What People Actually Mean When They Say “You Have Good Energy”
For years, people have told me some version of the same thing: “You have good energy.” “I feel energized after we meet.” “Your energy on stage is contagious.”
I always smiled, said thanks, and moved on.
I didn’t really know what they meant.
This year’s research changed that.
The Thing We Feel but Rarely Name
The inclusive leadership literature in 2025 starts using a phrase that stopped me cold:
Relational energy.
It’s not charisma. It’s not positivity. It’s not personality.
Relational energy is what people carry with them after an interaction with you.
Do they walk away clearer or heavier? More willing to speak, or more cautious? Energised, or quietly depleted?
That emotional residue, not your intent, not your values, not your leadership style, is where inclusion actually happens.
Or quietly dies.
Inclusion Isn’t Built in Big Moments
Most leaders I work with assume inclusion shows up in:
policies
programmes
town halls
big statements at big moments
The research says otherwise.
Inclusive leadership is enacted, or undone, in micro-interactions:
the two-minute check-in before a meeting
the Slack message you don’t send
how quickly you respond when someone flags a problem
whether you pause, or push on, when tension appears
These moments feel small.
They’re not.
They are the mechanism.
Across healthcare, virtual teams, project work, and crisis environments, the same pattern shows up again and again:
Leaders who consistently engage in high-quality micro-interactions build relational energy. Leaders who don’t slowly drain it, even when everything looks fine on paper.
What “Good Energy” Actually Is
Here’s the uncomfortable reframe.
Good energy is not something you project. It’s something people experience.
Relational energy forms when interactions leave people with:
a sense of safety
a sense of being seen
a sense of forward momentum
It builds on psychological safety, but it doesn’t stop there.
Safety allows people to exhale. Energy gives them the fuel to re-engage.
And once that energy exists, it changes everything downstream:
engagement rises without being demanded
discretionary effort appears without incentives
work-life strain eases instead of compounding
commitment deepens without pressure
Not because people are told to care more, but because they have emotional resources to draw from.
Where Micro-Interactions Matter Most
The research is especially sharp in four settings leaders often underestimate.
Hybrid and virtual teams: When informal contact disappears, micro-interactions are the culture. Predictable, human touchpoints matter more than grand digital strategies.
High-stress environments (like healthcare): A two-minute leader check-in can buffer burnout more effectively than another resilience workshop.
Project-based and temporary teams: When trust has to form fast, energy is built, or lost, in the first few interactions.
Crisis and peak-load periods: Under pressure, small moments function as micro-recoveries. Ignore them, and exhaustion compounds fast.
Across all four, one finding is consistent: Formal inclusion training without daily micro-practice does almost nothing.
Inclusion Is No Longer Stable. It’s Variable.
This may be the most unsettling insight in the 2025 literature.
Inclusion is not something you “achieve.” It fluctuates.
Week to week. Interaction to interaction.
Relational energy rises and falls based on presence, attention, and responsiveness, not values statements.
And it’s not one-size-fits-all:
neurodivergent employees often need predictability, not spontaneity
caregivers respond to clarity more than enthusiasm
some people recharge through written affirmation, others through brief verbal connection
The question for leaders is no longer:
“Am I inclusive?”
It’s:
“What do people walk away with after interacting with me?”
Inclusion Lives in the Gaps
The cumulative evidence lands on a simple but uncomfortable truth.
Inclusion is not built in:
annual reviews
leadership programmes
diversity summits
It is built in the hundreds of small moments between them.
When leaders treat micro-interactions as active inclusion sites, pausing, noticing, responding, they build energy reserves people draw on for voice, learning, and contribution.
When they don’t, inclusion becomes performative fast.
The research doesn’t ask leaders to be louder, nicer, or more inspirational.
It asks them to be more aware.
Because inclusion doesn’t live in what you say when it counts. It lives in what people carry away when you think it didn’t.
