Last week, I had dinner with a healthcare executive. They shared something I’ve heard many times, but this really shook them.
“I’ve heard ‘we’re stretched’ so many times it almost becomes background noise. But when I saw my manager on the verge of tears, I could see myself in that job a few years ago. It hit me hard.”
They had walked into a moment they can’t forget. A program manager was on the brink. Not dramatic or performative. Just overwhelmed.
Overwhelmed by what to do next.
Overwhelmed trying to keep staff aligned and functioning so patients could receive the best care possible.
Overwhelmed trying to balance day-to-day operations with the projects that are supposed to improve the system, while the system is already straining.
Overwhelmed because they care.
When my friend described it, I could picture it immediately. The hallway. The pace. The feeling of the day slipping out of your hands. The quiet math you’re doing in your head while trying to look calm. I've been there, too.
Because in moments like that, the problem isn’t effort. It isn’t competence. It’s weight.
You can have good people and still have too much to carry.
The real tension is the mismatch many of us are starting to treat as normal: demand is rising or shifting faster than capacity can adapt.
In healthcare it shows up as access, safety and workforce strain. In education it looks like enrolment pressure, student needs and reputational scrutiny. In government and municipalities it’s service expectations meeting budget constraint. In nonprofits it’s rising need with thin infrastructure. In business it’s customer expectations, delivery pressure and talent constraints hitting at the same time.
And all of it is happening while boards, funders, regulators, media and communities are asking for proof, speed and certainty at the same time.
Different context. Same lived reality, where there is too much to hold, not enough room to absorb it.
What struck me about the story is that the manager wasn’t asking for a new plan. They were trying to keep the day - and themselves - together.
And that’s where people misunderstand capacity. They think it’s mainly a budget issue.
But capacity includes the people you can hire and keep. It’s space. It’s tools that work. It’s systems that connect instead of fragment. It’s processes that don’t consume the day. It’s enough stability to plan without everything changing again next week.
When those conditions fade, the work doesn’t just get harder. It gets heavier.
So the hardest part becomes the choices you’re forced to make, often in real time, often with no clean win.
It’s a constant balancing act. You’re trying to get through today without breaking your people, while still protecting space for the work that would reduce pressure over time. And every choice is visible, which means you feel the cost of what you can’t do.
That’s what I think we’re underestimating when we talk about leadership right now.
A lot of leaders are being held accountable for outcomes they can’t fully control.
This shows up as labour markets, partners, policy, funding models and ever-changing public behaviour.
That’s real.
But it’s also true that leaders control a few things that make an outsized difference in moments like the one my friend described. Not in a heroic way. In a practical one.
- You can control whether people are left guessing.
- You can control whether priorities are clear enough to act on.
- You can control whether trade-offs are named out loud, or left to show up as hallway stress.
- You can control the decision conditions that help choices hold, instead of being revisited and re-litigated every week.
- You can control what people leaders are authorized to say and do when the day goes sideways.
When those things are unclear, guessing becomes a second job. People fill in the blanks. They brace. They overcompensate. They argue. They redo work. And then they carry that worry home.
Your biggest costs and risks shows up in people first.
Yes, the money shows up in overtime, agency staffing, delays and reactive spending.
But when labour is your biggest budget item, the real cost shows up in burnout and turnover, in managers carrying too much, in hesitation and rework, and in trust thinning inside the organization and then outside it.
You can feel it in how hard everyone is working, and how slow it can still feel to move.
This time of year adds another layer.
Many organizations are coming out of fiscal year-end right now. People are still tired. Priorities are bring reshuffled. Budgets are being closed and reopened in different forms.
And there’s often a familiar push to show traction by June, before many boards and councils pause for the summer.
That push makes sense. But it can also create a real risk by trying to force visible progress so quickly that direction shifts week to week, managers have to translate moving targets, and people start to feel like nothing is stable enough to trust.
So where’s the hope?
- Hope comes from getting clear about what you can affect, and acting there.
- Hope isn’t pretending demand will drop or capacity will magically appear.
- Hope is reducing the part that drains people fastest: uncertainty.
- It’s naming reality clearly enough that people can stop guessing and start acting.
If you’re in that “prove traction by June” window, here’s a plain-language move I’ve seen help. Not because it’s clever, but because it takes weight off people.
Say this in words your managers and people leaders can easily repeat:
- What we’re protecting for the next 90 days: ___________________________
- What we’re pausing, and what we’re moving by June: ___________________________
- What’s in our control this month, and what isn’t: ___________________________
- Who decides what, and what managers are authorized to say when things change: ___________________________
That isn’t a communications tactic. It’s a leadership practice.
It makes decisions more likely to hold. It reduces churn. It protects people from carrying uncertainty alone. And it gives the program manager in the hallway something they can actually use when they have to answer, “What do we do next?”
Until next time,
Abby