The Day I Realized Everything Had Become Equally Urgent (And What I Did About It)

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Business man jumping over clock - Empowering Leadership Teams

I’ll never forget the day a single conversation changed how I lead under pressure.

I was working with Janet (not her real name), a financial services leader navigating a high-stakes audit. Every day brought new demands, new deadlines, new fires to put out.

“I can’t tell the difference between a major compliance issue and a minor document update anymore,” she told me during one of our sessions. “Everything feels urgent. Everything matters equally, which means nothing is truly prioritized. My team’s exhausted. I’m exhausted. I feel like I’m making choices I might regret.”

Her words hit me because I recognized myself in them.

We’ve all been there—those extended periods when everything feels like it’s on fire and there’s no end in sight. The quarter that won’t close. The product launch that keeps hitting snags. The “temporary” restructuring that drags on for months.

What I’ve learned through my work with leaders like Janet is that something subtle but significant happens during these pressure periods. Your perspective narrows. Your emotional reserves run low. The quality of your decisions starts to suffer, often without you even realizing it.

But here’s what’s really costly: it’s not just about you. When leaders lose their sense of grounding, teams feel it. They absorb it, amplify it, and that’s when things start to unravel. Decisions become reactive, morale drops, and the culture shifts from one of clarity to one of constant urgency.

Before I could help Janet, I had to understand what was really happening beneath the surface. Over time, I realized that leading under constant pressure requires three fundamental shifts:

Shift how you relate to your emotions so you can observe stress instead of being swept away by it.
Shift how you hold perspective so you can zoom out and regain clarity, even when you’re deep in the weeds.
Shift how you show up for yourself and your team so your steadiness becomes their anchor.

The solution starts with learning to pause.

Not the kind of pause that delays important decisions, but the kind that creates space between stimulus and response.

In that space, you can recognize what’s truly yours to carry and what isn’t. You can reconnect to your values so you’re not pulled in a dozen different directions.

When Janet began practicing these shifts, the change was remarkable. Not because her circumstances suddenly became easier—the audit was still stressful, the deadlines were still real—but because she found her center again.

And her team felt it.

They began to rise with her instead of drowning with her.

That’s the thing about grounded leadership: it’s contagious in the best possible way. When you lead from that steady place, you give your team permission to find their own grounding too.

Leadership isn’t about how well you manage when things are going smoothly.
It’s about how you hold steady when they’re not.

And that kind of leadership is something you can develop with intention, support, and practice.

The question isn’t whether you’ll face intense pressure again—you will.

The question is: how will you choose to meet it?

If you’re ready to strengthen your grounding and lead with calm clarity, especially when everything feels urgent, I’m cheering you on.

And I’m here if you’d like support. You can schedule a Coffee Chat here.
—Coach Heather