What This War Is Revealing About Us
As a student of history, I need to admit that I've been slightly obsessed by the U.S.-Iran war. While reporters and analysts are talking geopolitics, the underlying pattern feels very human.
When trust erodes, people stop sensing one another well. They talk past each other. They interrupt. They posture. They react before they understand. In other words: social sensitivity breaks down.
I see versions of this all the time in workplaces, leadership teams, and community groups.
A team says it has a communication problem, but often what’s really happening is simpler: people are no longer reading the emotional field well, and they’re no longer making enough room for each other to fully arrive. The loudest voices dominate. Cautious voices get softer. Trust thins. Progress slows.
The good news is that small practices can shift us back to being better able to sense and include others. Two micro practices we can all do daily:
Confirm What You Sense: before sharing your opinion, reflect back what you think the other person may be feeling, fearing, or needing. This helps us interrupt potential mis-attunement and supports your interlocutor feel seen.
Dialoguing vs. Monologuing: In hard group conversations, try a simple norm: no one speaks twice until everyone has had a chance to speak once. It’s not fancy, but it changes the texture of a room fast. Another way to accomplish a similar result is to self-monitor and not speak for more than ~45 seconds at a time, ensuring there's space for another to participate in the conversation.
As AI eats more and more of the world, our human capacities matter even more. Listening. Noticing. Sharing space. Sensing what is unspoken. Returning to one another with dignity.
That’s not softness.
That’s leadership.
I encourage you to experiment with one of these micro-practices in your next conversation. Reflect back what you sense. Or hold back until others have spoken. Then pay attention to what changes.
In a world getting faster, louder, and more automated, may we become people who know how to slow the room down, widen the circle, and return to one another with a little more care.
That may be one of the most important forms of leadership we have left.