As we neared the solstice a few weeks ago, the nights stretching longer than the days, I joked that only mushrooms and bats truly thrive in this much darkness. The joke tugged up an old memory.

Back when I was living on the East Coast in the early 2000s, I was driving to an event at Longwood Gardens in Wilmington, Del., when a roadside sign for something called The Mushroom Museum suddenly appeared. I felt irresistibly compelled to turn off and investigate. The place turned out to be tiny, tacky and unexpectedly delightful, with mushroom-shaped stools, clumsy dioramas with plastic forest floors and the unmistakable sense that it existed simply because someone loved fungi enough to build a museum for them.

The visit was fun and memorable, but what stayed with me wasn’t the kitsch. It was a fact almost casually offered: Mushrooms don’t grow in the light. They need darkness. They need nitrogen-rich soil to grow and they flourish in manure. The very conditions we’re taught to avoid are essential to their becoming.

That lesson has aged well. Because leadership, like mushrooms, is often misunderstood. We celebrate what is visible: titles, certainty, speed, polish. We reward leaders who are always available, always articulate, always “on.” But real leadership rarely develops in the spotlight. It often forms in darker places, sometimes quiet, uncomfortable and unseen.

Darkness in leadership is the season where clarity has not yet arrived. If you have been in charge during uncertainty, market declines or where nothing seems to be working, chances are you know what I mean. During my career, I’ve experienced many times where I felt stuck or defeated. This darkness can be very emotional; it is the space of feelings, before language, before metrics, before public understanding. 

Many leaders rush through these dark phases, eager to get through the discomfort, anxious to name, announce or explain what they are doing even when they are not sure. But premature visibility can stunt growth. Some ideas take time to develop or need protection before they need exposure. Some strategies require time underground before they are strong enough to stand.

A recent article in Harvard Business Review, “Is This a Moment for Strategic Hibernation?” by Christopher Marquis, introduces the concept of “strategic hibernation.” I was struck by this idea, which the author describes as “a form of purposeful retreat that allows companies to preserve capabilities critical to their missions during hostile political and cultural cycles, and then quickly ramp up again when the tide turns.” Strategic hibernation involves maintaining core assets, monitoring political signals and adjusting external visibility. Stepping back deliberately can be a valid strategy. 

But as a leader, how do you hibernate when you have to manage your business? A recent McKinsey article,  “Creating a retreat for leaders: Embracing stillness for effective leadership,” asserts that taking time away is essential and gives us clarity, balance and purpose. Stepping back from the daily grind helps us make better decisions, understand ourselves more deeply and see the impact we have on others.

This is where removal becomes essential. To create darkness, something has to be taken away. Light, yes, but performative availability must also go; we must question the reflex to respond immediately, to stay constantly engaged, to say yes in order to remain relevant. Continuous access overwhelms the system. 

In truth, leadership requires intentional presence, not perpetual reachability. It is possible to retreat and still be selectively available. When we remove ourselves, even temporarily, from the action, we can often see more clearly what requires pruning or adjusting. We can assess what eats up our time and energy or forces translation. If we are repeatedly asked to flatten our thinking, over-explain our value or make nuance more palatable, the environment is wrong. Mushrooms don’t grow when the soil is disturbed every day. Neither do leaders. Growth demands conditions that honor depth and space for expansion.

Then there is the manure, the nitrogen-rich material we’d prefer to ignore. In leadership, this looks like failure, conflict, grief, misjudgment, chaos and unfinished learning. We are often taught to hide these things, to “deal with them,” to clean them up quickly, to move on. But avoiding what is undesirable rarely makes it go away. Leaders who confront the “compost” head on can examine what is really happening. And leaders who use those messy experiences as nutrients, as lessons for growth rather than something to avoid or erase, create cultures that can regenerate.

Darkness also means reducing noise disguised as information. Endless news, scrolling and conversations without insight clutter the inner landscape. The best thinking does not arrive in saturation. It emerges in stillness. Removing noise is not withdrawal; it is stewardship of attention.

And finally, darkness requires restraint. The discipline not to name what is still forming. The patience to let vision settle before it is shared. Some things need time without commentary to grow their own strength.

Even in the bitter cold of January, as the days begin to stretch again and the balance slowly tips back toward the sun, it’s easy to forget the value of the darkness we’ve just moved through. But the solstice, and the turning of the year, reminds us of something mushrooms and bats have always understood: Darkness is a resource. Not something to avoid, but a place that offers cover, protection and the quiet conditions required for real growth.

We don’t need to love the winter and the long nights, but we can appreciate what they make possible. As we step into the new year, we can carry the understanding that leadership, like nature, is shaped in the unseen places, where ideas take root, gather strength and prepare to emerge when the light returns.