The Leadership Rhythm: Balancing Divergence and Convergence

Why Strategic Energy Fades—and How to Build Systems That Keep It Alive

This “leading left of bang” article is for paying subscribers to The CP Journal.

Many leaders know the moment. The strategy workshop ends, the whiteboards are full, and for the first time in a while, everyone seems to see the same picture. Energy fills the room. Not because of hype or slogans, but because of clarity.

People understand the environment they’re operating in: the forces shaping their world, the constraints and opportunities ahead. And they know the priorities. They know what truly matters and what doesn’t. That combination creates confidence because it replaces scattered effort with focused purpose.

It’s one of the most powerful moments in leadership, whether you’re guiding a public safety organization through uncertainty, running a business, or simply leading yourself. The principles are the same: clarity of the environment, focus on the priorities, and alignment on what success looks like.

But unfortunately, for many organization, that energy fades months later. The focus dulls. People return to the same reactive grind they were trying to escape. The problem isn’t that the strategy was wrong, but that the rhythm that produced that clarity and focus wasn’t maintained.

This article is about how leaders—of any size team or any type of organization—can keep that rhythm alive by maintaining a continual cycle of divergence and convergence.