Sunday, September 06, 2026
Sunday, September 06, 2026
Celine Schillinger:
This is the 2nd post of a series of articles: The “Un-Lead Vibe”: Resonating for a Better Future, discussing “Resonance, A Sociology of Our Relationship to the World” by Hartmut Rosa
It’s somewhat ironic to discuss ideal leadership in our professional lives when, in the public sphere, its most toxic forms seem to exert a pervasive pull. The attraction to the self-important, cruel, and corrupt “great man” archetype persistently clings to the human psyche. We see such figures repeatedly elected to high office, often leading to regret and a cycle of damage that restarts too quickly. This can induce a feeling of hopelessness. Yet, as the philosopher Hartmut Rosa suggests in “Resonance: A Sociology of Our Relationship to the World,” losing hope is not an option.
In a previous article, we introduced Rosa’s core concept of resonance: a rich, qualitative interaction with the world that profoundly moves, shapes, and liberates us. Today, we bridge Rosa’s notion of resonance with the practice of leadership as it should be. This intersection is crucial for anyone invested in the workplace, especially corporate practitioners like team leads, Comms and HR professionals, and executives.
Leadership is too often seen merely as a personal skill. We contend this is misguided. True leadership is a collective capacity, emerging from diverse, connected individuals working purposefully towards a common aspiration. This is what we refer to as “relational” leadership, as explored in “Dare to Un-Lead“.
This article explores how leadership can genuinely foster resonance, why this is essential, and the lessons to learn and pitfalls to avoid for those seeking to improve leadership.
We examine three stages: first, how traditional leadership stifles resonance; second, common “false good ideas” that fail to cultivate genuine connection; and finally, promising, resonance-inducing practices.
Traditional leadership practices, often unconsciously, actively extinguish resonance. These patterns fuel the “silent crisis of modern organizations,” pushing individuals into alienation where work no longer “speaks” to them. Global employee engagement rates remain critically low at 23% in 2024, with only 30% of managers feeling engaged.
This leads to a soaring burnout epidemic—a state where, as Rosa states, “all axes of resonance have become mute and deaf”. While external factors like our capitalist system and global acceleration contribute, specific organizational phenomena actively suppress resonance.
The rigidification and automation of work processes often make employees feel their agency is being eroded. David Graeber’s “bullshit jobs” highlighted this feeling of uselessness; now, workers fear irrelevance from AI.
Rosa notes, “Fear and anxiety are paradigmatic ‘resonance killers,’ as – at least when they are overpowering – they prevent the subject from opening it up to, tuning into, or becoming involved in the world”. This pervasive powerlessness at work fuels populist rhetoric outside. Poor management exacerbates this, with insecure leaders demanding obedience rather than inviting participation.
Rosa explains modernity’s error: confusing a “mute, results-oriented concept of self-efficacy geared toward domination and control with the experience of a resonant, influential, process- and response-oriented form of self-efficacy”. This often leads to the “reification of the self and others“, dehumanizing individuals and reducing relationships to transactional exchanges.
Work often impedes “horizontal resonance”—meaningful relationships between people. Organizations, due to size or ingrained habits, favor segmentation (horizontal by level, vertical by function) over dynamic networks. Leaders underestimate how inequalities in information access and status within hierarchical structures harm performance.
The “raison d’être” trend often devolves into “purpose-washing,” failing to cultivate genuine community or mutual support.
This leaves individuals disconnected and replaceable, experiencing an “atomized and monadic experience” detrimental to an organization’s potential “productive polyphony”. Before finding solutions, we must first recognize “false good ideas”.
Certain popular workplace trends, while seemingly positive, often fail to foster genuine resonance and can even erode it. These are “false good ideas”—attempts to create connection that, in Rosa’s terms, are “resonance killers”.
Mere emotional stimulation of the workforce is one such illusion. Companies invest in wellness programs and vibrant aesthetics to create a positive “vibe”. However, Rosa warns, “Because there is no connection that allows self-efficacy, there is always a risk that consumers [or workers] will merely be emotionally stimulated rather than truly affected”.
This “aestheticization, psychologization, and emotionalization” of the workplace creates superficial appeal without true depth.
Resonance, Rosa clarifies, “is not an emotional state, but a mode of relation that is neutral with respect to emotional content”. Without active influence and mutual transformation, such efforts remain “mute”.
The relentless promotion of competition and the appeal to maximize individual economic or status interests also undermines resonance. Despite claims of collaboration, noxious performance management systems persist.
Rosa states that “competition and resonance are thus two incompatible attitudes toward the world”. When individuals are motivated by maximizing “utility,” they distance themselves from the deeper “quest for resonance and the fear of alienation”.
This hyper-competitive orientation fosters “dispositional alienation“, turning colleagues into rivals.
The demand for full openness, transparency, and raw authenticity—framed as “come as you are” or “psychological safety“—can paradoxically hinder resonance. This trend can lead to forced vulnerability or simplified identities.
Rosa’s nuanced view: “resonant relationships require that both subject and world be sufficiently ‘closed’ or self-consistent so as to each speak in their own voice, while also remaining open enough to be affected or reached by each other”.
Similarly, the relentless quest for agreement and an appeased social climate (e.g., silencing dissent) can create a pathological “echo chamber”. True resonance thrives on the generative tension of difference and contradiction, not their suppression.
Finally, the pervasive quantification of everything, driven by an obsession with data, actively undermines resonance. While promising efficiency, it transforms qualitative relationships into measurable metrics.
As Rosa observes, “Efforts to ensure quality… are often gateways to the worst manifestations of transforming resonant relationships into mute relationships”. The “bureaucratic compulsion to produce documents… to measure and quantify every accomplishment and even idea, makes life hell for workers… It prevents them for doing their work properly and well”.
When everything is optimized, the spontaneous nature of resonance is destroyed, reducing human interaction to data points. This pushes us toward a “mute relationship to the world,” seeing people “only as resources”.
Let’s now explore how leadership can actively cultivate it in organizations. This isn’t just a “soft skill” but a social and critical business strategy. Rosa notes employers need workers sensitive to resonance, who are empathetic and apply creative impulses. Group projects and teamwork, dominant in late modernity, demand “resonant personality structures“. Which leadership practices unlock this human potential?
Resonant leadership creates conditions for genuine self-efficacy – the active side of our relationship to the world. It fosters an environment where employees can truly “generate resonance”. This drives engagement: making people want to lead and create, beyond mere satisfaction surveys.
Albert Bandura‘s concept of self-efficacy highlights beliefs in one’s capability to control functioning and life events. Multiplied, perceived self-efficacy leads to collective self-efficacy, propelling organizations forward.
This means creating spaces where individuals contribute talents, experience “interplay and reciprocity,” feel their impact, and see their work “speak” back. It’s about shifting from being managed to being truly influential.
Resonant leadership actively counters silo segmentation and social atomization by fostering relatedness and shared sense-making. It intentionally builds bridges across hierarchical and functional divides. This isn’t forced harmony, but creating a “common, interpersonal space of meaning”.
Rosa emphasizes that “the capacity for mutual empathy, understanding, and adopting other perspectives is important… for learning, thinking, and acting in general”.
Leaders facilitate this by valuing diverse perspectives and encouraging engagement, allowing for “contradiction”—essential for true resonance—rather than suppressing it. They cultivate a context where people are “hyper-attuned to each other emotionally” and can truly “enter into a responsive relationship“.
Most fundamentally, resonance-inducing leadership amplifies every voice and weaves compelling collective stories. Rosa highlights the “voice” as the primary organ for responsive relationship with the world. Leaders must create channels and a culture where every individual feels they can speak, be heard, and contribute to the organization’s “productive polyphony“.
Beyond individual voices, “Human beings generate strong empathetic resonances” through shared narratives. Leaders are no longer the sole story sources; they become curators and witnesses, understanding that “Social communities are first and foremost communities of narration, possessing a common repertoire of resonance producing and resonance directing stories”.
By fostering a dynamic polyphony of voices and narratives, leadership moves us closer to Rosa’s “fundamental promise of modernity… the great hope of a singing world” within our organizations.
The journey to a resonant organization, where work genuinely “sings,” demands a conscious shift from traditional, extractive leadership to practices that amplify agency, foster genuine relatedness, and cultivate a dynamic polyphony of voices. In the final part of this series, we will unveil a concrete, practical application of these principles: The Community Studio, a proven approach designed to help organizations build these vital connections and bring the promise of resonance to life.
This post can also be found (in a slightly longer version) on Celine’s blog in English & French
Stay tuned for Part 3
Written by: Editor
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