If you've led real change - the kind that rewires how an organization works - you’ve probably experienced that push/pull feeling…equal parts exhilaration and unease.
Well, a piece in Harvard Business Review finally named it. Thank you HBR!
Leading transformation means living with two forces pulling at you every day:
→ The drive that says push forward.
→ And the voice that questions…are you sure you’re heading in the right direction?
Most people think that the second voice is a flaw or a momentary lack of confidence and conviction you need to push past. Nope. Sit in the doubt for a minute. Let it move through you. Let it challenge you. Let it make you a more thoughtful leader.
Sitting with it will strengthen your narrative and sharpen your why. Sitting with it will unlock a new level of empathy…because whatever doubts you have, your teams have them as well.
Bottom line, it’s that ‘let’s go’/’oh wait!’ tension that makes real change possible. The leaders who feel both are the ones who actually understand the gravity of the work - the impact. The leaders who feel both are the ones actually doing the “in the weeds” work.
But - and this is the important piece - unmanaged, this tension can consume you.
Even if you accomplish what you set out to do, you can emerge depleted, isolated, and less effective for whatever comes next. Or, you can sit in the tension so long that you are no longer showing up with conviction, with decisiveness. That’s when you lose the room…and maybe yourself.
Was this email forwarded to you?
The Tension Isn't the Problem. Losing Your Balance Is.
At CBS News and Stations, my team was driving one of the most ambitious integrations in modern media. I believed in it completely. Still do.
But believing completely doesn't mean feeling certain every day. It means carrying the conviction and the doubt. Simultaneously.
The challenge isn't the doubt. It's what you do with it.
Here’s how leaders can lose their footing:
→ You overcontrol. You stop trusting anyone else's judgment. You become the bottleneck you're trying to eliminate. Your calendar is all review meetings. Your team stops bringing ideas because they know you'll rewrite them.
→ You punt…and call it patience. You tell yourself the timing isn't right. You need more data. The organization isn't ready. What you're really doing is retreating because the blowback is exhausting.
→ You pivot constantly. Every piece of feedback triggers a course correction. You're so afraid of the cliff that you never commit to the hill.
What's Actually at Stake: Trust.
When leaders lose their balance, trust goes first. Quietly.
Korn Ferry research this year: 86% of senior leaders believe their employees highly trust them. Only 67% of employees agree. And that figure is declining.
A 19-point trust illusion. Wow.
People don't lose trust because a leader made a hard call. They lose trust when they sense the leader isn't steady.
I like to say that trust is built in drops and lost in buckets. The bucket doesn't tip from one bad decision. It tips from sustained inconsistency your team absorbs day after day until one morning they just…stop leaning in.
Holding the Paradox of Doubt and Conviction
▹ Name the imbalance. Right now…are you overcontrolling, retreating, or pivoting? You're doing one of the three. Name it. The tension only controls you when it's unnamed.
▹ Make the vision tangible. Ask someone in the middle of your organization: "Can you see where we're going?" Not your chief of staff or head of comms. Not the direct report who always agrees with you. If they hesitate, your vision isn't clear enough. People can't trust a direction they can't see.
▹ Use humor. We can do serious work without taking ourselves so seriously. Humor in a high-stakes moment tells your team: I'm confident enough in what we're doing that I can laugh about the mess of it. That does more for trust than any town hall speech.
▹ Protect the doubt. It's not the enemy. It's data. Talk to your one friend who tells you the truth. But don't let it bleed into the room. The doubt makes you human. Managing it makes you a leader.
What I’m Watching & Reading:
Because good stories matter:
📖 The Obstacle is The Way by Ryan Holiday
📖 Advanced Introduction to Private Equity by Paul A. Gompers and Steven N. Kaplan
📺 Love Story
Every leader worth following has stood on top of the hill and the cliff’s edge. Sometimes in the same meeting.
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