Some leadership days feel inspiring.
You have time to think strategically. You have a great conversation with someone on your team. You make progress on something that matters. You remember why you wanted to lead in the first place.
And then there are the other days.
I had one of those recently.
I spent most of the day sitting at my computer, but by the end of it, I felt like I’d been fighting leadership battles like a warrior.
No sword required.
Just emails, decisions, problems that needed solving, difficult conversations, boundaries that needed holding, and issues I hadn’t even known existed when I started my day.
If you’ve led people for any length of time, you probably know exactly what I mean.
The Work Nobody Sees
We tend to talk about leadership in terms of vision, strategy, culture, growth, and influence.
All important.
But there’s another part of leadership that doesn’t make it into nearly as many LinkedIn posts.
It’s the emotional work.
It’s staying grounded when someone else is upset.
It’s making a decision you know won’t make everyone happy.
It’s resisting the urge to immediately fix someone’s discomfort.
It’s having the conversation you’ve been avoiding.
It’s deciding which problem actually belongs to you—and which one doesn’t.
And sometimes it’s simply trying not to absorb the emotional temperature of the entire organization.
That kind of leadership can be exhausting.
Not necessarily because you’re doing something wrong, but because leading human beings is inherently human work.
Not Every Fire Is Yours to Put Out
This is one of the lessons I’ve had to learn repeatedly as a leader.
When you’re competent, caring, and accustomed to solving problems, it’s incredibly easy to become the person everyone brings their problems to.
At first, that can even feel like good leadership.
They trust me.
They need me.
I can fix this.
But eventually you can find yourself at the center of everything.
Every decision.
Every conflict.
Every question.
Every emotional reaction.
That’s not sustainable leadership. And ultimately, it doesn’t help your team grow either.
One of my favorite questions when someone brings me a problem is incredibly simple:
“What do you think we should do?”
It shifts the conversation.
Instead of immediately becoming the answer person, I become the person helping someone else find the answer.
That’s empowerment.
And yes, sometimes I still have to make the call. Sometimes the problem genuinely belongs on my desk.
But not every fire needs me holding the hose.
Discomfort Isn’t Always a Problem
This may be one of the hardest leadership lessons of all.
Someone can be disappointed in your decision and the decision can still be right.
Someone can dislike a boundary and the boundary can still be appropriate.
Someone can feel uncomfortable receiving feedback and the feedback can still be necessary.
Your team experiencing discomfort doesn’t automatically mean you’ve failed as a leader.
For those of us who care deeply about people, that distinction matters.
Because otherwise we can spend an enormous amount of energy trying to make everyone feel okay.
We over-explain.
We rescue.
We soften boundaries.
We revisit perfectly reasonable decisions.
We take responsibility for feelings that aren’t actually ours to manage.
And eventually, we become exhausted.
Leading Without Losing Yourself
This is a big part of why I developed the EASE Approach and eventually wrote Leading Without Losing Yourself.
EASE isn’t about creating a workplace where nothing is difficult.
That’s not leadership. That’s fantasy.
It’s about learning how to navigate the difficult parts without losing yourself inside them.
Explore Emotions. Notice what’s happening in you before you react.
Authenticity. Lead from your values rather than constantly adjusting yourself to gain approval.
Solve Problems. Get curious about what’s actually happening instead of reacting to the loudest symptom.
Empower. Help people develop their own capacity instead of making yourself responsible for everything.
I don’t practice these perfectly.
That’s actually the point.
EASE isn’t something I developed because I mastered leadership. It grew out of years of trying to figure out how to lead people, run an organization, make mistakes, learn from them—and still recognize myself at the end of the day.
Some Days You’re the Warrior
So yes, some days leadership feels meaningful and energizing.
Other days, you close your laptop and wonder what exactly just happened.
Those days don’t necessarily mean you’re failing.
But they are worth paying attention to.
When you have one, ask yourself:
What actually required me today—and what did I carry simply because I’m accustomed to carrying it?
That’s a question I’ve been asking myself lately.
Because sustainable leadership isn’t about becoming strong enough to carry everything.
Sometimes it’s about finally realizing you don’t have to.
And after a day of fighting leadership battles?
Tomorrow, we EASE.
