Over the past few weeks I’ve been writing about upstream thinking — preventing problems before they happen. But leadership doesn’t always give you that luxury.
Recently I found myself in a situation that snuck up on me. Nothing dramatic, nothing malicious, just a moment where several assumptions surfaced at once. Expectations that hadn’t been stated. Interpretations that weren’t aligned. Outcomes that different people were imagining in slightly different ways.
No one had done anything wrong.
But suddenly it was clear we weren’t operating from the same picture of reality.
How This Happens
Assumptions are strange things. They don’t show up on agendas. They don’t appear in meeting notes. They live inside phrases like:
- “We’re all aligned on this.”
- “Everyone understands the plan.”
- “This should be straightforward.”
Until one day they aren’t.
When assumptions collide, the gap between what people thought was happening and what is actually happening becomes visible. And if the situation is time-sensitive, you don’t get the luxury of slow reflection. You have to align the room in real time.
What Leadership Looks Like in That Moment
When this happened recently, the first step was simple: gather the group.
Not to debate personalities or defend past decisions. Just to align on the fundamentals.
What outcome are we actually trying to achieve?
What assumptions are we operating under?
Where are those assumptions different?
And what needs to happen next?
Those questions slowed the room down just enough to surface the differences that had been sitting quietly beneath the surface. Sometimes the leadership move isn’t solving the problem immediately. It’s making the invisible visible.
The Opposite of Upstream
Ironically, this experience felt like the opposite of the upstream thinking I’ve been writing about. Upstream leadership is about prevention. Seeing patterns early. Removing friction before it becomes a problem.
But sometimes you discover the misalignment only after it’s already in motion. That’s frustrating. It was frustrating for me.
Yet those moments are also revealing. They show where assumptions were left unstated, where expectations were implied instead of clarified, and where leaders (including ourselves!) could have been more explicit earlier.
The Discipline Going Forward
What I’m trying to do more often is adopt a bit of shoshin, a beginner’s mind. In this context, this mindset looks like:
- Not assuming the room shares the same interpretation.
- Not assuming expectations are obvious.
- Not assuming silence means alignment.
Instead, I’ll try asking one more question. Going one layer deeper. Working harder to surface the assumptions while there’s still time to adjust.
Because most leadership surprises aren’t caused by bad intent. They’re caused by unspoken expectations meeting reality. And when those assumptions finally collide, the leader’s job isn’t to assign blame — it’s to bring the room back into alignment… and move forward together.
