Facilitation is Leadership: Seven Lessons from the Front of the Room
Leadership Coaching & Development Series #3
Facilitation is one of the most powerful and frequently used leadership skills in my toolkit. Its relevance is universal — whenever there is an opportunity for interpersonal interaction, there’s an opportunity for facilitation. What makes it a critical leadership skill is its ability to shape and guide group dynamics, which is at the core of effective leadership.
As a sought-after workshop facilitator, I travel four to five times a year to lead in-person events, ranging from 20 to 120 participants. On top of that, I facilitate countless online events and design facilitation plans for others. In this post, I’d like to share a few practical facilitation tips I’ve developed through my experiences, hoping they will prove valuable to you as well.
1. The Relaxation Response
It took me a long time to get here. When I first started facilitating, I carried tension throughout the entire process — before, during, and even days after the event. I operated in a constant stress response, which led to burnout for me and restricted the energy flow for my participants.
The best description of why a facilitator needs to cultivate a relaxation response comes from a recent workshop participant:
“A facilitator’s role is one of profound encouragement of a group, an inclusive management of timelines, and being firm while remaining unerringly kind and gracious.”
Encouragement, kindness, and grace all stem from a facilitator’s ability to stay relaxed and present.
This also requires deep self-care. I intentionally create space before and after major events to mentally prepare rather than rushing in mindlessly. One non-negotiable rule I’ve set for myself: I never travel on the same day an event ends. A few years ago, I became seriously sick after pushing through a tight travel schedule immediately following a workshop. That experience taught me just how much additional stress travel adds to the already high energy demands of facilitation.
Note: The Relaxation Response is the title of a bestselling book about mind/body medicine for health and wellness.
2. Visualization
One of the most effective ways I cultivate relaxation is through familiarity — knowing the event inside and out before it even begins. Before each workshop, I visualize how it will unfold, almost like a scene from a video game.
• What does the venue look like?
• Where is everything placed?
• When do key moments happen?
• What will participants need?
I run through this mental rehearsal multiple times, and each time, I uncover small but crucial details to refine. This is why I often say: 80% of a successful workshop is in the preparation. Participants only see the final product, but the work behind the scenes is what makes it flow seamlessly.
Paradoxically, the more prepared I am, the more flexible I can be. With the logistics internalized, my mind is free to focus on the present moment and respond dynamically, rather than being preoccupied with following a rigid plan.
3. Whole-Part-Whole Structure
As a complexity practitioner, I always look at the interplay between the whole and its parts. This lens also applies beautifully to workshop design. No matter the length of a session, I use a fractal structure:
1. Whole — Begin together to establish context, shared language, and enabling constraints.
2. Parts — Break into small groups (4–6 people) for deep, focused conversation.
3. Whole — Regroup for harvesting, debriefing, and cross-learning.
This pattern can be repeated as needed. Each stage is essential:
• Without an opening “whole,” participants lack clarity and structure.
• Without small group “parts,” dominant voices take over while others remain unheard (as per Price’s Law: The square root of the number of people does half the work).
• Without a closing “whole,” insights remain siloed rather than leveraged across the group.
4. Building Rapport
Rapport is the invisible force that holds a group together. With so many distractions competing for attention, what keeps people engaged? The content itself — but just as importantly, the relationships facilitators build with participants and foster among them.
Some ways I cultivate rapport:
• Introductions with purpose — connecting personal stories to the topic at hand.
• Clear engagement principles — such as no one has a monopoly on truth.
• Making space for distractions — by asking, “What’s keeping you from being present?”
When people feel connected, they stay engaged.
5. Check-In: Honoring the Flow
No plan survives first contact with reality.
When a workshop veers off course, I check in:
1. Acknowledge what’s happening.
2. Ask participants how they want to proceed.
3. Decide together whether to adjust the plan or return to the agenda.
Early in my career, I used to force groups back on track — but it rarely worked. Over time, I learned to trust the group’s wisdom. More often than not, the best path forward emerges from collective insight.
6. Dare to Try
Most workshops I facilitate for scientists are highly cerebral, dominated by verbal exchanges. Over time, I’ve pushed myself to introduce methods that stretch beyond traditional verbal based conversations — contemplative journaling, embodied movement, artistic expression, and even active imagination.
When trust is established, participants are usually willing to try something new, and they almost always find it valuable. This is my growth edge as a facilitator, expanding my range the way a pianist expands their repertoire.
One common fear among facilitators? Silence.
Our culture describes silence as “dead,” which makes it feel threatening. But what if we saw it as generative — a silence pregnant with possibility? Like gazing into darkness: we can see nothingness, or we can see infinite potential.
A simple way to ease discomfort with nontraditional methods: always give participants a choice. If someone isn’t comfortable with journaling, let them read quietly instead.
7. Distinguishing Signal from Noise
A facilitator who seeks approval from participants may latch onto surface-level feedback while missing the deeper signals that reveal where the group truly is.
To distinguish signal from noise, facilitators must cultivate self-mastery. We need to clear our own biases and ego-driven needs so we can serve the group rather than seeking validation.
For example:
• If a group goes silent after I introduce an activity, is it because the topic is deeply challenging? Or because the task feels irrelevant?
• If participants are highly engaged in discussion, is it genuine enthusiasm? Or are they resisting the task by masking discomfort with noise?
Reading the room with subtlety allows facilitators to make the right next move.
Closing Thoughts
Facilitation is an art, a practice, and a continuous learning process. The more I refine my approach, the more I see its transformative potential — not just in workshops, but in how we engage with collaboration, and how we lead change.
Acknowledgment: Special thanks to Mimi Wang for the conversation that helped solidify many of these insights.
