I wrote yesterday about the power of 'naming the daemon' in our own lives - what can happen when we give truthful names to the moods and experiences that transparently shape us.Of course moods are not just private, personal experiences. They exist between people, in the background of all relationships, groups, organisations and communities. And here - in the public sphere - naming can have extraordinary power too.How often we say in our work lives 'enough of the soft stuff' or 'we don't talk about touch-feely subjects'. How often we spin the lie that somehow at work we are immune to human experience, or that it is in some way irrelevant to the action we wish to take.You can be sure that mood is ever present, despite attempts to say it is not so. Fear, anxiety, pride, love, shame, resentment, frustration and all their cousins will be shaping what can be said and not said, what is paid attention to and what is avoided, what can be done and cannot be done.A commitment never to talk about this, to avoid naming, gives up a measure of your power to take effective action, to change things.In the silence you create, you'll be had by whatever mood is shaping you, rather than having it.And so the courage to talk about it with others, to find words together for what's really there - for your shared fear or shame or pride or resentment or love - must be one of the foundational responsibilities of anyone who considers themselves a leader.

Photo with thanks to Kate Atkinson