Micro-leadership is everywhere.
Do you see it?
Monday morning, Phoenix airport.
My wife, son, and I just reached our gate. We are not early, not late, just perfectly in step; my ideal pace for travel days. As we are heading to sit down, I notice something that bears pointing out:
Have you ever noticed the “don’t approach/talk to me” vibe that most people have at the gate, waiting for their boarding group to be called?
I call it “social withdrawal energy.” It shows up as earbuds, intentional lack of eye contact, and occupying space passive-aggressively (think a backpack on the empty seat).
For the initiated, it is a great opportunity for micro-leadership.
Aside from airports, trains, and buses, this awkward side effect of human existence can be can be found in elevators, at coffee shop shared tables, in gym weight areas etc. any place where people carry out a silent, tacit social contract: let’s act as if we are alone, even if we have to be together.
Micro-leadership is simply breaking that contract cleanly and calmly, not aggressively, not apologetically.
And it is exactly the kind of low-risk repetition that hardwires second-nature leader behavior.
I am not suggesting crashing people’s public privacy, interrupting their homework or butting in when they are working out. But there are things that you can do during these moments that exhibit quiet authority and make for a smoother ride.
Back to the airport gate…
People in social withdrawal mode don’t automatically file in in the most orderly or efficient fashion — a big part of social withdrawal is leaving a buffer zone.
They file in (usually alone or in two-person groups) with one or two chairs between them. Once the area begins filling up, never three adjacent spaces left open automatically, microleadership sounds like, “would you move down one? I am traveling with two others…” Immediately, I start to move in as if the answer is already yes, because while being led, strangers respond best to momentum.
Think: “this is happening”, not “can you please allow this to happen?” That carries a very subtle but distinctly leader energy.
The reason I say this is low risk is because you need to go in with the mental framework that, while simple, there is still a slight learning curve and you will need calibration. If your attempt at microleadership sounds too meek or like a whispered request, it is likely to be ignored. If it is too loud, forceful, or demanding, it can be seen as pushy, militaristic. Strangers don’t want to be forced.
So, take the middle path: calm and unthreatening. If your attempt fails, you will never see this bunch again. You may have an uncomfortable few hours if you have to sit next to them on the plane but that is the worst-case and a tiny price to pay to move toward your future as someone who takes resolute ownership of the outcomes in their life.
I did the above when we were at the airport because I always do things like that. While this may have seemed unnatural to me in my early twenties, I have exercised micro-leadership enough for this to become baseline.
I wanted to sit with my family. I only noticed it because I have been training my brain, specifically my RAS, to notice when I am showing up as the person I want to be so I can recognize more of it and share it with my audience.
Because of this highlighted awareness, I naturally notice when people don’t take that risk: a couple sitting on the floor because no two adjacent seats came pre-loaded into their environment.
And the guy looked like your average tough guy. 90-10 odds he served in the military, muscled but broken. This falls in line with what I consistently observe and write about:
The strongest men are rarely the loudest ones.
There is a lot to unpack there but I hope you are starting to get a sense of the throughline in what we have been sold as strength (sterile, boring, bro split, aesthetic obsession) and what real strength actually looks like.
When I was a kid, I loved the Paul Newman movie Hud, mainly because my dad did and because we had it on VHS, so I watched it a lot. There was a pivotal line in the film that rings true to me now more than ever:
“Little by little the look of the country changes because of the men we admire….You’re just going to have to make up your own mind one day about what’s right and wrong.”
-Homer Bannon
As an adult, I choose to view strength and leadership through that lens.
At the airport, using that lens gave me a more comfortable seating arrangement. At the Avis rental counter, it gave me the option to change vehicles with no upgrade charge and remove the child seat from the bill since we would have had to wait.
At the gym it may sound like, “mind if I work in?”
In the elevator to the person nearest the buttons, “please push floor five for me…”
Remember, you aren’t really waiting for an answer, you are creating momentum on the backend of a request so that your lead is difficult not to follow.
It’s the nuanced balance of push/pull and just enough cognitive dissonance to not be ignored but not so much that it creates the kind of resistive friction that feels like alpha male posturing.
Final thought: there is a subtle art to this, but once you master it, you will use it consistently, without ever flinching.
Godspeed!