After my newsletter on the push & pull leaders feel, I had more than one client conversation about the same general question:
“Okay, I’ve noticed my current pattern in response to stress.
But what do I actually DO when everything is moving this fast? When there’s too much to respond to, prepare for, and take care of on any given day?”
There is no perfect answer.
However, you can build a more supportive environment for this era.
Noticing your stress response is the internal work. But sustainable leadership in crisis also requires external systems, practices, and structures that hold you and your team steady when everything feels urgent.
This is your practical checklist for leading through uncertainty.
8 Leadership Steps for Uncertain & Urgent Times
1. Map out your different quick, slow, and not yet decisions
What decisions need to be made quickly? What decisions are coming and need to be made slowly, inclusively, and thoughtfully? What decisions aren’t actually urgent and can wait?
2. Make room for responsiveness
Build time now to be responsive to future emergencies and opportunities. Block time on your calendar to reflect, gather with others, discuss pivots, and write communications. If nothing urgent comes up, use that breathing room for something slower—like a walk or reflection.
3. Know your current priorities
What are your (and your team’s) top 2 priorities? Be prepared to cancel, stop, or slow down non-priority projects.
4. Build in the supports you need for yourself
Time for reflection, rest and movement, community, pausing to notice joyful “glimmer” moments.
5. Recognize what is already working
Acknowledge the work you’re already doing toward bringing about a more just world.
6. Remember what others are holding
Build in slowdowns, breaks, recognition moments, and community connection for those you work with.
7. Find doable ways to plug in outside your work
Find one simple, doable way you can plug into community care or resistance beyond your job.
8. Build a communication response policy
Create guidelines now for how you’ll respond to large-scale national, local, and geopolitical actions and injustices. Decide which issues you’ll respond to internally and publicly, using your mission, values, and scope as guides.
You don’t need to implement all eight at once.
Pick one or two that feel most urgent for you right now.
And remember: you don’t have to build these systems alone.
I believe in you.