18 Jun What Is It Like to Be a Leader Right Now? | Leadership

What I’ve Been Noticing In Conversations with Leaders

I’ve found myself sitting with this question recently: What is is like to experience leadership right now?

Not because leadership has ever been easy. Most of the leaders I work with have spent years, and often decades, carrying significant responsibility. They have navigated difficult decisions, periods of uncertainty, organizational change, growth, setbacks, and successes. They are experienced people who have learned how to adapt, persevere, and lead through challenges.

Yet something feels different in many of the conversations I’m having.

The specifics vary considerably from one leader to the next. One may be navigating a significant organizational initiative. Another may be managing the demands that come with growth, restructuring, or changing expectations. Others are trying to support their teams while balancing competing priorities and increasing demands on their own time and attention. On the surface, these situations appear unrelated. Yet beneath them, I often hear a similar experience. Many leaders describe feeling as though there is very little space between one responsibility and the next, one decision and the next, one challenge and the next.

What strikes me is that these conversations are rarely about a lack of capability. Quite the opposite. The leaders I work with are often thoughtful, intelligent, and deeply committed to the people and organizations they serve. They care about results. They care about culture. They care about doing meaningful work and making good decisions. Yet despite that commitment and capability, I increasingly find myself listening to leaders who are asking questions that seem less about leadership itself and more about their experience of leadership.

The questions are not always spoken directly. They often emerge through stories. Stories about calendars that are full from morning until evening. Stories about finally arriving at a vacation only to realize how long it has been since there was time to think. Stories about carrying concern for organizational performance while simultaneously caring about the people affected by difficult decisions. Stories about wanting to be present for family, health, relationships, and personal priorities while also feeling a strong sense of responsibility toward work.

What I find particularly interesting is that many coaching conversations begin with a business issue and eventually move somewhere deeper. A leader may initially want to discuss a team challenge, a stakeholder relationship, an organizational initiative, or an important decision. Yet as we explore the situation together, the conversation often expands beyond the issue itself. We begin talking about energy, perspective, competing priorities, personal values, and how someone wants to show up as a leader. We explore not only what they are doing, but how they are experiencing what they are doing.

I sometimes wonder whether this aspect of leadership receives less attention than it deserves. Organizations often focus on performance, strategy, execution, and results. Those things matter. Yet behind every decision, every initiative, and every organizational outcome is a human being attempting to navigate competing demands while remaining thoughtful, effective, and aligned with what matters most. Leadership may be visible through actions and outcomes, but it is experienced internally through thoughts, emotions, energy, relationships, and the meaning people attach to their work.

Perhaps this is one reason so many leaders describe feeling stretched, even when things appear to be going relatively well. The challenge is not always the presence of a single major issue. Often it is the ongoing responsibility of holding many things at once. Supporting a team while managing expectations from above. Driving performance while caring about wellbeing. Making difficult decisions while recognizing their impact on others. Trying to remain present and thoughtful while moving at a pace that leaves little room for reflection.

As I reflect on these conversations, I find myself less interested in what leaders should do and more interested in understanding what leadership feels like for them. What are they carrying? What are they learning? What are they questioning? What are they discovering about themselves? What helps them remain grounded, thoughtful, and connected to what matters most?

Perhaps that is why I continue returning to the same question: What is it like to be a leader right now?

Not as a question to answer once and move on from, but as a question worth revisiting periodically. Because our experience of leadership changes. Our circumstances change. Our priorities change. We change.

And perhaps one of the most important things a leader can do from time to time is pause long enough to notice. To notice how they are experiencing their work. To notice how they are experiencing their life. To notice what is supporting them and what may be quietly draining them. And to consider whether they are leading in a way that is aligned not only with what they are trying to achieve, but also with how they want to experience this stage of their life and leadership. Creating space for that kind of reflection is one of the reasons I developed Executive EDGE, a leadership development experience designed to support leaders in applying learning directly to the realities they face every day.