Letting Go to Lead: Forgiveness as the First Step Toward Energy and Organizational Transformation

We don’t often think of leadership as a practice of forgiveness. We think of strategy, clarity, perhaps courage. Yet, if you look closely, you’ll see how much of leadership is shaped by what we’re holding onto, and what we’re willing to let go.

The Invisible Weight Leaders Carry

In today’s environment, leaders are not simply tired; they’re carrying exhaustion in layers, physical, mental, emotional. The constant pressure to deliver, the speed of change, the ambiguity of complexity, it’s heavy enough. Add in unspoken hurts, past mistakes, or the sharp edges of unresolved conflict, and the weight multiplies.

What happens when you carry this weight? For most leaders, it shows up as a subtle drain: energy leaks you can’t quite explain, difficulty focusing, a shorter fuse, less joy. It seems small in the moment, but over time, those leaks change how you see your colleagues, your choices, even yourself.

A Story: Carla

Carla, a VP in a tech firm, once shared with me how her energy shifted after a peer criticized her in a public meeting. She didn’t explode. She didn’t even respond in the moment. But afterwards, she found herself avoiding that colleague, questioning her own instincts, and leaving meetings utterly drained. Her team felt her distraction and responded with less creativity, less initiative.

When we dug deeper, the “problem” wasn’t only the critical comment. It was the grudge she carried, quiet, invisible, but shaping everything. It colored how she saw her colleague, how she interpreted feedback, and how she expended her energy. What began as one painful interaction had widened into an energy-sapping lens through which she led her team.

Forgiveness, once she was ready for it, changed everything. With some repair work, she could recapture her energy and reconnect her team.

The Cost of Holding On

Grudges are never neutral. Research estimates that workplace conflict costs organizations $359 billion a year in lost productivity. But beyond the dollars, the true cost is human: the creativity not sparked, the focus not sustained, the relationships not repaired.

Take Raj, a department head who struggled to forgive a team member for missing a crucial deadline. He didn’t shout or punish, but he replayed the mistake in his mind, again and again. His decisions became reactive, his stress chronic, and his team, sensing the tension – pulled away.

When we looked together at what was really going on, Raj realized that most of his leadership energy was spent managing his emotions about that one incident. Once he chose forgiveness, his energy returned. His team felt the shift and leaned back in.

Forgiveness as Clarity in Action

Here’s the paradox: forgiveness is often misunderstood as weakness. But in reality, it is clarity. When you forgive, you aren’t excusing mistakes or erasing consequences. You’re refusing to let the past dictate your present or your future. You’re reclaiming your energy for what matters most.

What if forgiveness is not just a personal virtue but a leadership strategy? A deliberate act to sharpen focus, create space for innovation, and model resilience for your team?

Creating the Conditions: Shared Agreements

Of course, forgiveness doesn’t flourish in isolation. It grows in relationships, and it needs structures to support it. One simple but powerful structure is shared agreements.

I once watched a small marketing team rebuild after a tough project by agreeing that all feedback would be given in a structured, solution-oriented format within 24 hours, and that every piece of feedback would be acknowledged before moving forward. The result? Within weeks, tension softened, collaboration increased, and the team’s creativity exploded.

Shared agreements anchor trust and accountability. They signal: “We are committed to moving forward together.” And in that space, forgiveness finds a foothold.

Letting Go as a Leadership Strategy

Imagine if forgiveness were woven into the fabric of how we lead. Leaders who practice it signal to their teams: yes, mistakes and conflicts happen, but they don’t have to define us. That modeling alone creates psychological safety, which research links to higher engagement and greater productivity.

Forgiveness becomes a lever: it restores energy, builds resilience, and allows organizations to shift from conflict-driven depletion to purpose-driven execution.

Where to Begin: A Practice for Leaders

If you’re wondering how to start, try this:

1. Notice the weight. Where do you feel drained, distracted, or defensive?
2. Get curious. Is there a grudge—or an unspoken story—you’re carrying?
3. Separate intent from impact. What happened, and how did it affect you?
4. Choose the next step. Sometimes that means a direct conversation. Sometimes it means setting a new agreement. Sometimes it means simply letting go.
5. Redirect your energy. Ask: “Where could this freed-up energy serve best right now?”

Forgiveness isn’t a one-time decision. It’s a practice. A choice to lead from clarity instead of carrying the weight of the past.

The Beginning of Transformation

Letting go is not the end of something; it’s the beginning. The beginning of leadership that is lighter, clearer, and more focused. The beginning of teams that can put their energy where it belongs: into the work that matters, into the future they’re building together.

So the question is not whether you’ve been hurt, criticized, or let down, because you have, and you will. The real question is:

What weight are you carrying, and what might become possible if you let it go?