Introduction — From Leadership Competence to Conscious Awareness

In today’s world of accelerating complexity and technological advances, the leadership advantage does not lie solely in technical capability or emotional intelligence, particularly where situations are stuck in an inertia bubble. It lies in Leadership Intelligence, harnessing the skills and capacity to read the room, understanding people, ecosystems, and purpose in motion. Those who possess this literacy of human systems see beyond hierarchy and subject matter. They sense that situational influence manifests from the dynamics and environment experienced by every person in the room and how it is operating from their own lived experience, values, and leadership phase.

Leaders who understand the three Phases of Leadership, The Green Shoots (Phase One), The Weeds (Phase Two), and The Wilderness and Oasis of Utopia (Phase Three), hold an advantage in situational awareness and influence. They recognise that every conversation carries multiple realities that have a common goal as the primary factor for the congregation together; however, there are always individual motivations as outcomes beneath it that everyone wants to walk away with feeling they have been addressed.

Those who can enter a room with a liminal perspective, aware of what is seen, unseen, and in between, hold the highest form of influence: clarity in complexity, clarity of purpose, and presence with congruence.
The creation of the right environment for situational influence is understood by the most effective leaders, who, by default, will prepare themselves before entering a room and approach with this awareness. They ask: What is my purpose? What is my presence when I enter? Am I ready to be fully present? They do not carry the baggage of their last meeting or situation. Even in a short break between one meeting and the next or one challenging conversation, they consciously reset. This deliberate pause allows clarity, or calm, and on occasion, to establish a deliberate tension to precede engagement.

Equally, they know who will be in the room and what leadership phases those individuals may represent. This awareness provides the foundation for the liminal state of leadership: being grounded in self, attuned to others, and open to the wider ecosystem of interaction.

The Three Phases of Leadership: A Brief Recap

Understanding the three Phases of Leadership provides leaders with the ability to contextualise behaviours, motivations, and decision patterns that emerge in every room.

Phase One — The Green Shoots, Stars, and Shining Lights
A period of energy, ambition, and recognition, typically between the ages of 28 and 38. Leaders in this phase are establishing their identity and capability. They are visible, determined, and results-driven. Their focus is achievement, yet their awareness of deeper ecosystem interdependence is still forming.

Phase Two — The Weeds: Complexity, Pressure, and Purpose Testing
Generally spanning ages 39 to 59, this is where professional and personal ecosystems collide. Leaders experience increased organisational demand, family complexity, and health or identity challenges. They often feel lost in the weeds, overwhelmed, reactive, and seeking reconnection with values and purpose. However, this phase also offers the greatest potential for growth and recalibration.

Phase Three — The Wilderness and Oasis of Utopia
Typically, from age 59 onwards, this is a profound transition of identity. Leaders shift from accumulation to contribution, from doing to meaning. It is a time of reflection and renewal, where networks and routines are re-evaluated, and the desire to share wisdom with younger leaders emerges. The wilderness represents letting go; the oasis, rediscovering clarity of purpose and legacy.

By recognising these phases in themselves and others, leaders gain a multidimensional lens through which to view human behaviour, not as fixed or personal, but as developmental, contextual, and dynamic.

Situational Awareness: The Multi-Ecosystem in the Room

Every leadership environment is a living ecosystem. In any meeting or negotiation, you are not just managing subject matter. You are navigating layered ecosystems of values, experience, and motivation where everyone is needed to contribute their knowledge and expertise to help get closer to a solution-based outcome on the agenda. However, everyone in the room is part of wider ecosystems, and they also want to feel they are valued and recognised for their expertise, knowledge, and leadership influence in their sectors. A vitally important outcome as part of the solution and a crucial juxtaposition for consideration.

For an experienced and skilled leader, reading the room and creating a safe environment for sharing, flexibility, and adaptation is not about judging or categorising others, but rather observing and decoding the invisible dynamics that shape human behaviour.
Effective leaders read the room by observing who is present and what leadership phases they represent. They can sense where energy is directed, where defensiveness might appear, why finger-pointing might emerge to distract attention as a sleight of hand or to create tension, where emotions might be escalated to divert from the facts at hand, and where silence may speak louder than words.

By understanding these multi-ecosystem dynamics, leaders can recognise and unpack within themselves the “why” behind reactions and responses, guiding the atmosphere and environment to a place where the liminal perspective can be optimised.
True situational awareness recognises that every behaviour is data, a window into what phase of leadership a person is operating from and what may be driving their decision-making in that moment.

The Role of Values and Purpose in Situational Influence

Values and purpose act as the compass of human behaviour. A leader’s ability to draw to the surface and help understand what matters most to others, and how to align that with organisational values to effect solutions-based outcomes for all parties, determines their influence.

When a leader can sense these underlying drivers, they can shape the conversation around shared meaning rather than positional argument. For example, recognising that one stakeholder seeks recognition while another seeks security allows the leader to bridge perspectives without judgement.
Purpose, anchored by clear values, provides congruence. Leaders who bring this with them into the room anchor composure under pressure. It allows them to respond with calmness, integrity, and act with strength of their convictions, but not alienate the room when competing interests or cultural or ethical tensions arise. It also allows illumination when decisions drift from alignment, drawing from the subtle cues that something feels off because it violates a deeper underlying value.

This Leadership Intelligence, gaining awareness for situational influence, is not about forcing control. It is about resonance, the art of capturing the environment where the chess pieces are moving, with a delicate touch and mastery of finding both individual and collective commonality.

The Liminal Perspective in Practice

To operate with a liminal perspective is to hold multiple viewpoints at once, to stand both within and beyond the system. It is the ability to view situations from the inside-out, outside-in, and standing in the middle looking all around. Leaders using this skill do not rush to defend or dictate. They read, absorb, and interpret before they act.

The liminal leader listens not only to the words being spoken but to the tone, tempo, and emotion behind them. They notice who is quiet, who repeats a phrase, who withdraws, and who tries to dominate. These cues provide raw data for understanding, quietly unpacking what phase of leadership energy is at play, where energy pulses can be shifted, and how best to respond to achieve collective purpose.

There is an art in the leadership intelligence to shifting between the liminal perspectives and gaining fluidity to capture what is going to help each stakeholder walk out of the room with a personal sense of gain, value, and recognition, while all collectively contributing to meet or exceed the goal expectation and deliver the agreed processes and measures required for the solution to be immediately actioned, measured, and delivered.

Respond, Don’t React — The Pause in Practice

The pause is not hesitation; it is mastery. It is the moment where leaders centre themselves, absorb the full landscape of interaction, and respond with intention. This space between stimulus and response allows for recalibration, where composure replaces reactivity and clarity replaces noise.

Leaders who apply this skill in high-stakes settings create psychological safety. They allow others to breathe, reflect, and contribute rather than defend. They also identify and use the pause as anchors of influence, not in authority but in awareness. The pause has many benefits in high-tension and high-stakes situations and is a conscious alignment of purpose, presence, and being present.

Conclusion — Leadership Beyond the Meeting Room

The liminal leader understands that every interaction, every meeting, negotiation, or decision is an ecosystem in motion. By combining phase literacy, values awareness, and liminal perspective, leaders cultivate situational influence that is grounded in respect, clarity, and composure.
They do not enter rooms seeking control; they enter seeking understanding. They do not focus on individual gain; they focus on understanding the individuals, the environment, the problems, risks, and uncovering the barriers, which will help focus on collective alignment.

This mastery is subtle. The great leader becomes like an orchestra maestro, guiding the rhythm and flow of the room without stakeholders ever realising the conduction has taken place. Dialogue, emotion, and intention move fluidly through the environment the leader has crafted, creating harmony in uncertainty, noise, or inertia.

In doing so, they embody the essence of leadership intelligence. 
Join us in the 3P-S Lab, where leaders develop the mastery of situational influence.