There are seasons when the music fades and all that’s left is the echo. You find yourself standing in the hallway between what was and what’s next. The applause has stopped. The setlist is blank. It can feel lonely, alienating, and rough. Yet this space, the liminal, often carries the quiet rhythm of our becoming.

Every artist and every leader eventually enters this space. It’s not failure. It’s the necessary silence before the next riff.

The Sound of the In-Between

David Bowie once walked away from his own fame. After Ziggy Stardust, he felt trapped inside the glitter and noise. He moved to Berlin, stripped his sound to its essence, and created Low and “Heroes.” Those albums didn’t just reinvent his music; they reinvented him. Bowie found clarity in exile.

Bruce Springsteen did the same when he recorded Nebraska. Alone with a cassette recorder, he traded stadium lights for solitude. Those stark songs revealed a deeper truth: sometimes the loudest growth happens in quiet rooms.

Aretha Franklin’s Amazing Grace marked her own liminal awakening. She paused the pop spotlight to sing from her foundation. By returning to the gospel roots that first shaped her voice, she reminded the world and herself where her power began.

Johnny Cash, long written off by the industry as an oldies act, found redemption through American Recordings. One man, one guitar, one truth. The stripped-down sound of renewal.

Paul Simon, after heartbreak and creative uncertainty, traveled the world and discovered Graceland, an album that is proof that curiosity and collaboration can pull us from the shadows into new light.

Each of them faced an in-between. Each emerged with something truer, deeper, and more human.

The Leadership Riff

Leadership has its own liminal moments. The band breaks up. The stage lights dim. We’re left wondering if what we created mattered at all. It’s tempting to see these stretches as endings, but they are often tuning sessions. These are times to recalibrate, rediscover, and ready ourselves for the next song.

These moments test us. They strip away the applause and ask, Who are you when no one’s listening? They demand honesty and patience. They can feel endless. Yet this is where the next riff takes shape.

A leadership riff is born in those quiet intervals when we listen more closely to the rhythm beneath the noise. It’s the small act of courage to keep playing, even when the room is empty.

The Stage Beyond the Silence

Growth is rarely glamorous. It’s often silent, slow, and unseen. But it’s in those moments when we are not center stage that our next chapter quietly tunes itself.

Like Bowie, we learn reinvention.
Like Springsteen, we rediscover simplicity.
Like Aretha, we return to our roots.
Like Cash, we reclaim authenticity.
Like Simon, we find new rhythms in unexpected places.

The liminal isn’t the end of the concert. It’s the soundcheck for the encore.

So if you’re in that hallway right now feeling unsure, unseen, and waiting for direction trust that the next song is coming. This is the space where your voice deepens, your purpose sharpens, and your leadership takes on a new sound.

Keep playing. The world will hear you in time.

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Author’s Note

This reflection is part of the evolving ideas that will shape my next book, Leadership Riffs: Harmonizing Inspiration, Innovation, and Impact. It’s about the music that plays in the background of leadership: the improvisation, the courage, and the faith to keep going when the crowd goes quiet.

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