Navigating Urgency When Clarity is Scarce

This year’s International Coaching Week celebration is focusing on how leaders can be their best when everything feels like it’s on fire and pressure paralyzes them. We can all relate to this feeling, right?

Under the pressures that come with being a leader also comes the increased likelihood for rash decision making because leaders feel an urgency to act quickly. That comes from a good place when you’re a leader. You don’t want to hold things up for others or let people down in the neighboring department. It’s a big weight to carry!

Leaders are more likely to stop listening when in that pressure space because they think they’ve received all the information they can to make a decision. When you’re in that heightened state, sometimes you don’t even realize that you’re tuning things out–both outside information and your own internal voice.

All this to say, while efficiency and speed in any leader’s day-to-day operations is obviously a priority and goal, sometimes you think you’re working faster and speeding things up when you’ve really narrowed your awareness and perception to clear your way through that fog of urgency.

The Circles of Control, Influence and Concern

Ancient philosophers developed a simple analogy for understanding how control, influence and concern impact our mental energy and output, and centuries later, the theory still rings true for leaders seeking better management of stress.

Picture a target or bullseye. The largest, outermost circle is concern: that’s where everything we’re worried about and especially what’s outside of our control lives. The second circle is influence: this is about your influence and impact as a leader. And the last and smallest circle, or our bullseye, is control: this is what a leader can tangibly control and do something about. When your largest circle, concern, starts flooding into the smaller circles, it gets harder and harder to refine down to what you can actually control.

Here’s where true coaching support comes in. Together, we analyze what belongs in each circle to prevent your concerns from wiping out the influence and control you do have to efficiently drive ahead on the path of the project, task or request at hand.

Coaching is not therapy, but it brings clarity by defining values and purpose in a safe and slowed-down space. The priority is to be mindful while combing through the information you do have to identify what else you may need to know and then, if the decision you’re trying to make is based on this pressure you feel or actual values, facts and strategies that align with your business.

With anything in life, sometimes when you grip too tight trying to control something… it actually slips right through your hands. I like to remind my clients that when everything is urgent, nothing is important, and that’s a dangerous and unhealthy path to follow professionally or personally. Letting go is a unique power that only true, professional coaching can put in your toolbox to apply for the future.

The Shadow of a Leader

Your energy casts a shadow on your team, clients and everyone around you. If the load you’re carrying is too heavy, others will feel and experience it even when you’re trying to “control” it. The slowed-down pace of professional coaching also helps achieve a more clear self-awareness in how you’re showing up for yourself and others, and whether you’re managing your emotions or being managed by them. You’ll always cast a shadow on your team, but you can control whether it’s a heavy, menacing one or a light, approachable one with the right professional coaching support.

Creating Your Tailored Plan

Many times I am working with leaders who feel stuck or have received tough feedback. Feedback is an important data point when creating a coaching plan. I don’t have blanket strategies or tips for my clients because the levels of urgency we maneuver daily are so diverse and often unpredictable. Your unique details matter so much as we craft what your steps will be to grow in your role as a leader.

And when my clients reach their goals and have success, I hear the words “relief” and “stabilized” most often in their feedback to me. They can still be themselves, but a better version. The sense of accomplishment and calm feels stabilizing, and that transforms the shadow they were likely casting prior. What an incredible change of pace compared to when they came to me feeling like they were overwhelmed.

As a coach, my role is not to tell you what to do. Instead, I am here to hold space for you, ask the questions and open possibilities for solutions through the fog of ongoing urgency.