Aligning Human Energy to Strategic Purpose

Written By Jeffrey Burstein

A Guide for Adaptive Leadership

1. Understanding the Challenge: When Human Energy Falls Out of Alignment

In adaptive organizations; schools, nonprofits, startups, and mission-driven companies where value is delivered through the critical thinking of knowledge workers. Unlike industrial work, where process compliance is the focus, knowledge work thrives on creativity, curiosity, initiative, and intrinsic motivation.

However, this same strength introduces a predictable leadership challenge:

Human energy tends to follow meaning, not plans.

When purpose is strong and shared, collaboration flows naturally. But when ambiguity increases around direction, strategy, or priorities then energy can disperse or misaligned. Teams may become:

  • Excited, but scattered across competing ideas

  • Busy, but not advancing key strategic outcomes

  • Motivated, but unclear on where to focus

  • Emotionally invested, but not aligned in action

Leaders discuss how purpose-driven stakeholders can become misaligned when strategic clarity is not shared or reinforced. The conversation points to the need for re-centering around purpose before action can continue effectively.

This is not a failure of individuals—it is a natural property of creative systems.

Why It Happens

Knowledge workers don’t simply execute tasks, they:

  • Interpret purpose

  • Translate strategy

  • Self-navigate ambiguity

  • Generate meaning through their work

When purpose or direction becomes unclear, the energies of the people running the system shifts and may become fragmented. Leaders often respond by increasing control, more meetings, more messaging, more tactical correction but this tends to tighten grip while decreasing ownership and intrinsic motivation.

The goal is not to suppress energy because to cost to reignite the spark is high, the goal is to re-align it with purpose.

This is where Qigong as a leadership practice enters.

2. The Qigong Leadership Practice: Assess → Reflect → Redirect

Qigong, adapted for leadership within the L-EAF.org framework, refers to the ongoing practice of sensing, harmonizing, and redirecting human energy toward strategic purpose. It is not directive rather it is restorative.

What Makes This Effective

  • It preserves psychological safety

  • It maintains intrinsic motivation

  • It converts emotional energy into directional momentum

  • It strengthens shared ownership over strategy

Instead of pulling people back, the leader invites purpose back into the room.

3. Practical Ways to Apply Qigong in Real Work Contexts

A. During Strategy Drift

Signals:

  • Teams invent new but unrelated initiatives

  • Priorities multiply faster than capacity

  • The “why” behind work becomes unclear

Qigong Move:

  • Reopen the Strategic Objective

  • Re-state the purpose

  • Facilitate the group in articulating alignment in their own words

Example Prompt:

“What problem are we committed to solving for the customer?”

B. During High Creative Excitement

Signals:

  • Brainstorming is energetic but unbounded

  • Multiple competing directions emerge

  • Innovation overshadows value alignment

Qigong Move:

  • Acknowledge energy before guiding it

  • Shift from idea-space to purpose-space

Example Prompt:

“Which of these ideas most directly advances our purpose?”

C. During Emotional Friction or Fatigue

Signals:

  • Overwhelm, frustration, or miscommunication

  • Loss of momentum or coordination

Qigong Move:

  • Pause the workflow

  • Normalize the emotional experience

  • Re-center identity and shared mission

Example Prompt:

“Let’s step back. What outcome matters most to us right now?”

D. Planning

Use Qigong to:

  • Align on purpose before planning begins

  • Revisit purpose at each work cycle boundary

  • Encourage teams to articulate purpose in their own language

Micro-cycle ritual example:

Begin every cycle with one question:
“Why does this work matter?”

Closing Guidance for Leaders

You do not “direct” energy.
You work with it.

Qigong invites leaders to:

  • Listen before steering

  • Validate before correcting

  • Align before pushing

  • Trust the intrinsic purpose in the people they serve

When practiced consistently, teams become:

  • More self-guided

  • More resilient to ambiguity

  • More united around shared purpose

  • And more capable of sustaining flow without control-based leadership

This is what it means to lead in adaptive, human-centered systems.
We do not manage people.
We tend the energy that moves the work.

Jeffrey Burstein
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Integrating Mindfulness in Strategy