It’s Time to Break Up With Clubhouse Culture

Why leadership that relies on exclusivity, status, and who-you-know networks is overdue for a redesign—and what we can build instead.

As the current leadership landscape is cracking under pressure, here’s what I’ve been turning over in my head lately:

Why do so many models of leadership still feel like closed rooms?

Rooms with velvet ropes, unspoken codes, and high price tags. Rooms where “who you know” often matters more than what you know or how you lead. I’ve been in those rooms. Maybe you have too. The clubhouses. The private networks. The executive programs with language that claims inclusion but practices elitism.

And while I understand the human need for belonging, I reject the idea that leadership should be gated behind access, assimilation, or accumulation.

What about those who lead from the margins? From behind the scenes? From the middle of the story, not the top of the hierarchy?

Conceptually, I’m not interested in building another clubhouse. Clubhouses often comes with rules of entry and certain markers of status (think money, power, titles, etc). My invitation is for us to envision and build something beyond that. 

Last month, I shared more about a Circle-Up approach to facilitation, but now I want to broaden that into a circular vision of leadership that does away with exclusivity and envelopes us all with intention.

No corners. No head tables. No hefty pay-to-play investments. No velvet ropes.

A place where leadership isn’t about getting in or moving up. It’s about going deep and making room.

The Wisdom Was Never Missing—It Was Just Overlooked

These aren’t just ideas I came up with in a vacuum.

They’ve been shaped by years of walking with those who lead from the margins, those who hold power differently, and those who carry ancestral intelligence in their bones.

They come from:

• The community members who have quietly reshaped culture from within systems that didn’t acknowledge them.

• The bridge-builders who’ve been translating across cultures and systems all their lives.

• The disrupters who couldn’t find a model that fit, so they built their own.

• The everyday leaders whose work may not get headlines, but who move people, structures, and futures forward.

This vision is for those tired of trading parts of themselves for access. This is for those who are no longer interested in just making it work. This is for those who want to make it better.

The Principles Grounding A Circular Vision of Leadership

Authenticity Over Optics

We don’t perform leadership here. We practice it—with self-awareness, with flaws, and with the full complexity of who we are.

In a world trained to reward polish over presence, authenticity can feel like a risk. Especially for those of us whose truth doesn’t match dominant norms of what leadership “looks like.” But in this circle, we honor the kind of leadership that comes from being rooted, not rehearsed.

Leadership in this space isn’t about appearing confident. It’s about being grounded.

It’s about telling the truth before it’s tidy. It’s about allowing your values to be visible, not just in your statements, but in your stumbles, your pauses, your questions.

Try this: In your next meeting, ask one real question instead of offering a polished opinion. Notice what shifts when you lead with curiosity instead of conclusion.

Context is Queen

Leadership doesn’t exist in a vacuum. It’s shaped by culture, by power, by history, and by proximity to harm or privilege.

When we ignore context, we default to norms that protect the dominant culture and ignore the lived experience of everyone else.

In this circle, we don’t pretend there’s a universal leadership style that works everywhere. We design with context in mind. We ask who is impacted, who is missing, and what unchecked legacy is at play.

Because leading well means reading the room, and reading the room includes reading the world.

Try this: Before you step into a leadership moment, take 60 seconds to map the power dynamics around you. Who holds sway? Who holds silence? What history might be in the room before any words are spoken?

Relationships Are the Strategy

Forget the myth that connection is a “soft” skill. Relationships move faster than agendas ever will. They create the trust that makes change possible, and the safety that makes risk worth it.

In transactional cultures, we’re taught to “network.” But this circle is about relationship-building, not ladder-climbing. It’s about knowing how someone leads, how they dream, how they experience harm, and how they recover from it.

People don't follow a vision. They follow people who can be in relationship while holding vision.

Try this: Invest one hour this week connecting with someone outside your usual loop. Not for a pitch, not for a goal, just for connection without an ROI. Ask, “What are you navigating right now?”

Stillness is Movement, Too

Urgency is a tactic in unsustainable and typically extractive cultures. And burnout is its signal.

In this circle, we practice leadership that honors pause as strategy. We don’t equate activity with impact. We make space for reflection, for recalibration, for reimagining. Because the pace of your leadership matters just as much as its direction.

Leadership is not about moving fast and breaking things. (Haven’t things been broken enough at this point?) It’s about moving intentionally and building what lasts.

Try this: Begin your team check-ins with “What’s shifting for you this week?” Let this question create space for insight, care, and emergence before diving into deliverables.

Pass the Mic, Not the Burden

Leadership isn’t about having the best answer. It’s about knowing when to make room for better ones.

When we’re conditioned to lead from the front, it can be easy to forget that power grows when shared, not hoarded. In this circle, we don’t glorify the solo hero. We honor the collective voice.

Passing the mic isn’t about delegating harm or stepping back in performative silence. It’s about making intentional space for those whose leadership has been systemically overlooked.

Try this: In your next workplace conversation, ask: “Whose voice isn’t present, and what might we be missing because of that?” Then pause. Make room. And act on what you hear.

Start Where You Are.

You don’t need a fancy title or five-step framework to step into this vision. You just need to choose one principle to try this week.

• Ask a deeper question in a shallow room.

• Slow down where you’d normally speed up.

• Make space for the voices that usually get talked over.

This isn’t about being perfect. It’s about being in process.

Come As You Are. No Access Code Required.

We are not meant to lead alone. And we are not meant to lead in ways that exhaust who we are in order to be accepted.

It’s time to redefine what leadership looks like, not just for the boardroom, but for our communities, our classrooms, our movements, our homes.

We need to build a world where leadership looks like us—nuanced, courageous, rooted, and expansive. Let this be the beginning of your return to a kind of leadership that reflects who you really are. Not the version they told you to be.

The future of leadership isn’t about climbing higher. It’s about grounding deeper.

The future is here. So, welcome. Let’s go.