Tim Hagen

Progress Coaching is a pioneer in the workplace coaching movement with over 26 years of experience helping organizations increase engagement, develop and retain top talent, and create a strong workplace culture by developing managers into coaches!

What we do: 

Using our proven methodology and training system, we will create a custom coaching strategy that:

✅ Saves your organization (and your managers) TIME and MONEY
✅ Speaks directly to YOUR sales or service processes
✅ Promotes and drives YOUR organizational values
✅ INCREASES ENGAGEMENT and REDUCES TURNOVER through a culture of coaching and feedback

You name it, we’ve built it! NO MATTER WHAT the scenario, we can provide a coaching solution – guaranteed!

How it works: 

⭐ We’ll assess your organization’s current culture and goals
⭐ Design a coaching strategy that fits your unique needs
⭐ Deliver training through virtual workshops, online courses, and on-demand resources 
⭐ Facilitate group & one-on-one coaching that addresses YOUR real-life workplace challenges!
⭐ Provide on-going support you can count on! 


Why it works:

✅ Relieve the burden from HR: instead of deferring to HR for every tough conversation or performance issue, managers learn how to have coaching conversations that create strong connections, build trust, and inspire action! 

✅ L&D teams are supported: managers will learn how to structure their conversations to increase performance and become partners in driving the training & development initiatives your organization is already doing!

✅ Managers save time: managers will learn techniques to engage with employees and inspire positive change in as little as 8-12 minutes per week using our proven 4-step coaching conversation model! Through supplemental coaching strategies, managers will learn to scale their time and drive development without even being present! 

✅ Adults learn best when the material directly applies to them, and traditional training alone does not accomplish this. Our PODs format is survey-driven, targeting participants' actual workplace management and coaching challenges, with instruction, discussion, activities, and practice!



Submit your request here 👉  https://form.jotform.com/211636813521147 

Contact me:

💻 Website: http://www.progresscoachingleader.com
📅 Schedule a call: https://calendly.com/timprogresscoaching
✉ Email: Tim@ProgressCoachingLeader.com
📱 Cell: 262-227-8563

President of Progress Coaching  (Till Day I Die)

I own and operate Progress Coaching with 7 employees - we teach managers a very powerful and proven system to engage and develop their staff into high performing talent. We help groups develop, retain and recruit talent by using technology and coaching solutions to increase the bottom line. Progress Coaching has many client types from publicly traded companies to professional sports teams to credit unions to manufacturing companies to banks to people who simply want to become certified Progress Coaches.

Association for Talent Development (ATD) SEWI-ATD - Southeastern Wisconsin Chapter of the Association for Talent Development CNY ATD Training Magazine Tracy Maylett Training Industry, Inc. #coaching #leadership Emotional Intelligence

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We use the word coaching a lot at work. An employee misses a step. A leader gives quick feedback. A behavior gets corrected in the moment. And we say,

Tim Hagen DISC and EQ Certified

Why Do We Call It Coaching When Its Not

Association for Talent Development (ATD)

SEWI-ATD - Southeastern Wisconsin Chapter of the Association for Talent Development

CNY ATD

Training Magazine / Training Conference & Expo

Organizational Psychologist | Author | Professor | HR Services Investor

Training Industry, Inc.

Emotional Intelligence

President of Progress Coaching @ Progress Coaching | Certified Leadership Trainer & Coach

📅 Why Calendars + Asynchronous Coaching Are Changing the Way We Develop People
Most organizations don’t have a coaching problem—they have a consistency problem.
Coaching happens when time allows. Development waits for the next meeting. Growth becomes event-based instead of embedded.
In my latest article, I explore why intentional calendars and asynchronous coaching are becoming one of the most practical, scalable ways to build real capability in today’s workplace.
When you combine:
 ✔️ Scheduled coaching rhythms (what gets on the calendar gets done)
 ✔️ Asynchronous coaching nudges, questions, and reflections
 ✔️ Employee ownership between meetings
You shift coaching from reactive to continuous—and from leader-dependent to employee-driven.
The future of coaching isn’t more meetings.
 It’s better moments, reinforced over time.
If you’re thinking about how to scale development without overwhelming leaders or calendars, this perspective may be helpful.
👉 Read the article and let me know what resonates.
#WorkplaceCoaching #LeadershipDevelopment #AsynchronousCoaching #LearningCulture #EmployeeDevelopment #Coachability #FutureOfWork #ContinuousImprovement #CadenceCoaching

The Strategic Value of Calendars and Asynchronous Coaching in the Modern Workplace In today’s always-on, constantly shifting workplace, development ca

CADENCE Coaching

The BIGGEST opporutnity in next 5-7 years will be helping leaders coach employees to navigate change and new skill development. The Missing Piece: Coaching Application. Read This Article and share your thoughts

Association for Talent Development (ATD) JB Howell Will Chambers, PHR Helene Agerstig Wiese Laurie Gerrish, M.S. HRM Laurie Wiest Training Magazine

Organizations invest millions each year in training—new systems, leadership programs, sales skills, compliance, and emerging technologies. Yet despite

Open article: The Missing Link Between Training and Performance: Coaching Application by Tim Hagen DISC and EQ Certified • 3 min read

The Missing Link Between Training and Performance: Coaching Application

Association for Talent Development (ATD) Jan Stauffer, SHRM - CP and ATD - CPTD Training Magazine Training Industry, Inc. Anne Reid Annette Adams, MBA, CEBS #leadership #coach #coaching Michelle Wendt 🇺🇦 Nancy Sondergard, SHRM-SCP #shrm SHRM Linkage SHRM

Leadership is not a destination—it’s a journey. And like any demanding journey, it’s one leaders were never meant to walk alone. Cadence Coaching exis

Cadence Coaching: Why Leaders Thrive When They Don’t Walk Alone

Dynamic, highly motivated certified trainer (ATD-CPTD) and corporate leader with 14+ years of experience driving organized, efficient processes which builds cohesive teams and significantly impacts company performance.

Vice President, People Director

CHRO and Community Partner

Training & Development Manager I Leadership Coach & Facilitator I Positive Culture Change Champion

HR Consultant and Career Coach at LAK Group

SHRM Linkage

SHRM

Coaching is a term we frequently use at work, but what does it truly mean? 

👉 When an employee misses a step, a leader provides quick feedback, or a behavior is corrected in real-time, we often say, “I coached them.” However, we need to ask ourselves: did we really coach them? 

👉 Too often, what we label as coaching is actually correction, direction, or immediate fixes. While these actions are important, they are not synonymous with coaching.

👉 In today's workplace, coaching has become a catch-all term for any leadership interaction involving guidance. If a leader identifies a skill gap and addresses it on the spot, it’s labeled as coaching. If a mistake is corrected immediately, it’s coaching. If someone is redirected after an issue arises, it’s coaching. 

👉This trend is understandable; leaders are busy, and problems require immediate attention. However, categorizing all these actions as coaching dilutes the true essence of what coaching is meant to be.

👉 Corrective action is reactive, situational, and necessary. It responds to issues that have already occurred, and organizations need leaders who can step in, clarify expectations, and prevent small problems from escalating. This is good leadership and management, but it is not coaching.

Mislabeling corrective action as coaching leads to two significant issues:
1. Leaders may mistakenly believe they are coaching when they are not.
2. Employees may associate coaching solely with mistakes and corrections, rather than growth and development.

Over time, this association can make “coaching” feel tense and focused on errors, rather than fostering confidence and progress.

👊👊👊 True coaching is proactive, intentional, and ongoing. It is scheduled, even if briefly, and focuses on development rather than just addressing immediate problems. Watch This Master Coaching Lesson Volume Three: https://lnkd.in/g8E4a6Ki

The true definition of coaching in the workplace is a structured, ongoing partnership where a leader helps an employee think, learn, and grow—rather than simply telling them what to do.

👉 At its core, coaching involves:
- Asking thoughtful questions
- Listening more than speaking
- Helping individuals discover their own solutions
- Developing skills, confidence, and self-awareness over time

👉 Coaching is not about fixing mistakes in the moment, performance correction disguised as coaching, or a one-time conversation. True coaching is:
- Scheduled, intentional, and continuous—focused on growth, not just results.

When done effectively, coaching builds capability, leading to natural and sustainable performance improvement.

👉 To explain this to leaders:
- Managing tells, while coaching asks.
- Managing drives tasks, whereas coaching develops people.

The best workplaces embrace both approaches without confusing the two.

👉 A practical resource for leaders is "The Coaching Habit." This book is useful because it:
- Simplifies coaching into everyday conversations
- Emphasizes curiosity over control
- Reinforces that coaching is a habit, not an event
- Is practical for busy leaders

For those looking for a resource that leaders can utilize without becoming “professional coaches,” this is a strong starting point.

👉 Final takeaway: Workplace coaching isn’t about having the right answers; it’s about helping others find theirs—consistently, intentionally, and with care. That’s where real development occurs. 

#coaching #leadership Association for Talent Development (ATD) Training Magazine Bogdan Apostol SchoolsFirst Federal Credit Union ESL Federal Credit Union Summit Credit Union Darlyne Keller, MBA Samantha Hammock Sarah White

CEO @ Nestor | Y Combinator S18 - We’re hiring!

SchoolsFirst Federal Credit Union

ESL Federal Credit Union

Summit Credit Union

Leadership That Inspires, Strategy That Delivers | 25+ Years of Elevating People, Culture & Business Performance

EVP, Chief Human Resources Officer at Verizon

Aligning Strategy to Market Reality for Growth | Product, GTM & Organizational Alignment for Leaders, Boards & Investors | Global WorkTech HRTech TATech Expert

Two tellers. Same branch. Same goals. Very different outcomes.

Teller A receives observational coaching. A leader watches, makes a quick correction, and moves on. While this is helpful in the moment, once the rush hits, the learning fades. There’s no follow-up, no reflection, and no growth plan.

In contrast, Teller B benefits from continuous coaching. This includes short, intentional conversations, clear focus areas, and regular check-ins. The questions posed build confidence rather than just compliance. 

Over time, Teller B not only performs better but also thinks better. They anticipate member needs, connect the dots, and grow into their role—and beyond it.

That’s the difference. Observation fixes a moment, while continuous coaching develops a person. In credit unions, developing people is essential for winning in service, culture, and careers.

If you're ready to move beyond “I noticed…” coaching and into real, sustainable development, consider Credit Union Coach—the all-in-one leadership coaching platform designed specifically for credit union leaders who want coaching to stick. Great coaching isn’t occasional; it’s a rhythm. 

Get Info Here: https://lnkd.in/gmmGEQah or DM Me Here

#creditunions #coaching ESL Federal Credit Union Summit Credit Union Kris Prince Jane Roberts Laurie Wiest Keri Ashkenazy, MA Darlyne Keller, MBA SchoolsFirst Federal Credit Union Rockford Bell Credit Union Libro Credit Union Credit Union Digital Marketing

Client Service Manager

Manager, Administrative Support Team at ESL Federal Credit Union

Chief Engagement Officer (CGO)

Learning & Development Specialist | M.A. Social-Org Psychology, Columbia University | Helping companies train their most engaged and productive workforce

Rockford Bell Credit Union

Libro Credit Union

Credit Union Digital Marketing

What if coaching was seamlessly integrated into leadership? Imagine every leader having a dedicated, certified coach focused solely on helping them apply coaching in real-time—during team interactions, with individual employees, and in those critical moments that truly matter.

This approach emphasizes application over training and theory, addressing the shift leaders are currently seeking.

CADENCE Coaching provides busy leaders with an assigned certified coach who assists them in:

- Translating coaching concepts into meaningful conversations
- Inspiring and motivating individual team members, not just the group
- Maintaining consistency, even amidst packed schedules and high pressure
- Focusing on coaching strengths rather than merely correcting behavior

This isn’t about adding another task to the to-do list; it’s about having someone alongside the leader to ensure coaching becomes a natural part of their leadership style.

What would change if your leaders never had to guess how to coach again? CADENCE Coaching embeds coaching support directly into leadership—without adding time, complexity, or burnout. Consistent application is the key to effective coaching. Get More Info: https://lnkd.in/gz3qz2U4

Coaching doesn’t fail in organizations because leaders don’t care. It fails because coaching too often waits for the perfect moment—a meeting, a review, a quiet week that never comes.

That’s why Coaching Nudges are becoming one of the most powerful tools in modern leadership development. These small, intentional prompts help leaders reinforce growth, awareness, and accountability in real time—without adding meetings or complexity. When used consistently, coaching nudges turn everyday moments into development opportunities and help build a true coaching culture.

👇 Before you read on, reflect for a moment:
 • When was the last time you nudged someone’s growth—without giving advice?
 • What would change if coaching showed up weekly instead of quarterly?
 • How could small questions create big performance shifts on your team?
This article explores how coaching nudges work, why they’re so effective, and how leaders can start using them immediately to drive engagement, performance, and coachability—one moment at a time.

#Leadership
 #LeadershipDevelopment
 #Coaching
 #CoachingCulture
 #WorkplaceCoaching
 #EmployeeDevelopment
 #CoachingNudges
 #CadenceCoaching
 #ManagerEffectiveness
Association for Talent Development (ATD) Training Magazine Anne Richards Gustafson Annette Adams, MBA, CEBS Betty Harwood Betty Baker, PHR Nancy Wraight, SHRM-SCP

Coaching Nudges: The Small Leadership Moments That Create Big Change Most leaders don’t struggle with wanting to coach their people. They struggle wit

Open article: Want Motivated and Inspired Teams? by Tim Hagen DISC and EQ Certified • 3 min read

A Smarter Way to Coach—Without Adding More to a Leader’s Plate

👉 Organizations are increasingly recognizing a crucial truth: Leaders don’t struggle with the concept of coaching; they struggle because coaching often falls by the wayside amidst their busy schedules. Meetings pile up, urgent issues take precedence, and good intentions fade away.

👉 Cadence Coaching was created to address this challenge. It provides leaders with an assigned, certified coaching partner dedicated to helping them apply coaching consistently and practically within their real workweek. This approach emphasizes application, reinforcement, and meaningful conversations rather than more theory or additional training portals.

👉 Why Leaders Win (and Actually Enjoy It):
- Coaching support without adding more meetings
- Clear guidance on what to say and how to say it
- Strength-based coaching that inspires rather than exhausts
- Confidence in coaching effectively
- Consistency, even during busy seasons

👉 Cadence Coaching is structured enough to drive results, flexible enough to fit into real leadership life, and engaging enough for leaders to actively participate.

👉 The Strategic Advantage:
Cadence Coaching bridges the gap between training and execution, intent and consistency, and knowing how to coach versus actually doing it. Organizations leverage this approach to enhance engagement, retention, and leadership bench strength without overwhelming their managers.

Imagine the impact if your leaders had a coach supporting them every week. Coaching doesn’t fail because leaders lack interest; it fails due to a lack of support. Cadence Coaching changes that. Get Info Here: https://lnkd.in/gz3qz2U4 

SHRM Training Magazine Training Industry, Inc. Association for Talent Development (ATD) Annette Adams, MBA, CEBS Anne Reid Lisa Ely  MBA Lisa Ploszaj, SPHR, SHRM-SCP Lisa Eichten Betty Harwood Janice Krassowski-Quintana Janice Skipwith Jennifer Guilette Jennifer Cardona, MBA-HR, MSW

Join us with Training Magazine for How to Reinforce Training with AI & Coaching
When: Tue, Jan 20, 2026 at 9AM Pacific / 12PM Eastern
Why: 100 % Educational and FREE Cpourse for all live attndees on Coaching!
Register Here: https://lnkd.in/ggmmk2D2

Association for Talent Development (ATD) Amy Walby Amy Debroczy Lisa Eichten #coaching #leadership #leadershipcoaching #training #Learning #trainingreinforcement Bryan Obst Bogdan Apostol Britton Ertman Brittney Medina Milwaukee Brewers

Director, Human Resources

Commercial Leader Strategic planning and Execution

Global Learning and Development | Leadership Development | Digital Learning | Talent Development | Global Learning Program Management | Change Management

HR Manager Wacker Neuson America

Chief Operating Officer at Profi

VP of HR Operations at Marking Services, Inc.

Milwaukee Brewers

Tim DISC and EQ Certified

Executive Leadership Coach | Certified Progress Coach | Helping Leaders Coach, Grow People & Improve Performance | Coaching with HEART – Habits Empower Authentic Resilience & Trust

I am excited about the New Year, a fresh start, and new beginnings. In 2025, we learned many new things, including the new era of artificial intelligence. The more technology advances, the greater the need for human connection and leadership. 

We need to be aware of a couple of things in the job market:
First, AI. Research shows that the top skills people will need are AI.
Second, leadership skills. All eyes are on us; what we do and what we say matters.

This leads to the human connection - something AI will not replace: 
When leaders coach their teams, and I've always said this - questions are the answer. Asking the right questions helps build awareness, and for the coach, the person being coached can also help clarify. 

Next is action. Activities help facilitate action and skill development. Practice a conversation or technique. This is what stimulates positive change. 

Accountability can be challenging; however, it doesn't have to be. 
Learning projects foster accountability and ownership. Ask an employee to come in with an example of how they positively invested in a teammate
with a strong sense of energy and an outgoing, positive attitude. 

This is a mini snapshot of why human connection is essential in leadership and coaching. It's Getting To The HEART of Progress. Building your moral compass. Habits Empower Authentic Resilience and Trust.

#Leadership  #HumanConnection  #AwarenessActionAccountability  #GettingToTheHEARTOfProgress #CoachingWithHeart

What if you could coach without meeting? Huh? What if a new coaching approach crreated specific plans and timeframes thast saved leaders time to coach ... by as much as 40%! Welcome CADENCE Coaching ... checkout our latest podcast. If intrigued DM me! https://lnkd.in/g8rGkBum

Association for Talent Development (ATD) AJ Perkins Britton Ertman #coaching #leadership Angela Boesel Angela D. Boston Lenn Moorhead-Rosenberg

buzzsprout.com

NEW Coaching Method Saves Time: Welcome CADENCE Coaching - Coaching Conversations in 2025

Go-To Market Expert for Cleantech | Strategic Advisor | Ex-CEO | Built 3 Companies, Closed $15B+ in Contracts

Relationship Banker

Human Resources Director

Director, Organizational Development at St. Charles Healthcare

If you think you're coaching your team by giving advice, think again.

Here's the hard truth: Most managers believe they're coaching, but they're just telling people what to do. And it's costing organizations engagement, retention, and real results.

Real coaching isn't about having all the answers. It's about asking the right questions. It's listening, not lecturing. It's helping people discover their own solutions instead of handing out quick fixes.

I've seen it over and over. A manager has a weekly one-on-one, drops a few "helpful" tips, and checks the coaching box. But the employee leaves uninspired, unchallenged, and unchanged.

Advice can feel productive in the moment, but it doesn't drive growth. It creates dependency. People tune out. The best performers crave ownership, not step-by-step instructions.

So here's my challenge: Next time you're tempted to give advice, pause. Ask a question instead. "What options have you considered?" "What would you try if you weren't worried about making a mistake?" "How can I support you without stepping in?"

The shift is uncomfortable at first, but that's where real development happens. Coaching isn't about your expertise, it's about unlocking theirs.

Ready to break the advice cycle and actually coach? Your team is waiting.

To quote a client "CADENCE Coaching is really innovative. Its like having a workplace coaching expert right next to you assitring you every step of the way." 

👉 Cadence Coaching is a modern approach to leadership and development that moves coaching out of the calendar and into the flow of work. Instead of relying on infrequent, scheduled conversations, cadence coaching delivers short, focused coaching moments—paired with simple application challenges and reflection—on a consistent rhythm. This allows learning to be reinforced where it matters most: in real situations, real decisions, and real behaviors.

👉 For future-ready organizations, CADENCE coaching closes the gap between training and performance. It accelerates upskilling, builds accountability without burnout, and helps leaders develop people continuously rather than episodically. As roles evolve and skills change faster than job descriptions, organizations that embed coaching into daily cadence won’t just keep up—they’ll build adaptable, confident teams that grow with the work instead of chasing it.

#CadenceCoaching #LeadershipDevelopment #FutureOfWork #Upskilling #Reskilling #CoachingCulture #LearningAndDevelopment #TalentDevelopment #PeopleLeadership #ModernLeadership #ContinuousImprovement #WorkplaceCoachingi

Mike Carroll has a system for hiring sales people that is so unique! My own referrals to him rave about the approach! Need sales people reachout to Mike!

Founder, Intelligent Conversations | Author | B2B Sales Training Consultant | Converting Sales Teams into Revenue Generating Machines

How confident are you in your sales hiring right now?

I don't mean optimistic or hopeful. Actual confidence. 

I ask because this is the time of year when a lot of leaders feel pressure to “get ahead of it.”

Q1 plans are taking shape. Revenue targets are locked. Gaps from last year are suddenly very visible. And sales hiring starts to feel urgent.

What I see happen next is usually some version of this:
- A role gets posted quickly, using language that worked once before (are you using old job descriptions from previous years?) 
- Interviews move fast because “we don’t want to lose good candidates”
- Decisions get made on instinct, energy, and resume patterns

Don't worry, none of this is careless. It’s human.

But it’s also how hiring mistakes quietly get repeated.

The warning signs rarely show up immediately. 

They surface months later as slow ramp time. As deals that stall. As managers spending more time coaching basics than building momentum. As the realization that the role itself may never have been clearly defined.

At that point, the question becomes “Why isn’t this working?”

When the better question earlier would have been “What are we actually hiring for?”

Strong sales hiring starts with clarity. I'm sure you know this. 
- Clarity about the environment someone is walking into.
- Clarity about the skills this role actually demands.
- Clarity about what has made people succeed here and what has caused others to struggle.

The most effective leaders I work with do something that feels counterintuitive right now.

They pause before acting. They assess before posting. They get specific before interviewing. They slow the process down just enough to avoid speeding into the wrong decision.

I’m curious what you’re seeing.

Where does sales hiring feel hardest for you right now? 

Attracting the right candidates? Evaluating them well? Or being clear on what success in the role really looks like?

This is a conversation worth having early on.

How to Reinforce Training with AI & Coaching with Training Magazine

Most training doesn’t fail because the content is bad.
 It fails because reinforcement never shows up.
Leaders leave training inspired…
 Then Monday happens.
In this upcoming free webinar, I’ll break down:
 ✔ Why training alone rarely changes behavior
 ✔ How AI can reinforce learning in the flow of work (not in more meetings)
 ✔ Where coaching conversations create the human connection that AI can’t replace
 ✔ A simple reinforcement loop leaders can apply immediately
This session is designed for:
 • Leaders overwhelmed by “initiative overload”
 • HR & L&D teams tired of low training adoption
 • Organizations looking to scale coaching without adding calendar pressure

If you’re thinking about how AI fits into leadership development without losing the human side, this will be practical, grounded, and very real.

📅 Save your seat and bring a colleague who cares about performance, not just programs. Register Here: https://lnkd.in/ggmmk2D2

#LeadershipDevelopment #CoachingCulture #AIatWork #TrainingReinforcement #FutureOfWork #PeopleDevelopment #WorkplaceCoaching Association for Talent Development (ATD) Training Industry, Inc.

A quick reminder as you end this week: your only real competition is yourself.

Entrepreneurship is not a race, and it is not meant to be. It is shaped by your goals, your season, and the life you are building.

✨ Someone else’s progress does not take away from yours
✨ Someone else’s pace is not a standard you have to meet
✨ Someone else’s wins do not tell the full story

The only comparison that actually matters is who you are becoming compared to who you were yesterday.

Stay focused on your own growth. Build at a pace that is sustainable. Keep taking the next right step.

If this resonates, share it with someone who could use a little encouragement today.

#Entrepreneurship #Leadership #GrowthMindset #BusinessOwner #PersonalGrowth

What happens after training? What do leaders say to employees? What do they facilitate to reinforce training? Do they? The missing piece?  COACHING APPLICATION: Check out our latest podcast: https://lnkd.in/eUjXgST3

Association for Talent Development (ATD) Gary Broesch Gary Wendel, SPHR Gary Rosia Gary Deppe Harry Kohal Kelly Lake Training Magazine

Get referrals on autopilot: build an AI-powered referral system in 15 minutes a day

I work with senior leaders when change stops being theoretical and starts carrying real weight. 

I help organizations hold clarity through complexity—when strategy is sound, but execution is straining trust, energy, or alignment, when decisions carry real consequences. When leadership feels heavier than usual. 

My work sits at the intersection of people, structure, and leadership judgment. I partner with CEOs, CHROs, and senior teams to stabilize organizations during moments of transition—designing operating models, leadership alignment, and decision clarity that actually hold under pressure. 

Over the course of my career, I’ve led and advised executive teams across growth-stage and global organizations, supporting transformation efforts that required more than frameworks or playbooks. The work demanded discernment, steadiness, and the ability to see what was happening beneath the surface—before it showed up in performance or culture. 

Through Leadership Rewired, I work as an advisor, consultant, or interim partner, depending on what the situation calls for. The form flexes. The work doesn’t. 

My focus is consistent: 

→ Clarity over complexity. 
→ Systems over silos. 
→ Leadership that can carry responsibility without hardening or disappearing. 

Specialties: 

Organizational Design | Leadership Alignment | Change Navigation | Executive Advisory | People Strategy Under Pressure | Culture & Accountability

Allison Allen

Starting a three-month client engagement this week. 
→ New industry. 
→ Organization transformation. 
→ Opportunity to implement practices I’ve been refining for years.

That’s all exciting.

👉🏾 But here’s what I didn’t expect to feel this energized about: I get to wake up, get dressed, and drive to an office 20 minutes from my home.

For the last two years, all of my client work has been remote, day trips, or strategic offsites. And that’s worked. 

It’s been effective. 
I’ve built Leadership Rewired entirely that way.

But I’ve missed something.

Not the commute. 
Not the office itself.

👉🏾 I’ve missed working in person with a team focused on a common goal.

There’s something about being in the room…
→ seeing the moment someone gets it, 
→ catching the hesitation before it becomes resistance, 
→ reading the energy shift when the real conversation finally starts,
that you can’t fully replicate on a screen.

I’m not making a case for “everyone should be back in the office.” 
That’s not the point.

People should work in the way that’s most effective for them and their organizations. 
→ Remote works. 
→ Hybrid works. 
→ In-person works. 

It depends on the work, the people, and what you’re trying to build.

But for me? 

For this kind of work organizational transformation, shifting how teams make decisions, building new practices into the operating rhythm, I’ve genuinely missed the in-person collaboration.

So this week, I’m driving in. 
Getting in the room. 
Doing the work the way I’ve been wanting to for a while.

I’ll keep you posted on how it goes.
But right now? 

I’m looking forward to Monday in a way I haven’t felt in a while.

Allison Allen, ACC

Executive Advisor & Change Partner to CXOs Navigating Change | Org Design, People Strategy & Leadership Judgment | Founder, Leadership Rewired

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You answered the question in the all-hands. 
You covered it in the leadership team meeting. 
You put it in the deck.

And this week, they're asking again.

"What's the priority?" 
"Are we still doing this?" 
"Did that decision change?"

Your first instinct: they're not listening. 
Or you're not communicating clearly enough.

👉🏾 But here's what's actually happening:
If your team keeps asking for clarity you've already given, the issue isn't communication, it's trust in steadiness. 
Repetition is often a symptom of leaked uncertainty.

They're not asking because they forgot. 
They're asking because they've learned that what you said last week might not hold this week.

Research shows that frequent shifts in leaders' priorities are strongly associated with burnout and disengagement. 

When leaders change direction without clear rationale, 
💥 teams protect themselves, 
💥 they do the minimum, 
💥 wait out the next shift, 
💥 discount current directives as temporary.

Studies analyzing over 80,000 360-degree reviews found that leaders who act inconsistently erode trust roughly three times faster than those who behave predictably.

So when your team keeps asking the same question, 
→ They're not being dense. 
→ They're being rational. 
→ They're checking whether this version of the answer is the one that will actually hold.

 🚩Here's where uncertainty leaks:
→ Tone and body language. You say "we're committed," but your tone is tight, your body language closed. They feel the hedge.
→ Decision reversals without narrative. You change course without explaining what changed or what you learned. It registers as unreliability.
→ Hedging language. "Maybe," "sort of," "we'll see." Softening feels collaborative but overuse reduces perceived authority.
→ Say/reward gap. You say innovation matters but penalize failed experiments. They watch what you reinforce, not what you announce.

People track coherence across your words, tone, and actions at a fine-grained level. When those don't align, they adjust. 

Not because they're bad listeners. Because you've trained them that clarity isn't stable.

✅ Here's the shift: 
1️⃣ When you give clarity, ask yourself, "Do I actually believe this will hold?" If not, don't give false certainty. Say: "Here's where we are. Here's what's still forming."
2️⃣ When you change course, name it explicitly: "Last week I said X. Here's what changed. Now we're doing Y."
3️⃣ Check your tone. If your words say "we're locked in" but your body says "I'm not sure," they'll trust the body.

👉🏾 Steadiness isn't rigidity. It's coherence, your words, tone, and decisions pointing in the same direction.

If your team keeps asking for clarity you've already given, look for where your uncertainty is leaking.

Because repetition isn't about them not hearing you. It's about them not trusting what they heard will still be true next week.

Check out the REWIRED. newsletter (link in comments).

Credibility Isn’t Built by Explaining. 
It’s Built by Holding the Line.

She set a clear priority: product development first.
 The board pushed. 
The CFO pushed. 
Two executives lobbied privately.

She didn’t argue. She didn’t elaborate. She didn’t adjust to relieve the pressure.
She just held the line, calmly, every time.

👉🏾 Leadership credibility isn’t built by saying more. It’s built by holding the same position when the pressure to move it keeps coming.

Research on leadership under stress shows followers track behavioral consistency more than explanations. 

When leaders become inconsistent under pressure, teams experience higher insecurity and strain. 

Calm, values-aligned behavior builds a trust reservoir teams draw on when conditions worsen.

Most leaders do the opposite. 
When pressure mounts, they explain more. 
→ Hedge more. 
→ Revisit the justification. 
→ Adjust slightly, not because new information arrived, but because the pressure is uncomfortable.
❌ And every time they do, credibility erodes.

High-trust leaders practice intelligent clarity: → What we’re doing. → Why. → What changes. → What doesn’t.
✅ Then they stop talking.

That CEO didn’t gain credibility because she was right. She gained it because she was steady.

👉🏾 Leadership credibility isn’t built the first time you state a position.
 👉🏾 It’s built the tenth time you hold it, calmly, when the pressure hasn’t let up.

What line are you holding right now?
 And are you holding it or explaining it away?

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Sunday night. 
You're already thinking about Monday,
what you'll need to manage, 
who you'll need to stabilize, 
what you'll need to carry so the team can function.

Here's a different move:

Before Monday, decide what you will stop compensating for this week.
Not what you'll take on. 
What you'll refuse to absorb.

Stability isn't doing more. 
It's refusing to absorb what isn't yours.

Most senior leaders spend their weeks compensating. 
You fill gaps your team should be filling. 
You absorb anxiety from the board. 
You take on responsibility that belongs to others because it's faster, easier, or because no one else will.
And you tell yourself it's leadership.

👉🏾 Leaders who set boundaries protect their own capacity and force the system to mature. 
👉🏾 Leaders who absorb everything burn out themselves, enable under-functioning in others, and quietly cap team development.

Over-functioning is taking on more responsibility than your role requires, 
often to "rescue" others. 

👉🏾 When one person consistently fixes, reminds, and rescues, others do less, depend more, and invest less in their own growth.

Your compensation sustains performance short-term. 
But it blocks capability building.

💥 Studies show that when leaders stop carrying all the load and instead set clear standards, avoidance of accountability decreases and peer-to-peer accountability increases.

So this week, choose one thing you will stop compensating for.
🛑 Stop absorbing the board's anxiety about timelines you can't control. 
🛑 Stop filling every gap in your team's execution. 
🛑 Stop taking on responsibility for outcomes your peers should be managing. 
🛑 Stop saying yes to everything just to keep the system calm.

🛑 When leaders pull back from automatic fixing, teams experience discomfort, but they gradually increase ownership, skill, and reliability.

The discomfort is the point. 
It's the signal that accountability is shifting back to where it belongs.

Organizations that normalize healthy boundaries see higher job satisfaction, stronger commitment, and better business results than cultures that rely on heroic, always-on leaders.

Stability isn't how much you can hold. 
It's what you refuse to take on in the first place.

When you stop compensating, the system doesn't collapse. 
✅ It adjusts. 
✅ People step up. 
✅ Accountability redistributes.

Before Monday, ask yourself: 
What am I compensating for that isn't mine to carry?

Then decide: this week, I'm not taking that on.

Not because you don't care. 
Because your compensation is capping the system's ability to grow.

If this hits, DM me "compensation." 

I'm working with a small group of leaders on exactly this, learning to stop absorbing what isn't theirs without the system collapsing.

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Nine months into the transformation.
The strategy is clear.
The direction hasn’t changed.

But you’ve started adjusting the signals.
Not big pivots.
Small moves.

“We’re still committed, but let me clarify.”
“The timeline is more flexible than we originally said.”
“We’re prioritizing X over Y for the next quarter.”

Each adjustment makes sense in the moment.
You’re responding to feedback. 
You’re being adaptive.

But here’s what’s actually happening:
👉🏾 In prolonged change, inconsistency rarely comes from strategy shifts.
It comes from leaders adjusting signals to relieve pressure, not because the direction changed.
→ The board is asking where the results are.
→ The team is tired.
→ The market isn’t responding fast enough.

And holding the same position, month after month, under sustained pressure, starts to feel intolerable.
So you adjust.

Not because new information arrived.
Because staying steady feels too heavy.

👉🏾 Under pressure, leaders default to emotion-driven adjustments unless they deliberately slow down and anchor decisions in evidence. 

The distinction matters:

🚩 Pressure-driven adjustment
→ Triggered by anxiety, stakeholder noise, or optics
→ Little reference to new data
→ Justification sounds like: “It feels like we have to move”

✅ Information-driven adjustment
→ Triggered by material data or real environmental change
→ Explicit about what changed and why
→ Framed as: “Given X, we’re updating Y while the goal remains Z”

Most leaders believe they’re doing the second.
They’re usually doing the first.
And the organization feels it.

👉🏾 Change-communication research shows that inconsistent signals erode trust, increase resistance, and amplify anxiety. When commitments shift without naming the learning, people experience it as misalignment or worse, hidden agendas.

🚩 Over time, these small, unnamed adjustments create narrative debt. Each gap between what was said and what’s done compounds.
→ You say “focus,” but keep adding initiatives.
→ You say “committed,” but keep moving timelines.

Eventually, people stop believing the direction will hold.

💥 When you adjust your message, priorities, or timing, ask yourself:
“Am I responding to new information or relieving the pressure of staying steady?”

If it’s the latter, you’re not adapting. You’re drifting.

👉🏾 And each time you adjust to relieve pressure, you teach the system something dangerous:
→ The direction isn’t stable.
→ The commitment isn’t real.
→ The safest move is to wait it out.

In prolonged change, leadership isn’t about making people comfortable. 
It’s about holding the line and naming clearly when and why you change it.

Because inconsistency doesn’t come from complexity.
It comes from not being able to tolerate the pressure of staying steady.

What are you adjusting right now to relieve pressure instead of responding to new information?

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First quiet morning all week. 
And the first thing you notice: how much you've been holding alone.

Most leaders don't burn out from the work. 
They burn out from being the only place uncertainty is allowed to land.

You absorb your team's doubt so they can stay focused. 
You hold steady while they process resistance and fear. 
You project calm, you don't feel. 
You answer questions you're still asking yourself.

And your own uncertainty? 
No sanctioned place to land.

The research confirms what you already know: 
It’s not the hours that drain leaders: 
It's not task volume that drains leaders, it's emotional labor. 

The invisible work of regulating your emotions, absorbing others' anxiety, and suppressing your own stress to keep the system stable.

56% of executives report burnout. 
73% say they're overworked without rest. 

But the real drain isn't the hours, it's being the emotional buffer with no outlet.
You can't share uncertainty with your team; they need you to be steady. 

Not with the board—they need you to be confident. 
Not with peers—they're carrying their own weight.
So you hold it. And over time, that holding becomes the work.

This is the hidden cost: 
You're not just managing outcomes. 
You're managing everyone's emotional experience of the outcomes. 
And there's no container for yours.

Where does your uncertainty land?

Because if the answer is ‘nowhere,’ the load doesn’t disappear; it accumulates.

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The leadership team met every Monday to address "urgent issues." 
Team conflicts. 
Slipping timelines. 
Escalating client concerns.

Six months in, they were exhausted. 
And the same issues kept recycling in different forms.

The problem wasn't the issues. 
It was that no one knew who actually owned decisions. 

So every decision became a negotiation. 
→ Every problem escalated. 
→ Every Monday, they firefought the same dysfunction in new packaging.

They were reacting to noise. 
And missing the pattern.

👉🏾 Not everything that feels urgent is actually unstable. 
Senior leaders exhaust themselves reacting because discernment requires staying with discomfort longer than reaction does.

👉🏾 The data backs this up.
68% of middle managers and 57% of C-suite leaders say most of their decision-making time is inefficient, spent rehashing issues instead of making high-stakes choices.

👉🏾 Urgency bias explains why. 
We reliably choose what feels urgent over what actually matters, even when it leads to worse outcomes.

It's automatic. 

→ The inbox fire pulls you in. 
→ The minor outage demands response. 
→ The loud problem gets attention.

While the quieter pattern, the one actually destabilizing the system, goes unaddressed.

Once the leadership team clarified decision rights, the "urgent issues" list shrank 70%. 
The work wasn't responding faster. 
The work was seeing what they'd been reacting around.

Pattern recognition is the capacity to stay with ambiguity long enough to see whether something is a real pattern or an isolated flare-up. 

❓It's asking: 
Is this unstable, or does it just feel uncomfortable? 
Is this a fire, or is this smoke from a fire I'm not looking at?

The leaders who exhaust themselves are often the most responsive ones.
→ They answer every message.
→ They jump on every issue.
→ They stay perpetually available.

But responsiveness without discernment is just exhaustion in motion.

Not every signal deserves response. 
Not every pressure requires containment. 
And treating all urgency as equal is how you miss the thing that actually matters.

❌ The question isn't "How do I respond to all of this?"
✅ The question is "What pattern am I missing while I'm reacting to this?"

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The board meeting was brutal.  Revenue miss.  Investor pressure mounting.

❌ The CEO walked into the leadership team meeting an hour later and transmitted all of it.

"We're in trouble. The board is furious. We need answers by Friday. Everything is on the table."

The room went silent.

Then it went into overdrive.
→ Teams scrambled. 
→ Projects paused mid-stream. 
→ People made decisions out of fear instead of strategy. 
→ Three key people updated their résumés that week.

💥 He thought he was being transparent. 
→ What he actually did was export panic. 
→ And it broke the team's ability to think.

👉🏾 Internal governance is knowing which pressure you must hold, and which you must not transmit. That distinction is what protects judgment during change.

Research shows this clearly.
→ When leaders fail to buffer harmful pressure, team stress spikes, error rates increase, and decisions turn defensive.
→ When leaders filter chaos while transmitting clarity and standards, teams maintain focus and decision quality, even under uncertainty.

✅ In the next board crisis, he held the panic. But he transmitted the standard:
"Revenue is down. We're addressing it. 

Here's what doesn't change: 
→ our product quality, 
→ our customer commitments, 
→ our decision process. 
Keep doing excellent work. I'll manage the board."

✓ Same pressure. 
✓ Different filter. 
✓ The team stayed steady.

👉🏾 Some pressure you must hold: board volatility, investor noise, shifting priorities that create whiplash, emotional load that would govern choices if transmitted unfiltered.

👉🏾 Some pressure you must transmit: the reality of change, performance standards, constraints that protect judgment, the expectation that people speak up.

Here's the diagnostic: 
→ "If I transmit this as-is, will it increase clarity and agency or only fear and confusion?"
→ If it's the latter, hold it. Translate it into something that helps people think, not panic.

Studies on psychological safety show that...
→ When leaders buffer unnecessary threat while transmitting clarity, teams take learning-oriented risks instead of defensive ones. 
→ When leaders transmit raw pressure without filtering, speaking up drops, errors spike, and teams become self-protective instead of strategic.

👉🏾 Internal governance isn't just what you carry. 
It's what you let through.

What pressure are you holding that you should be transmitting? 
And what are you transmitting that's breaking your team's ability to think?

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You stopped jumping on every escalation. 
You stopped responding to every email immediately. 
You stopped filling every silence in meetings.

You're practicing restraint. 
You're reacting less.
And your team thinks you've checked out.

The hardest leadership skill during change isn't reacting better, it's reacting less. But restraint without governance looks like disengagement.

Research shows that in high-ambiguity environments, low visible activity reads as low care, unless you actively signal otherwise. 

👉🏾 When you practice restraint without context, 
people fill the silence with worst-case narratives.

You're choosing not to react. 
They're experiencing you as absent.

The distinction is intent:
✅ Strategic non-reaction: "I'm actively taking in data. I'm choosing not to move yet so we don't move badly."
❌ Withdrawal: "I don't want to deal with this. I'm checked out."

From the outside, they look identical. 
Both involve silence. 
Both create space.
But one stabilizes the system. The other destabilizes it.

Research shows leaders are experienced as disengaged...
→ when connection drops, 
→ when they’re hard to reach, 
→ don’t explain pauses, 
→ or go quiet without context. 

In that climate, even healthy restraint gets read as neglect, not containment.

Internal governance is what keeps restraint from being mistaken for disengagement.

Governed restraint requires visible structure, not more activity.
1️⃣ Name the pause: "We're not changing direction this week. We're mapping second-order impacts first."
2️⃣ Put time boundaries on it: "I'll come back Thursday with options." Research shows trust increases when leaders break silence as planned.
3️⃣ Maintain relational contact: Increase 1:1s and check-ins while you withhold the decision. People need to feel seen even without closure.
4️⃣ Show work-in-progress: "Here's what we're looking at this week and how we're thinking about tradeoffs." 
5️⃣ Makes the pause legible as strategy, not drift.

Without these signals, your restraint reads as absence. 
With them, it reads as discipline.

👉🏾 The shift isn't from restraint to reaction. It's from ungoverned restraint to governed restraint.

Where are you practicing restraint right now without governing how it’s perceived?

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You're defending the AI roadmap to the CEO tomorrow. 
Your best engineer just went quiet. 
The reorg your team didn't ask for starts next month. 

And tonight, you're carrying all of it alone. 
This is the part no one talks about. 

You're not overwhelmed because the work is complex,
You've built systems under worse conditions. 

🚩 You're overwhelmed because you're holding the full weight of it privately. 

💥The budget pressure. 
💥 The skepticism from peers. 
💥 The team that's watching you for cues while you're still figuring out what comes next. 

Most VPs I work with absorb this silently. 
→ They manage up to execs who want speed. 
→ They manage down to teams who want certainty. 
→ They manage sideways to stakeholders who want promises. 

And they do it without acknowledging the toll because naming it feels like weakness. It's not. 

👉🏾 This is where internal governance comes in. 

Internal governance isn't a leadership buzzword. 
→ It's the structure that keeps pressure from leaking into your decisions, your tone, and your timing. 
→ It's what prevents you from reacting when you need to respond. 
→ It's the discipline that holds complexity, so you don't have to white-knuckle every call. 

👉🏾 Firms with stronger governance structures—independent boards, performance-linked accountability, systematic oversight—outperform on ROA and market value. 

Not because they're smarter, but because they've distributed the cognitive load. 

👉🏾 Governance works because it removes the burden of holding everything internally. The same principle applies to you. 

✅  When you build internal governance, you create: 
→ Decision frameworks so every choice doesn't feel existential 
→ Boundaries around what needs resolution now vs. what can wait 
→ Structured space to process pressure before it distorts judgment 
→ Permission to externalize complexity without losing authority 

✨ You already know how to lead under pressure. 

The question is: what systems are you using to hold it? 

Because isolation isn't strength. 
It's risk.

#LeadWithClarity #ChangeWithConfidence

Sunday night. 

You're already carrying next week, the decision, the tension, the conversation no one else knows is weighing on you.

Before Monday: decide what you will hold and what you will stop absorbing.

Most leaders don’t burn out from leading. 
They burn out from absorbing everything that lands near them...
→ emotion that isn't theirs, 
→ doubt someone else should be managing, 
→ weight with no purpose except that it found you.

There's a difference between containment and absorption.

🌱 Containment is strategic. 
→ You hold tension so the system can function. 
→ You metabolize uncertainty so your team can move forward.

🚩 Absorption is uncontained leakage. 
→ You take on emotion because no one else will. 
→ You carry weight that serves nothing except the habit of carrying.

Most leaders don't distinguish between the two until they're already burned out.

Regulation isn't a wellness practice. 
It's an executive decision.

You decide what uncertainty enters your system. 
You decide which conversations drain you. 
You decide when you're containing for the organization and when you're just absorbing because it's easier than saying no.

What are you holding that actually serves the work? 
And what are you absorbing just because you can?

One strengthens the system. 
The other slowly drains it.

If you're rethinking what you're carrying, DM me "holding."

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Your team is watching you for cues. 
The board wants certainty. 
Your peer just asked if you're "handling it."

You are. Publicly.

💥 At senior levels, no one absorbs uncertainty for you, but everyone absorbs it from you.

🚩 Your team doesn't just hear what you say in the all-hands. 
→ They watch the micro-pause before you answer the hard question. 
→ They notice when your tone shifts between the morning standup and the afternoon strategy call. 
→ They feel what you're carrying even when you don't name it.
→ And they make it mean something about themselves, their projects, the future.

This is the part no one talks about. 

👉🏾 You're not just leading the change—
→ You're metabolizing the uncertainty so the system doesn't fracture. 
→ You're making decisions without complete information while being evaluated weekly. 
→ You're holding steady while others find their footing.

The data confirms it: 
31% of CEOs are fired for poor change management. 
73% of executives report being overworked without rest. 

You already knew this. 
You're living it.

Here's the question most leaders carry alone:
What's holding you while you hold everyone else?

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Month six of the transformation. 
Early wins are visible. 
The board exhales. 

Your team wants to know if they can slow down. 
And you're tempted to say yes. 

Most leaders don't fail change because of bad strategy. 
They fail it by deciding too early, trying to relieve pressure instead of holding it. 

Here's the moment: 
The reorg is done. 
The new systems are live. 
People are tired. 
You're tired. 
And declaring progress feels like leadership. 

So you do. 

You shift focus back to operations. 
You stop reinforcing the new behaviors. 
You treat "Day One" like the finish line. 
And the organization, still rewiring habits, still testing whether this is real—reads your retreat as permission to go back. 

60–70% of change initiatives fail. 
Not because the strategy was wrong. 

Because leaders couldn't hold the discomfort long enough for it to take root. 

Real transformation takes years. 

Culture doesn't shift because you announced it. 
It shifts when you stay present through the messy middle, 
when resistance peaks, 
when fatigue sets in, 
when everyone (including you) wants relief. 

The hardest move isn't launching the change. 
It's refusing to call it done when the pressure asks you to.

Check out the REWIRED. newsletter (link in comments).

The acquisition was falling apart. Integration slipping. Key talent leaving. 

The executive team wanted the CEO to calm everyone down.
Instead, she told the truth.

"This is harder than we expected. We're behind. We've lost people we didn't want to lose. 

Here's what we know: 
our product is strong, 
our customers are staying, 
we're learning fast. 

Here's what we don't know yet: 
how long this takes to stabilize. 
But we're not pretending it's fine when it's not."

The room didn't relax. But people stopped looking for reassurance and started problem-solving.

👉🏾 Your role in change isn't to reassure people. 
It's to stay coherent when reassurance isn't possible. 

Presence is what remains when certainty is gone.

Research shows this pattern clearly.
Reassurance provides short-term relief, but increases anxiety and dependency over time.

❌ When leaders promise “things will be fine” and outcomes stay unclear, trust erodes.
✅ When leaders stay coherent, when what they see, say, and do align, they become a psychological anchor.

Studies show calm, contained leaders help regulate team anxiety and support better decision-making under stress. 

Coherence is alignment between message, demeanor, and action. 
Your tone, your decisions, your visible choices, 
they all tell the same story about what matters.

That CEO didn't sugarcoat the chaos. 

But every decision reinforced what she said mattered: product quality, customer retention, learning velocity. 

When budget got tight, she protected the product team. 
When timelines slipped, she doubled down on customer communication.

The team stabilized. 
Not because they felt reassured. 
Because they knew where they stood.

The signals of strategic presence aren’t emotional. 
They’re structural:
→ Communicate what is known, what is unknown, and what is being tested, not outcomes you can't promise.
→ Demonstrate values-based decision-making. Your choices reflect your stated priorities, even under pressure.
→ Say "Here's what we don't yet know, and here's how we'll learn" instead of filling gaps with false comfort.

👉🏾 Reassurance teaches people that safety comes from external answers. 
When those answers don't come, dependency turns into distrust.

👉🏾 Coherence teaches people that safety comes from alignment, from knowing that what you see, say, and do are the same thing.

Here's the diagnostic: 
1️⃣ In your last major change, could people repeat your core narrative in one sentence? 
2️⃣ Did your visible choices match your stated priorities? 
3️⃣ How often did you say "we don't know yet" instead of reassuring?

Presence isn't reassurance. It's coherence under pressure.
And coherence is what people trust when certainty is gone.

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The executive team was aligned on paper.
Unified strategy. Clear priorities.

But in practice, each executive was optimizing for their own domain.

→ Sales pushed for speed—close deals faster, hit the quarter.
→ Operations demanded control—tighten processes, reduce risk.
→ Product wanted innovation—experiment, test, push boundaries.

Three different truths. All defensible. All in direct conflict.

The middle managers? Paralyzed.

They couldn’t move fast without breaking process.
They couldn’t innovate without risking the quarter.
So they stopped deciding and started escalating everything.

👉🏾 Most organizations don’t break under change.
They fracture under mixed signals.
And those signals almost always trace back to uncontained leadership stress.

Under pressure, executive teams reliably create the same system-level failures:
→ Conflicting signals about priorities and risk
→ Inconsistent decision rules that cascade downward
→ Constant re-prioritization that turns urgency into noise

👉🏾 The organization doesn’t fail because the strategy is wrong.
It fails because the signals governing action stop making sense under stress.

In this case, the fracture wasn’t about strategy.
It was about authority patterns, the recurring ways decisions were made and rewarded.
→ Sales optimized for revenue.
→ Operations optimized for stability.
→ Product optimized for differentiation.

Together, they created a system where the only safe move was no move.
Once they saw the pattern, they aligned on a single constraint:
“We will hit the quarter AND ship the new product AND maintain stability, but we will not add new projects until Q2.”

Not perfect.
But coherent.
The middle managers started moving again.

Here’s the diagnostic:
→ Map your last 3–5 high-stakes decisions.
→ Who set direction?
→ Where did messages change as they moved down?
→ Ask two levels below you: “What behavior looks safest and most rewarded here?”

That answer reveals your real authority pattern.
Alignment at the top doesn’t guarantee coherence in the system.

👉🏾 The work isn’t getting everyone to agree.
It’s ensuring the signals you send through decisions, incentives, and consequences—tell the same story when things get hard.

Because if your signals fracture under stress, so does your organization.

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The meeting is going too long. 
Tension is rising. 
Two people are circling the same disagreement, and you can feel the discomfort in the room.

So you cut it off.

"Let's take this offline. We need to move on."

The room exhales. 
The meeting ends.
And the issue? 
Still there. Just quieter now.

👉🏾 What are you trying to resolve too quickly because it makes you uncomfortable? That impulse quietly reshapes organizations, often more than strategy ever will.

→ You didn't resolve the tension. 
→ You displaced it. 
→ You taught people that when things get uncomfortable, the move is to stop talking, not to push through.

And if you do that enough times, it becomes the culture.

Research shows that internal governance isn't just structures and policies, it's the unwritten norms about how disagreement, risk, and uncertainty are handled. 

👉🏾 When leaders consistently speed past discomfort, that becomes the real governance system, regardless of what the org chart says.

→ The pattern compounds. 
→ Conflict gets displaced. 
→ People stay quiet. 
→ Decisions move to hallways. 

💥 Teams optimize for keeping you comfortable, not for surfacing reality early enough to act.

👉🏾 Here's the reflective practice:
Recall one recent situation where you felt pressure to "just decide" or "move on."

❓Ask yourself:
→ What feeling was I trying to get away from? (Awkwardness, fear of conflict, fear of being wrong)
→ What did I do to reduce that feeling quickly? (Overruling, deflecting, postponing, sugarcoating)
→ If others copy that move, what kind of culture does it create in 6-12 months?

Your strategy says you value candor and truth-telling. 
But your discomfort management teaches people to be careful, to avoid tension, to wait for you to decide.

Culture follows the pattern you model, not the values you articulate.

👉🏾 If everyone handled discomfort the way you do in that moment, what would your culture look like a year from now?

The invitation isn't to confession.  It's to honest noticing.

What are you trying to resolve too quickly because it makes you uncomfortable?

That’s the question worth sitting with.

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You’re working late again. 
Not because the work requires it.

You’re answering emails that could wait. 
Refining a deck that’s already good enough. 
Reviewing work that your team can handle. 
Reorganizing priorities that won’t actually change anything.

And when you finally stop, you feel slightly better.
Not because something critical moved forward, but because 
you discharged some of the weight.

Most overwork at senior levels isn’t about workload. 
It’s about emotional regulation.

Research shows that overwork is often driven by anxiety reduction, not external demand. 

👉🏾 Workaholism functions as motion-as-relief, activity that creates a temporary sense of control while accelerating burnout. 
👉🏾 “Optimal busyness” feels energizing, even when it doesn’t meaningfully change outcomes.

You’re not working to create value. 
You’re working to discharge responsibility.

There’s a difference:

👉🏾 Productive work: Clear linkage between effort and outcome. Decisions made. Something shifts when you finish.
👉🏾 Motion-as-relief: High multitasking. Constant interruptions. Refining what’s already done. Activity that feels useful but erodes strategic capacity.

🚩 Multitasking alone can consume up to 40% of productive capacity. 
🚩 Visible responsiveness feels responsible, but it quietly degrades judgment and focus.

Productive work has a finish line. 
Motion-as-relief doesn’t.

When you stop, the weight is still there. 
You just feel slightly less anxious for having moved.
So you do it again the next night.

You’re not overworked because there’s too much to do. 
You’re overworked because holding responsibility without constant motion feels intolerable.

The weight of outcomes you can’t fully control. 
Decisions that won’t resolve cleanly. 
Accountability that sits heavy.
So you work, not to finish, but to discharge.

And every time you do, you reinforce the pattern: 
The only way to handle this weight is to stay busy.

👉🏾 Next time you catch yourself working late, ask: “Is this moving something forward or am I trying to feel better about what I’m carrying?”

👉🏾 If it’s the latter, stop. Sit with the weight.

That discomfort, holding responsibility without immediate action, that is the work.

Check out the REWIRED. newsletter (link in comments).

The pressure isn't resolving. 
The board wants results you can't deliver yet. 
The market is shifting faster than your strategy can adapt.

And you start compensating.

Not because it's needed. 
Because holding steady feels intolerable.

When pressure doesn't resolve, leaders start compensating. 
→ Over-communicating. 
→ Over-deciding. 
→ Over-functioning.

From the outside, it looks like leadership. 
From the inside, you know you're just creating motion.

👉🏾 Research shows compensation behaviors are stress responses, ways leaders create motion when steadiness feels intolerable. 

Short-term, they feel relieving, you're doing something. 
Long-term, they drain your reserves faster than the work itself ever could.

👉🏾 Studies on high-functioning burnout call this the "crash-out effect": sustained hyperactivation eventually leads to profound fatigue and cognitive fog. 

You look productive. 
You're running on fumes.
And the compensation? 

It's not fixing the pressure. 
It's creating the illusion of control.

Over-functioning is often rooted in survival strategies, where taking on extra responsibility became the way to stay safe in chaotic environments. 

That doesn't go away when you become a senior leader. It just gets more sophisticated.

→ You over-communicate because ambiguity feels dangerous. 
→ You over-decide because open loops feel like failure. 
→ You over-function because doing less feels like weakness.

If you’re working harder but not making progress,
If you’re exhausted but the pressure isn’t decreasing, 
you’re not leading. 

You’re compensating.
And the organization sees it. 

They don't see a leader holding complexity. 
They see someone who can't tolerate unresolved pressure.
So they start compensating too.

When you catch yourself sending the third follow-up in an hour, ask: 
"Is this needed, or am I just relieving discomfort?"

When you're about to decide just to close the loop, ask: 
"Is this decision ripe, or am I managing my own anxiety?"

The work isn't doing more. 
The work is learning to tolerate unresolved pressure without burning yourself out trying to fix it prematurely.

What pressure are you compensating around right now instead of actually holding?

The exec team is split on the decision. 
Your direct reports are watching for cues. 
The rumor mill is running.

And you're the only one who can hold this without flinching.

👉🏾 Leadership presence isn't confidence. It's containment.

It's not about projecting certainty when you don't have it. 
It's about holding... 
→ the tension
→ the contradictions, 
→ the ambiguity, 
→ the unresolved conflict,

So the organization doesn't fragment trying to fix it for you.

 🚩 When you don't contain, 
→ Your uncertainty becomes their crisis. 
→ Your frustration leaks. 
→ Your hesitation spreads as anxiety. 

👉🏾 And instead of managing the work, people start managing you, reading every signal, avoiding hard conversations, waiting for permission to move.

The system splinters. Not because the problem is hard, but because the tension has nowhere to land.

👉🏾 Leaders who contain emotion under pressure create psychological safety and reduce conflict. 

💥 When containment fails, anxiety converts into blame, avoidance, and factionalism.

🌱 Containment isn't about having the answer. 
It's about holding the question long enough for the organization to think.

✓ Name reality clearly. 
✓ Separate emotion from action. 
✓ Refuse to let pressure force premature resolution. 
✓ Give just enough structure so intensity becomes progress, not chaos.

If you don't hold the tension, the organization will break itself trying to resolve what you're exporting.

Check out the REWIRED. newsletter (link in comments).

Sunday night. You're already thinking about Monday, the decisions waiting, the tensions you'll need to manage, the misalignments you'll have to address.

Here's a different move:
Before Monday, choose one tension you will allow to remain unresolved this week, on purpose.

Not because you're avoiding it. 

👉🏾 Stability doesn’t come from answers. It comes from restraint.

Internal governance isn’t just structures and decisions. 
It’s how you hold tension when the room demands certainty too early.

This week, pick one tension you won't rush to fix:
→ A misalignment you'll name, but not force into resolution yet.
→ A decision you'll slow down so the team can catch up in context.
→ A conflict you'll hold the container for, instead of rescuing either side.

The signal your organization gets from that move is powerful:
→ "We don't confuse speed with leadership."
→ "We can stay in relationship while we disagree."
→ "We trust the system enough to tolerate some heat."

Research shows that when leaders name tension and intentionally hold it, rather than forcing resolution, the organizational temperature drops. 
→ People stop expecting instant answers. 
→ They start trusting that tension can exist without crisis.

Restraint teaches your organization how decisions really get made at this level: deliberately, with full context, without panic.

So this week, choose one tension you'll hold on purpose. 
Not forever. Just long enough to show that you can.

👉🏾 The organization is watching how you handle unresolved tension. 
And what they learn from that will shape their behavior far more than any strategy deck ever will.

If you're feeling this tension right now, if you're carrying something into Monday that you know you're about to rush, DM me "restraint." 

I'll send you a simple 5-minute framework for deciding which tension to hold and how to communicate it without spooking the organization.

Check out the REWIRED. newsletter (link in comments).

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The Battle

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