Susan DrummCEO Advisor & Executive Coach | Leadership Change Agent

You're Not Just Leading. You're Setting the Weather. #shorts

11 Aug 2026 · 1 min

Watch on YouTube

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In this concise YouTube short, Susan Drumm explains that a leader’s emotional state acts like weather that fills a room before the leader even speaks. Drawing on neuroscience, she notes that humans are hard‑wired to quickly read and react to emotional cues, so a leader’s anxiety can tighten the team’s atmosphere while a grounded presence relaxes it. She encourages leaders to pause before meetings and ask themselves what emotional “forecast” they are bringing—storm clouds or calm skies—because setting the emotional temperature is as crucial as setting the vision. By consciously shifting their own energy, leaders can positively influence the entire team’s mood and performance.

Chapters

If you lead a team, you're going to want to listen to this. Your energy enters the room before you do, and whether you realize it or not, you're bringing the weather. Walk in anxious, the whole room tightens up. Walk in grounded, people breathe easier. That's not just intuition, that's neuroscience. We're wired to read and react to emotional cues fast, and when you're the leader, your state becomes the team state. So before the meeting, ask, what forecast am I bringing? Storm clouds? Calm skies? You don't just set the vision, you set the temperature. So shift your energy and you shift everything.