The Circle is the New Strategy: Why the Future of Leadership Doesn’t Need a Gate
Let’s get honest for a moment.
So many leadership spaces still feel like velvet-rope rooms—places where access is earned by performing the part, mimicking the language, and playing by invisible rules. You might be invited in, but only if you don’t take up too much space. Only if your edges are smooth enough. Only if you’ve done enough to prove you deserve it.
At Untapped Leaders, we call this gate-based leadership, and it’s quietly exhausting.
We see it in executive programs where inclusion is a tagline but not a practice. In rooms where cultural fluency is demanded but never mirrored. In decision-making tables, where presence is permitted but power is withheld.
And if you're leading from the middle of a system, of a movement, or of your own messy evolution, you’ve likely felt it.
These aren’t just exclusive environments. They’re extractive ones.
They thrive on scarcity. They reward assimilation. And they ask leaders to edit themselves before they ever get a mic.
But here’s the truth: the leadership we need now isn’t locked behind a gate—it’s waiting in a circle.
Rethinking the Leadership Blueprint
We’re living through a moment of fracture. Institutions are losing trust. Systems are being questioned. Burnout is more than a buzzword—it’s a breaking point.
And yet, the old leadership blueprint continues to whisper: climb higher, perform louder, stay polished.
That model isn’t just outdated. It’s dangerous.
Because it prioritizes perception over purpose. It teaches leaders to master power games, not challenge them. And it reinforces a culture where a select few are allowed to shape the whole.
We don’t need another ladder.
We need new ground to stand on and new ways to stand together.
That’s why we’re moving away from hierarchies and toward circles.
Not as a kumbaya concept, but as a strategic reframe.
Circles offer what hierarchies can’t: shared power, fluid leadership, and deep interconnection. They’re designed for complexity, not control. For emergence, not ego.
And they make space for the kind of leaders we’ve long overlooked.
Who This Model Serves
The circular leadership model doesn’t simply make room for underrepresented leaders—it’s been shaped by them.
It’s built with those in mind who are often asked to lead within systems that weren’t designed for their values, communities, or complexity. This model honors the kind of leadership that isn’t always spotlighted, but deeply sustains transformation.
It honors:
The program officer at a philanthropic foundation who’s quietly pushing to shift funding from short-term metrics to long-term community trust.
The principal leading equity work in a school district where standardized mandates leave little room for cultural responsiveness—but she leads anyway, in the in-between spaces.
The nonprofit executive director holding space for both board expectations and frontline realities, building bridges while resisting burnout.
The organizational consultant who refuses to deliver cookie-cutter leadership trainings and instead co-designs learning rooted in relational accountability and lived wisdom.
The internal DEI lead navigating the weight of institutional history, trying to move beyond performative gestures into real culture change—with no roadmap and limited power.
This model is for the leaders who are:
Translating across power and identity, often without acknowledgment
Holding complexity when others want simplicity
Practicing values that don’t always fit the dominant mold
Leading without needing to be at the front of the room
These leaders aren’t waiting to be included. They’re already reshaping what leadership looks like—from within systems, across movements, and in partnership with community.
Five Anchors for a Circular Approach to Leadership
This isn’t a vague invitation to “be yourself.” It’s a robust framework for leadership that centers equity, presence, and shared power. At Untapped Leaders, we believe sustainable change isn’t driven by charisma or credentials. It’s cultivated through deep, daily practice. These five leadership principles are what we call our anchors. They ground us when systems push us toward assimilation, speed, and spectacle.
They’re not meant to be mastered overnight. They’re meant to be returned to. Revisited. Re-examined. They are both a compass and a call.
Let’s dig deeper into each anchor and what it might look like in action.
1. Authenticity Over Optics
Leadership isn’t a performance—it’s a presence.
In a professional culture obsessed with polish, leaders are often trained to project certainty, confidence, and clarity—even when those qualities are not truly present. Performance-based leadership rewards appearances over integrity, making it hard to bring your full self to the work. This leads to shallow engagement, burnout, and a disconnection from purpose.
But in circular leadership, authenticity becomes a strategy, not a liability.
We believe the most resonant leaders are those who lead from within—those who can admit uncertainty, hold tension, and bring their personal and professional values into alignment.
Authenticity-centered leadership allows you to:
Name the nuance instead of flattening the complexity
Admit when you don’t have the answer (and model what it looks like to stay curious)
Build trust by being real, not just being right
Try this: In your next leadership space—whether it's a team meeting, board discussion, or client debrief—resist the urge to default to a rehearsed talking point. Instead, ask a question you genuinely don’t have the answer to. Let your team or community wrestle with it together. Watch how it shifts the tone from performance to partnership.
2. Context is Queen
There is no one-size-fits-all approach to leadership. Period.
Traditional leadership models often claim to be “universal,” offering neat formulas and five-step strategies that ignore race, culture, power, and place. But equitable leadership understands that context is everything.
What works in one organization might cause harm in another. What is seen as assertive in one culture may be perceived as aggressive in another. Without considering context, leaders risk replicating the very dynamics they claim to be trying to dismantle.
To lead well, you must become a student of your ecosystem. That means asking:
What histories are alive in this space?
Who’s holding informal influence?
Who has historically been left out of the room—or silenced within it?
What traumas or tensions are present, even if unspoken?
Leadership rooted in context is agile, responsive, and culturally attuned. It doesn’t assume neutrality. It designs for specificity.
Try this: Before launching a new initiative, pause. Do a context scan. Create a power map. Ask: What dynamics need to be named before we move forward? Even a 30-minute debrief on who’s most impacted can change the direction—and ethics—of a project.
3. Relationships Are the Strategy
Trust isn’t a side benefit of leadership. It is the work.
In extractive models, relationships are transactional—measured by what someone can do for you or what box they check. But in circular leadership, relationships are the infrastructure.
People move at the speed of trust. Whether you’re driving change in a school, nonprofit, government agency, or cross-functional team, the truth is: people won’t build with you if they don’t feel safe with you.
This principle is especially critical for leaders operating across lines of difference—race, gender, class, geography, lived experience. Relationships aren’t fluff. They’re the soil in which lasting change can grow.
To make relationships your leadership strategy:
Center trust-building as an actual goal—not an optional extra
Prioritize consistent, small moments of connection
Lead with listening, not agenda-setting
Try this: Commit to a weekly “relationship hour.” No pitch. No deliverables. Just one hour set aside to connect with someone in your organization, sector, or community. Ask about what they’re noticing. What they’re carrying. What they dream of building. That hour will do more for your long-term strategy than a deck ever could.
4. Stillness is Movement, Too
Speed isn’t always a sign of progress. Sometimes it’s a trauma response.
In high-pressure leadership environments, urgency is often mistaken for effectiveness. Leaders are pushed to “move fast and fix things,” even when the thing that needs fixing is the system that rewards speed over substance.
But circular leadership invites a different pace—one that values emergence, reflection, and care. We understand that clarity comes from stillness. That pause is productive. That urgency can be both a signal of harm and an invitation to slow down.
Leaders need spaciousness to respond instead of react. To gather wisdom, not just data. To check in with their bodies and communities, not just their calendars.
Slowness isn’t sabotage. It’s a form of stewardship.
Try this: In your next team or board meeting, start by asking: “What’s shifting for you this week?” This question invites the room to reflect on internal change before external action. It reminds everyone that they are human first—and that reflection is part of the work.
5. Pass the Mic, Not the Burden
Representation is not the same as redistribution.
Many organizations today are quick to amplify marginalized voices—but too often, those same voices are given the stage without the support, the power, or the structural change to back them.
Circular leadership doesn’t just make space for new voices. It actively reconfigures who makes decisions, who holds risk, and who defines success.
It’s not enough to invite someone to the table. We have to rebuild the table entirely—one where leadership is shared, not siloed.
To lead this way:
Name the difference between inclusion and integration
Shift decision-making power—not just storytelling
Support new leaders without tokenizing them
Try this: The next time you’re facilitating a team strategy or planning session, identify one concrete decision point where you can cede control. Instead of gathering feedback and making the final call yourself, hand off the decision-making power, along with the context, the authority, and the resources to make it successful.
Why These Anchors Matter
These five anchors are more than principles. They are correctives to a leadership culture that has long asked us to fragment ourselves in service of fitting in.
They serve leaders who are ready to lead differently:
Leaders who carry lived experience as a core credential
Leaders who are reshaping systems from within, often quietly
Leaders tired of being included but not heard
Leaders who no longer want to perform leadership, they want to practice it
And if you’re reading this, you might be one of them.
Need help bringing this circular leadership model to your team or organization?
We offer workshops, leadership programs, and customized partnerships designed to move your people from theory to embodied practice.
Or, explore our leadership offerings.
In the meantime, choose one anchor to return to this week.
Ask a deeper question.
Slow your pace.
Share your power.
Stay grounded in the complexity.
You don’t need to lead louder. Just more truthfully.
The future of leadership isn’t gated. It’s grounded. Welcome in.
