This past week, everything seemed to go sideways.
My email account locked me out. There were banking issues that took hours to untangle. Messages weren’t going through. Phone calls dropped. A few key systems decided now was the time to glitch. And all of this was happening while I was supposed to be on a family vacation.
The kind of week where, if you wrote it into a script, people might say it was too unrealistic.
In the middle of it all, I caught myself asking a half-serious question:
What’s a leader to do?
And then, a quieter question followed it:
What kind of leader do I want to be, especially when things don’t go according to plan?
Leadership Doesn’t Stop (But It Does Shift)
The truth is, leadership doesn’t take time off.
Even when we’re away from our desk, we’re still leading, through our mindset, our choices, and our presence (or absence).
But leadership also doesn’t mean doing everything personally. That’s a hard lesson to internalize, especially when the default wiring is to step in and fix things. And when you’re the one everyone seemingly turns to, the pressure to always be “on” can feel inescapable.
But here’s the thing I’m learning:
- Not everything has to be handled in the moment.
- Not every system failure is a leadership failure.
- And not every fire needs your hands on the hose.
Trust Is a Two-Way Street
In moments like this, your team is watching.
Not to see if you have all the answers, but to see how you handle uncertainty.
To see if you stay calm, if you delegate, if you trust them.
And maybe even more importantly: your family is watching too.
It’s easy to let the chaos creep in and take over. To justify answering one more call or staying up to solve a problem that could wait until morning. But if we say we lead by example, that applies at home just as much as at work.
Sometimes, the most powerful message a leader can send is:
“I trust my team, and I trust that this moment with my family matters too.”
Choose Your Response
You don’t always get to choose your circumstances. But you do get to choose your response.
Last week was frustrating. Things didn’t go as planned. But it was also a reminder of how much I’ve grown — and how much more there is to learn.
If you’re in a season where everything feels off-balance, I get it. You’re not alone.
Just remember: your presence matters more than your perfection.
And your response will shape far more than your to-do list.
