The timeless Art of Vibe Leadership
What is Vibe Coding and what does it have to do with the kind of leadership we need now?
Origins of Vibe Coding
Andrej Karpathy, co-founder of OpenAI and former AI leader at Tesla, introduced the term vibe coding in February 2025. Only a few months old, Vibe Coding is quickly becoming a common practice.
The picture of famous music producer and creative genius Rick Rubin vibing out on music above — to his surprise — immediately became the meme to describe vibe coding (if you want to learn more about how this came to be, check out this podcast with Rick).
Last week, together with Anthropic, Rick published a short beautiful book called “The Way of Code — The timeless Art of Vibe Coding”. Based on Lao Tzu’s book, he describes Vibe Coding as a path for creating software in a new and timeless way.
But what does this have to do with leadership?
The world is changing — people crave realness, connection, and resonance. Traditional leadership models feel stale in the face of emergent complexity.
As we shift from industrial-age command-and-control management to post-industrial resonance and presence in leadership, we can draw from both this new way of leading as well as the ancient knowledge of what has always made a great leader.
The characteristics of vibe coding happen to also be the hallmarks of great leadership — especially in times of uncertainty.
While the current situation is new, dealing with transformation, leading in times of uncertainty as such isn’t. It’s timeless.
Let’s take a look at some of the characteristics of Vibe coding to understand how this relates to leading.
Characteristics of Vibe Coding
What makes vibe coding what it is, and what makes it different from traditional linear software development?
Think of vibe coding like writing poetry instead of a legal document.
- Intuition Over Convention — Decisions are guided by what feels harmonious or elegant, not just what a style guide dictates. Aesthetics of the code — naming, indentation, spacing — carry emotional or symbolic weight.
- Playful and Expressive — Code can be quirky, poetic, or whimsical — if the coder is, the AI would not choose this in its own. But there can be joy and creativity in naming functions or structuring logic (e.g., using metaphors, cultural references, or humor).
- Relational Awareness — Code is written with an awareness of others reading or using it — especially collaborators. Emphasis is on human readability and energetic coherence between modules or elements — again, if the coder has that relational awareness and instructs the AI accordingly.
- Dynamic and Emergent — Favors real-time iteration and “feeling it out” over heavy upfront planning. The system evolves organically, like jamming in music — improv over blueprint.
- Energetic Alignment — The coder tunes into their internal state and the intended user experience — coding becomes a flow state practice. Vibe coders often sense when something is “off” even if it passes all tests.
- Holistic and Systemic Thinking — Considers not just function but impact: What’s the ripple effect of this code in the broader system? It integrates aesthetics, philosophy, ethics, and purpose into technical decisions.
- Community-Conscious — Code might reflect or respond to the cultural vibe of the dev community or user base. Open source or collective development models are common — at least for coders who do not buy into the “lone wolf” idea, but realized that we best learn when we learn together.
[Note: Vibe coding is particularly useful for creating MVPs and for people who are not professional coders. Once you move toward production ready code, Vise-coding might be the better option. Thank you for pointing out that distinction.]
Vibe Leadership Characteristics
In our team at LUMAN, we have been jokingly saying lately, that “it’s all vibes” — from investment decisions by VCs to sales, to running effective and efficient teams in order to innovate new solutions.
Vibe leadership is first and foremost about attunement, presence, and energetic coherence.
The characteristics of this ancient and new way of leading are very much the same as what it takes to vibe code:
1. Intuition Over Convention
Vibe leaders trust their gut and bring their multiple intelligences to bear — especially trans-rational intelligences that an AI will never have. They make decisions that “feel right,” even if they diverge from tradition or analytics, or “how we do and have always done things around here.” They read the room and tune into the undercurrents.
2. Playful and Expressive
They bring authenticity and personality into leadership. Meetings may feel like jam sessions. They encourage creativity, humor, autonomy and self-expression within their teams.
3. Relational Awareness
Vibe leaders sense the energy in themselves and between people. They lead relationally, focusing on trust, belonging, and emotional resonance, not just org charts and KPIs. Starting with themselves, they create a relational workforce.
4. Dynamic and Emergent
Rather than sticking rigidly to plans, they lead in flow. Strategy is alive, co-created, and adapted in real time based on what emerges. Flow results from a combination of surrender and discipline. As Donella Meadows said: “We can’t control systems or figure them out. But we can dance with them.”
5. Energetic Alignment
They cultivate inner alignment and coherence. Their presence alone can set the tone. They attune to collective energy and shift it when needed. It starts with aligning oneself, and by doing so, impacting everyone around us. While this might sound esoteric, there is ample scientific proof for limbic resonance and mirror neurons. We are social creatures picking up on the vibe of people around us — one of the reasons we succeeded as a species so far.
6. Holistic and Systemic Thinking
Vibe leaders see beyond silos, narrow job descriptions or point solutions. They consider the emotional, cultural, and ecological impact of their leadership choices. Especially in times of transformation we don’t need point solutions, but holistic systemic approaches. This is something I have been discussing a lot with my systems thinking colleagues lately. This time of transformation is exactly the right moment to think from a bigger picture and the from the future we want to create — otherwise it’s easy to get lost in constant firefighting — an experience many leaders have out there. Especially in times of rapid change, it’s crucial to take a step back and look at the bigger picture. Or as a Zen master said: “When you think you don’t have time to meditate for 10min, you should probably meditate for an hour.”
7. Community-Conscious
They lead with and for the collective. Vibe leaders are stewards, not owners. Their power grows from contribution and co-creation. They understand that each of us is part of #teamhuman. Instead of reacting to the past or even the present, they consider the future and the impact they want to make for their communities.
Why we need more Vibe Leaders — especially right now
In an age of AI, complexity, and systemic transformation we need leaders who can bring their full being into their work. Vibe leaders adapt and co-create rather than control — and engage their people.
Engagement is at pathetic levels
Currently, the global engagement rate is at about 20%. Let that sink in for a moment: 8 out of 10 people are actually not engaged in their work. What a terrible waste of human potential — not to speak of the economic cost (in the US presenteeism costs employers approximately $150 billion annually due to reduced productivity and lost efficiency). That our world is even functioning is quite astonishing. It has been personally heart-breaking to talk with many of my corporate clients and hear them talk about how they have lost faith in their company, their leadership, how they don’t feel safe in their job, and are doing performative work just to keep up the illusion. Work is definitely broken.
AI is Replacing Functions — Not Vibe
As AI increasingly takes over technical, analytical, and even emotional functions, what remains uniquely human is presence, intuition, creativity, and conscious relating. These are not “soft skills”, but your edge in leading. AI can replace activities, but never you or how you show up for work and life. Especially as AI already mimics relating, it is easy to forget that “there is nobody home.” An AI does not have an authentic self — you do.
Strategy Is No Longer Linear
Constant change is already the new normal. It seems every day something new is happening in the world that affects us and our business. Five year plans have become an obsolete and ridiculous concept when the playing field keeps shifting. We can’t plan our way through disruption. We have to explore and intuit our way through. Vibe leaders are able to sense shifts before they’re visible, adapt in real time, and inspire collective movement through emergent strategy — which is more like jazz than classical music.
Burnout Culture Is Breaking Organizations
People are exhausted from inauthentic leadership, over-optimization, and constant urgency. What they crave is realness, meaning, and safety. Mental health is a major issue. The World Health Organization estimates that depression and anxiety alone cost the global economy US$1 trillion each year in lost productivity. Vibe leaders create spaces of resonance — where people can regenerate, rise, and re-engage from a place of alignment.
Culture Is an Emergent Phenomenon
Most culture transformations fail because they treat culture like a thing. They try to rationalize what is essentially emotional and energetic. Vibe leaders shape culture by how they show up. A leader’s vibe — conscious or not — sets the tone for teams, projects, and even whole organizations. They realize that how they show up creates ripples in the field. They are tuning forks, not conductors. They align teams not by telling them what to do, but by holding a frequency that others want to rise to. Culture is, after all, an emergent phenomenon, made up by what each member brings to the field.
Vibe leadership in action
Think of the last few meetings you had. After all, as a leader, most of your time is probably spent in meetings.
How did you show up for those meetings?
Did you start the meeting immediately getting down to business — or did you take time to connect with the people present? Make it about the humans in the room first, the issues second?
What energy did you bring to the room? Were you all matter of fact? Spread a sense of rushed urgency and dread? Or did you bring an optimistic positive vibe — a vibe that spreads hope and makes meetings fun and exciting for everyone involved?
By changing how you show up in meetings, you can change the vibe of your team. If you want to learn how to have better meetings, check out our free eBook on making meetings meaningful.
The Inner Game of the Vibe Leader
So how do you activate your own vibe leadership?
As Rick Rubin said, being an artist is first and foremost about being in conscious relationship — with yourself, with whoever is in front of you, and with the world as a whole.
Vibe checking yourself
Start by checking in on your own vibe. How are you experiencing your self right now?
- What is going on in your body? Does it feel stiff or flexible? Is it well rested and nourished? Are you feeling connected to it, truly embodied?
- What are you feeling? Do you feel safe? Grateful for being alive?
- What have you been thinking about? Out of all of those repeating thoughts, which ones were helpful and forwarding? What positive thoughts could you choose to think?
- Are you in integrity with yourself? Are your actions aligned with what you value? Do you stand up for what you consider “right” or are you simply playing “the game”?
- How are you coaxing out your genius? Are you willing to “sit with a problem”? Making space for ideas to come in? Do you feel that you need to “figure it all out” or are you allowing surrender and randomness?
Before your next meeting, take a moment to vibe check yourself. Then decide who you want to be in that meeting and how you want to show up.
Vibe check with others
Take a moment in your next meeting to check in with your people. How is everyone doing?
- How are they managing the strain of uncertainty that is all around? Are they worried about the future? Are they worried about their positions? About the progress you are making as a team? About what is going on the organization? Are they worried about their loved ones?
- Listen intently to what is going on for them. Make sure to create space and to listen with your full attention whenever someone else is speaking.
Before going into the tasks at hand, take a moment to check in with your people. If you need support in coming up with a fun check-in question, you can always use a generic checkin question, but nothing beats genuine human interest. Get to know your people and find out what is happening in their lives.
Vibe check with your organization and the world
How are you feeling about the state of the world right now? If you are not a bit worried, you are probably not paying attention. There are many things that are steering us deeper and deeper into a polycrisis.
This doesn’t mean, you can’t be optimistic.
Think about how your work and your company can contribute to a desirable future.
What is it that you can do as a leader in the organization to shift toward optimism?
You don’t have to save the world, but you are the one who is giving it meaning — that is in your hands.
Vibe Is Contagious
When a leader shifts their vibe, the system follows.
How would it feel to you to lead with more aliveness, resonance, and creativity?
What if your leadership could be a creative exploration of who you could become in any moment?
What’s the vibe you’re leading from?
I help you connect to your authentic leadership and run effective and efficient teams in order to create meaningful solutions for our future.
Let’s talk about your vibe leadership and how to spread it in your organization.
