Be the Host, Not the Hostage: The Leadership Practice Worth Living

I am in Chicago this week and doing a lot of reading! There’s this part in Wayne Dyer’s Change Your Thoughts, Change Your Life that caught my attention and I feel like it’s going to really change how I lead. 

He writes about a powerful concept but doesn’t go into detail about and he mentions two words: host & hostage. I applied it to realizing that we are either hosts to our emotions or hostages to them. That line stayed with me. It rattled around in my head and eventually settled in my heart. It called me forward - not simply in my leadership journey, but as a human committed to growth.

When we host something, we welcome it. We offer space, attention, and care. The host knows they are in control of the environment. They set the tone. They decide who stays, who leaves, and what gets nurtured. When we host our emotions, we become aware of them without letting them run the show. We can feel anger without lashing out, feel fear without retreating, feel sadness without drowning in it. Hosting is about presence. It’s about ownership. It’s about inviting awareness instead of surrendering power.

But when we are hostages to our emotions, it’s the opposite. We are tied up, blindfolded, reacting instead of responding. We let frustration lead the meeting. We let doubt derail the decision. We let ego drive the strategy. And when that happens, our leadership loses clarity, compassion, and connection. Our teams don’t trust what version of us is going to show up, and neither do we.

We’ve all been both. We’ve all had days when emotions kidnapped our peace and held it for ransom. Maybe someone questioned our authority. Maybe a deadline slipped. Maybe feedback felt more like an attack than a gift. In those moments, being the hostage seems justified. But leadership isn’t about being justified - it’s about being effective. It’s about showing up fully and powerfully, not perfectly.

Here’s the truth we don’t talk about enough: emotions are not the problem. Denying them is. Suppressing them is. Pretending we’re above them is. Emotions are messages. They’re information. When we host them, we can listen without being ruled. We can learn from them without losing ourselves.

Leadership starts with self-leadership. And self-leadership starts with emotional ownership. And boy have I been working to own my emotions this past year! When we practice hosting, we create space between stimulus and response. We create the kind of self-trust that allows us to navigate chaos calmly and make decisions rooted in our values, not our triggers.

What would shift if we welcomed our emotions with curiosity instead of fear? What kind of leaders would we be if we made space for the full human experience - ours and others’? And this isn’t easy, however it’s simple. Simple always wins! 

To lead with integrity, we need to know the difference between being the host and being the hostage. Because every emotion we don’t host ends up hosting us. And every moment we choose awareness over reaction is a moment we build trust, courage, and clarity.

We don’t have to be perfect to be powerful. We have to be present. And when we’re present, we remember: we are not our emotions. We are the space that holds them.

Let us lead from that place. Let us be THE host! I am working on it this week and hope you will too!