference. That's what this feels like. Small adjustments, early, faithfully applied. So now as we wrap up the year here, I want to leave you with a simple reflection. You can take it however you want, write some things down, or just think about it on your run or in the car. Where in your leadership or in your life for that matter might there be an opportunity to make a small preventative adjustment right now? Maybe something that doesn't feel urgent, something that might even feel unnecessary, but something that over time could make a meaningful difference. Now, some ideas here. Maybe it's a conversation that you've been putting off, maybe it's a habit that you want to build, or maybe a habit you want to unbuild. Maybe it's creating a little space to notice what's already unfolding. Now, for me, it's trying to breathe, to breathe when I'm lifting weights, or stretching, or breathe differently when I'm running or getting overly stressed out. When those things happen, I have a tendency to kind of hold my breath, which isn't good. It's not healthy. So I'm trying to remember to breathe more. Not only when I'm doing those physical things, but when I get stressed out, or when I get frustrated, or or triggered by something big or something small, something silly, whatever it is. I'm just trying to focus on taking a single breath. Just one, to give myself a moment to pause before responding, to create that space. What will your thing be in the new year? Transformation rarely announces itself. It works slowly, faithfully, and often invisibly, one small adjustment at a time. Thank you for listening to the Leadership Vision Podcast, our show helping you build positive team culture. If this episode has been valuable at all to you, we would appreciate it if you would subscribe wherever you listen to podcasts and join our free email newsletter. I hope this reflection gives you, I guess gives you permission just to step back from the pressure to create massive change and instead trust the power of small intentional actions and the future they're quietly shaping. My name is Nathan Freeberg, and on behalf of our entire team, thanks for listening.