COCOON: the underestimated state of a leader

Before you start your leadership journey, cut yourself off the world.
The best way to illustrate that is a personal letter to my successor, next President of AIESEC in Macedonia. I wrote it when it was time to leave my position and to pass my responsibilities to him. In AIESEC, it is commonly known as “transition process.”
With slight modifications, I’m including this letter here and developing it further into a leadership advice that anyone could use:
“So, you’ve got a leadership position? Congratulations! I can easily imagine how much anticipation and how many questions fill up your mind right now.
However, before you start thinking of strategies and plans, just lean back for couple of minutes, relax, close your eyes and imagine yourself as a butterfly.
Actually, wait, don’t imagine that. It’s a bit too early to become a butterfly — you are now just about to start this transformation journey and this letter is just one small piece of support for you. Small, but useful :)
So, imagine…
You are a big, fat, green CATERPILLAR.

Yeah, sounds weird! But look: you live by constantly eating. Eating, growing, and consuming as many resources as possible. Imagine these resources are knowledge, information, and different perspectives — all that you need for your leadership term. And when you’ve got all the resources you need, it is time to sit down, wrap yourself up into a cocoon of self-reflection, think over everything you’ve got… and start TRANSFORMING.
Transforming from a big, green, fat caterpillar into an amazing beautiful butterfly that is able to FLY.”
The metaphor itself looks quite obvious: every newly elected leader needs a proper transition process to prepare them for their new role. In AIESEC, we had transition practice hardwired into the year plan, but in the outside world, I rarely met examples of a well-structured and comprehensive process of passing on leadership responsibilities from a predecessor to a successor. Business definitely has something to learn from a non-for-profit organization that has been in operation for over sixty years.
But wait, the letter was “C — Cocoon” and there isn’t anything about cocoons yet! Here comes the point. A couple of years later after completing my term as the President, I found that letter and realized that something was missing in that transformational story.
Everybody knows how exciting this transformation process is because the distinction between a caterpillar and a butterfly is visible, but one KEY thing, which is usually missing, is recognizing the true importance of the COCOON stage.
What does it mean to be in a COCOON?
To hide from everyone.
To stay one-on-one with yourself.
To be silent and invisible.
To stop acting.
This is one of the first challenges of a leader: you are accustomed to being visible, heard, and followed. You like to be in the limelight and surrounded by people, you like to share your vision, to give directions, to inspire for action… even if you consider yourself an introvert, you still prefer to act, plan, and visualize your strategies.
And how can you refuse all of this? How can you admit that your time, your precious time, which you usually spend on actually leading the process, should be dedicated to staying in a cocoon?! Cut off from the world?! Not even checking your emails and Facebook?
NO WAY.
Usual reaction, that is. But a caterpillar doesn’t turn into a butterfly by doing everything it was doing before. You cannot eat, crawl from a leaf to leaf, and transform into a butterfly all simultaneously.
The same thing happens to you as a person — you need to collect all the wisdom of previous generations, reflect on it, and apply it to your personality in order to be able to become the best version of yourself, to become a true leader. Otherwise you won’t become a butterfly. You will become “a caterpillar-which-thinks-that-it’s-a-butterfly.”
Such a mockery.
Take your time:
- The best thing to do is spend some time by yourself: no internet, no mobile phone, no other distractions.
- Reflect on what you are going through: fix in your mind that state of becoming a leader.
- Imagine being the best version of yourself: how would you act? How would you talk? What would you look like?
- Put together all the pieces of knowledge and experience you gained while being a “caterpillar.”
You might even miss the exact moment of change. You might discover it post-factum or your friends will tell you: “something is different.” This is the key role of the cocoon stage: the actual transformation happens here.

Once the transformation is over, the world will be delighted to witness your colorful new wings, taking you higher than any tree that the old green caterpillar could even dream to climb — especially a caterpillar that still thinks it’s a butterfly and continues to crawl up and down and just eat, eat, and eat.
This is an excerpt from ABC for Leaders, my yet-to-be-published book. E-book version is available on Amazon and Google Play.
© Anna Dvornikova
Photo credit: Pezlet via VisualHunt / CC BY-NC