Lead Lightly: Pressure isn't the villain. Panic is.
High stakes don't wreck leaders. Playing small, second-guessing, and crowd-sourcing your confidence does.
Pressure calls your Bluff. It exposes the gaps you've been ignoring.
This month, I'm handing you no-nonsense tactics to help you stay sharp, grounded, and gutsy, right when it counts most. No fluff. No corporate kumbaya. Just straight-up leadership grit.
#1: Use a decision filter
Not every decision deserves your energy. Build a simple filter to stop overthinking and start acting.
Insight: two questions. Every time.
Is this aligned with our strategic goals?
Will this create long-term value or just short-term relief?
If the answer is no to both, it’s not your priority. Move on.
🔹 Try this: take one active decision on your plate and apply the filter. If it’s not aligned or valuable? Pause it. You’re not here to win every battle—just the right ones.
#2: Stop crowd-sourcing decisions
Let’s call this what it is: over-democracy.
Inclusive leadership doesn’t mean putting every choice to a vote. When everyone gets a say, no one takes ownership. "Decision by consensus" often just dilutes the outcome and delays progress.
Insight: you weren’t hired to please everyone. You were hired to lead.
🔹 Try this: before pulling more people into the mix, ask:
Do I need more clarity?
Or am I avoiding the risk of calling it myself?
Involve people for insight, not approval. And when the moment comes; step up, decide, and own the outcome.
#3: Separate urgency from importance
Urgency is noisy. Importance is quiet. Confuse the two, and you’ll be running all day without moving forward.
Insight: just because something's hot doesn’t mean it matters.
🔹 Try this: use this quick sort:
Urgent and important? Do it now.
Important but not urgent? Schedule it.
Urgent but not important? Delegate it.
Neither? Delete it.
If everything feels urgent, something’s off with your filters.
#4: Lead through ambiguity, not pretend it isn’t there
You don’t need to have it all figured out. In fact, pretending you do creates more anxiety than calm.
Insight: when the outcome’s unclear, process becomes your anchor.
🔹 Try this: in your next team update, say: “Here’s what we know. Here’s what’s still murky. Here’s how we’re moving forward anyway.”
That level of transparency builds trust, and models how to lead when certainty’s not on offer.
#5: Reflect to improve
We’ve made reflection optional in leadership. It’s not. It’s how you build decision-making muscle.
Insight: if you're not looking back, you're not learning.
🔹 Try this: after your next big call, good, bad, or messy, ask yourself:
What helped me decide?
What did I ignore or overlook?
What would I do differently next time?
That ten-minute reflection could save you hours of rework next quarter.
So, what’s one decision you’re sitting on? Let’s work it through together.