Hey Friend

I’ve been reflecting a lot recently on the number of leaders who are making decisions from chaos and reactivity instead of clarity and calm.

It’s not the chaos that happens when there's an emergency or when something actually breaks. That would be make sense.

It’s the chaos that exists just by opening your inbox or looking at your to-do list. The kind that has become so normalised that nobody even questions it anymore.

My sister, who is amazing at calling bullshit on bad behaviour, said to me once, “Why should their lack of planning become my emergency?”

In other words, why should I conform to this chaos that’s been normalised when it’s not working for me?

It affects my workload, my mental health, my plans outside of work, my ability to be a good mum, partner, sister, daughter and friend.

I think about that a lot and I've shared it with many leaders who have adopted it as a mantra of sorts.

Why do we continue to be blind to the unrealistic expectations that everyone pretends are manageable and, even worse, normal?

It's not manageable. And it's not normal!

And we know it. So do the people working with and for us.

When we talk through expectations in detail, not just in passing, and properly unpack what the ask is, it often seems a little crazy that it was something we considered reasonable in the first place.

It’s like we’ve been brainwashed to believe something that is the complete opposite of what we truly know.

I wonder what is it going to take for us to reject the pressure to keep moving “at pace” when half the room knows it’s the wrong direction, or at least completely unreasonable given the reality of the environment?

I see a lot of leaders are operating inside environments where they’re trying to process information and data while navigating politics and risk alongside the people and commercial pressures, all at once.