The ‘Masculine Energy’ Needed in the Workplace Isn’t What You Think

The phrase “masculine energy” has been thrown around with such frequency lately that it’s begun to lose all meaning. What does it point to—a man who doesn’t shave his lashes? A man who does? A jawline? A vibe? When I hear the term—particularly as it surges through social media, pop culture, and even some corners of leadership theory—I’m struck less by its substance and more by the desperation beneath it. Society isn’t witnessing the return of true masculinity. Instead, it’s the collapse of a brittle performance.

A Hunger for Elders

This movement toward masculine energy isn’t about lashes or fashion. It’s about a hunger for fathers. As priest and writer Richard Rohr once said, “the ache of unparented boys inside adult bodies, looking for something to belong to, someone to guide them into wholeness.” It’s about the unhealed wound that opens when boys are never welcomed into adulthood by those who have traveled further ahead.

In my book, Reunion: Leadership and the Longing to Belong, I wrote: “We are a people starving for elders—men and women alike who have grown through their wounds, who have transmuted pain into wisdom, and who can hold us as we stumble toward becoming.”

This hunger for elders is not metaphorical. It’s existential. In the workplace, it shows up in real ways—in burnout, bravado, disconnection, and despair. It shows up in mistaking motion for meaning, output for value, and wealth for worth. This is especially true among young men, who may be attempting to exhibit a kind of hollow strength while secretly longing for a model of something quieter, steadier, and more real.

When Louder Is Not Better

What does a leader do with all this? There’s a growing conversation around how leaders should engage rooms full of young men. Some advocate for louder voices or hyper-masculine references. Others suggest authority lies in control—commanding the room without inviting discussion. However, this isn’t a call for leaders to adjust their tone to be “more masculine” in order to connect. It’s a call to move beyond those surface-level performance cues altogether.

The deeper task is not about embodying a version of masculinity that matches what young men think they want or need. It’s about embodying maturity, integrity, and groundedness—qualities that many young men are aching to see modeled, even if they can’t yet articulate that longing.

Managers can work to create the production needed to move things forward. However, they lead by embodying what’s missing—not louder, tougher, or more stoic. But more whole, more integrated. The masculine energy needed now isn’t reactive but reflective. It doesn’t puff out its chest, but opens its heart. It can sit with grief and not flinch, and it can hold power lightly. This type of masculine energy knows the difference between performance and presence.

There’s a certain kind of leadership that doesn’t dominate a room but deepens it. It’s the energy of a true elder—one who has done their inner work, faced their shadow, and come through the fire with humility, not hubris. It’s the kind of presence that makes others feel more themselves in its company. The goal isn’t to “connect” by mimicking. It’s to connect by being real.

In Search of Elders

A real elder carries that wisdom with kindness, grace, and a sense of humor, especially about themselves. They possess a quiet equanimity, not because life has been easy, but because they’ve stopped resisting the fact that it isn’t. They’ve made peace with their failures, and they carry their strengths not like trophies. Like tools, they’re willing to hand them down.

It’s not age alone, nor is it power, achievement, or charisma. What I’ve learned from my own elders is that wisdom shapes true eldership. Wisdom, unlike knowledge, is earned—slowly, over time. Through heartbreak and healing, through loving and losing, through stumbling, reckoning, and getting back up again.

More than anything, being an elder is a mindset. That orientation toward life not as something behind us but still unfolding. It’s less about birth than rebirth—the willingness to be changed, still. To grow, still.

The truth is: Many young men are in crisis not because they lack masculinity, but because they’ve inherited only its shadow. If you’re a leader—especially a man—your task isn’t to “bring back masculinity.” It’s to grow up, to show up, and to become the kind of person a younger man might look to and say, “There—that’s it. That’s what it looks like.”