A few months ago I was with a leader who, on paper, had everything capacity is supposed to require: experience, real skill, the trust of her peers and her leadership with hard problems. She had just completed a complex change project from start to finish. And she was running on empty.

A division head I work with had just come back from leave. While he was away, his deputies had run a challenging project on his behalf. They had held the first team conversations about a major change the company was rolling out from the top. The kind of change where nobody knows yet what it really means for their day-to-day work. He'd been anxious about leaving in the middle of it.

Preparation Has a Ceiling. Most Leaders Hit It in the Room That Matters Most.

A few months ago I worked with the Head of department in a large company. The organisation has regional presence across several markets, he leads a senior team. The task was to accelerate team performance: better collaboration, higher effectiveness, stronger relationships across the leadership group.

Last time, I wrote about the cost of pushing through and why great performance requires to stop and to pause. Read it here.

This time I’d like to take that further. Because stopping the push is only the beginning. The harder question is: what do you replace it with?

I'm preparing to climb Mt. Matterhorn (Switzerland) later this year. For weeks, my training has been hard and consistent — long hikes with added weight, stair master sessions, strength training, conditioning, mobility. I have integrated nutrition, sleep, training and data. My body and mind have been completely committed to building the capacity for one of the most demanding climbs in the Alps.

In one of my recent coaching conversations, a more junior leader asked me: "I am observing my senior leaders and what I am always impressed about is how they see something I don't see. I see only one side of the picture, and they can see both, and even more. How does one develop this skill?"

It is a great question. And the honest answer is: slowly, over time and only through doing the work yourself.

Most days, leadership isn’t clear-cut. It’s not either/or - it’s both. Strength and softness. Clarity and uncertainty. Action and pause. This edition is about the power of holding tension without losing yourself in it. A mountain story, a quiet breakthrough, and a practice to help you lead with more presence in the grey.

June 2023. I'm sitting in a classroom at Harvard Kennedy School, listening to Professor Ron Heifetz. He says something that stops me: “Leadership is the work of disappointing people”.

We’re entering a leadership era where capacity matters more than competence. Don’t get me wrong, I am not claiming that competence does not matter. In fact it is one of the core capabilities to build ones authority and advance through leadership ranks, however  - they only take you as far as performance. Your capacity is what helps you to help sustain performance under pressure, complexity, and ambiguity.