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The Power of Perspective: Leadership Lessons from Taking a Break
- Emmy Beeson
- 1 day ago
- 5 min read
I expected Alaska to leave me inspired.
I didn't expect it to leave me in tears.
One of the most unforgettable moments of the trip came aboard a six-passenger seaplane outside Juneau. Within minutes, we had climbed from the sidewalks and harbors below into a world that seemed to belong to another age. Beneath us, lush green valleys gave way to rivers of ice. Massive glaciers carved their way through mountains draped in snow, revealing a landscape shaped not over decades or centuries, but over millennia.
From the ground, the scenery was beautiful.
From above, it became almost incomprehensible.
I wanted to cry. Not because it was sad, but because I suddenly realized how small I was in comparison to everything before me.
Psychologists describe experiences like this as awe. Awe is more than admiration or inspiration. It is what happens when we encounter something so vast that our minds struggle to contain it. For a moment, our usual frame of reference gives way to something larger. We stop measuring life by our own concerns and begin to see ourselves as part of a much bigger story.
Astronauts have a name for a similar experience. They call it the Overview Effect. It is the profound shift in perspective that comes from seeing Earth from space. Many return talking less about technology and more about achievement, and more about humanity. Less about themselves and more about our shared existence.
My view wasn't from orbit.
But somewhere over the glaciers of Alaska, I experienced my own version of that shift. Standing before something ancient enough to rearrange my sense of importance, I didn't feel insignificant.
I felt grounded. I felt fully present.
Later, standing along the shores of Lake Superior watching waves pound the rocky coastline, waves that had shaped those shores long before I arrived and would continue long after I was gone, that same feeling returned.
As I reflected on those moments, I realized this wasn't simply a travel experience.
It was a human insight that forever changed the way I think about leadership. So much of leadership asks us to become bigger. Not bigger in ego, but in responsibility.
We are expected to cast vision, make difficult decisions, solve problems, carry uncertainty, and inspire others through change. We are taught to expand our influence, increase our impact, and shoulder more responsibility with every new opportunity.
Those expectations aren't wrong. Leadership does require us to rise to challenges that are often bigger than ourselves. But somewhere along the way, many of us begin to believe that everything we carry is equally important.
Every meeting feels consequential.
Every metric feels defining.
Every conflict feels urgent.
Every email demands immediate attention.
Without realizing it, our field of vision narrows until our organization becomes our entire world.
Perspective doesn't reduce our significance. It rescues us from believing we are the center of the story.
Then you stand before a glacier.
Or you watch waves pound the rocky shoreline of Lake Superior, knowing they will continue long after every strategic plan you've ever written has been forgotten.
Suddenly, different questions begin to surface.
Not...How do I get through today's agenda?
But...What am I actually building? Who am I becoming while I build it? When people remember working with me years from now, what will they remember? Will anyone remember the numbers we achieved or will they remember how I made them feel?
Those questions don't make leadership less important. They make the right parts of leadership more important.
Nature has always understood something that organizations often forget. It doesn't ask us to perform.
The mountains don't care about our titles. The ocean isn't impressed by our accomplishments. The forests don't measure our productivity. The wilderness has no interest in how many presentations we've delivered, budgets we've managed, projects we’ve executed, or followers we've accumulated. It simply invites us to be.
Perhaps that is one of the greatest gifts of places that have endured for centuries. They strip away the identities we've built around our accomplishments until what remains is something much more enduring - character.
And character, not competency, is what people ultimately remember about leaders. I've met extraordinarily competent leaders whose influence disappeared the day they retired.
I've also known leaders whose kindness, humility, courage, and belief in others continue shaping lives years after they've left their roles.
Their legacy wasn't built on what they accomplished. It was built on who they became. The older I am, the more convinced I become that the best leaders intentionally step far enough away from their work to remember why the work matters in the first place.
Without distance, everything becomes equally important.
With perspective, the trivial begins to fall away. Mission becomes clearer. Relationships become richer. Success becomes less about achievement and more about stewardship.
Leadership becomes less about proving ourselves and more about giving ourselves. Ironically, feeling smaller may be one of the healthiest things that can happen to a leader. Not because leaders matter less. But because they begin to see more clearly what matters most.
As I think back to that flight over the glaciers and those quiet moments along the shores of Lake Superior, I don't remember feeling insignificant. I remember feeling restored.
The mountains didn't make me smaller. They simply returned me to my proper scale.
And perhaps that is one of the greatest gifts perspective offers any leader. It reminds us that our legacy will never be measured by the urgency of our calendars or the precision of our strategic plans.
It will be measured by the people we loved well, the courage we inspired, the hope we cultivated, and the lives that are different because we chose to lead with character.
Leadership isn't about becoming larger than life.
It's about helping others see life more clearly.
Every once in a while, we all need to stand before something so vast, so ancient, and so beautiful that it quietly rearranges our sense of importance.
We may return feeling smaller.
But we will almost certainly return more fully ourselves.
Ready to shift your perspective? Emmy Beeson, The Change Coach, helps leaders find the clarity and courage to drive sustainable change and lead with conviction. Learn more about Emmy and her expertise here: Emmy Beeson, The Change Coach
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