The phrases and language used everyday in an organization can in fact affect the way your team makes decisions and conducts themselves.

Buoyant leadership is not a management technique, it's a leadership principle based on the belief that leading isn't presiding, it's taking people on a journey, and on any hero's journey there will be a setback.

At the end of the day it's really easy to be a great leader when things are going well. The real test, whether or not you believe in being an emotionally intelligent leader, is when things go wrong.

Buoyancy is a phenomenon whereby, as a leader, you float because the people you inspired believe that you should, because you've truly connected with the collective desires and values of the people you lead.

As a sensitive and highly intuitive person in the command-and-control corporate world, I always felt miscast.

The secret is to be prepared, to draw on the strengths of the people around you, and most importantly, to instill confidence that your team will step up and find a solution.

For so long, companies were run using a command-and-control, 'top down' hierarchical method that involved dictating down the command chain and maintaining order. What I've witnessed in our time is evolving democratization, a shift to a demand economy accelerated by technological advancements like social media.