My boss thought I’d freeze under pressure

Fourteen years ago, I was preparing to take my boss’s place when we had a conversation neither of us was particularly comfortable having.

I told him what worried me. He was strong and experienced, and I was still young. I was afraid that if he didn’t like the way I handled the job, he’d step back in and take over.

Then he told me what worried him.

When something happened and everyone turned to me for direction, he was afraid they’d see a deer in the headlights.

That wasn’t exactly what I wanted to hear.

But I’ve thought about that conversation many times since, because eventually, if you’re responsible for something, people do turn and look at you. A key employee leaves. A system that has barely been holding together finally breaks. A problem everyone has worked around can no longer be ignored.

Those moments can feel as if they appeared overnight. Usually, they didn’t.

Most problems give us clues

It’s easy to spend most of the day dealing with what’s directly in front of us. Meetings need attention. Customers need answers. Employees need decisions. Deadlines don’t particularly care that you’d like some uninterrupted time to think about the future.

All of that work is legitimate. It’s also consuming.

The danger is becoming so focused on managing what is already happening that you stop noticing what is beginning to happen. A staffing problem grows quietly. A temporary workaround becomes the normal process. One employee stays overloaded. The same customer concern keeps resurfacing.

Individually, those things are easy to explain away. Maybe this month is unusually busy. Maybe we’ll fix the process after the next project. Maybe that customer complaint really is an isolated one.

But when the same thing keeps happening, it’s worth paying attention.

By the time everyone agrees there’s a problem, the problem may have been introducing itself for months.

Foresight isn’t about predicting the future

We sometimes talk about foresight as though good leaders should be able to see around corners and know exactly what’s coming next.

That’s not particularly realistic.

More often, foresight is simply noticing patterns early enough to do something with them. It’s recognizing that the workaround you called temporary six months ago is still here. It’s noticing that the same person is always overloaded or that the same decision keeps getting postponed.

It’s less about predicting the future than recognizing what the present is becoming.

That distinction matters because noticing something early gives you one of the most valuable things you can have when a difficult decision is coming: time.

Time to understand what’s changing. Time to talk about it with the people who will be affected. Time to ask questions and consider options before the situation becomes urgent.

That doesn’t mean every concern is a warning sign. Experience should make us careful about treating every frustration as evidence that something bigger is coming. Sometimes a bad week is just a bad week.

The challenge is knowing when you’re no longer looking at isolated incidents.

Start with what keeps coming back

If you’re trying to look ahead, you don’t need a crystal ball. Start with repetition.

Which deadline keeps slipping? Who is consistently overloaded? What customer concern keeps resurfacing? Which decision have you postponed more than once?

Any one of those may be temporary. A pattern deserves more attention.

So ask yourself: What has been showing up repeatedly that I’m still treating as an isolated incident?

Once something comes into view, name it while there is still time to do something about it. You don’t need to have every answer before you acknowledge what you’re seeing.

Urgency asks you to react to what has already arrived. Foresight gives you the chance to notice what’s approaching.

I still think about what my boss told me 14 years ago. At the time, I heard it mostly as a warning about what might happen when everyone looked to me for an answer.

What I’ve come to understand is that being ready for those moments starts much earlier.

By the time everyone turns and looks, you’re already in it.

Seeing a pattern in your organization that you’re not sure what to make of? I’d be interested to hear what you’re noticing. Email me at joshua@joshcolecoaching.com