How to Maintain Leadership Momentum When Plans Fall Apart
When the world is upside-down, trust keeps your team moving.
The past week saw us move into spring, the first season and quarter of the year now closed.
It certainly had more than its share of surprises, with many leaders crumpling up their plans for 2026 and just trying to get through the week in one piece.
I’m on holiday this week and next, hopefully enjoying a hiking trip in Cornwall as you read this - and even this pause had its uncertainty. This was meant to be a motorbike trip, but winter made a late comeback and with freezing temperatures and the risk of dangerous road conditions, we regretfully chose to switch to the car instead.
Leadership R·I·D·E: Why Plans Fail but Vision Endures
This very much characterises the thrust of the ‘DRIVE with Balance’ element of the Leadership R·I·D·E Framework in my upcoming book. Drive in this context is not operating a car, but the mechanical parts that convert the power of an engine/motor into forward motion.
In a business context, we set plans, gather the resources to implement them and set off. That’s when uncertainty strikes, with shifting external conditions, personnel challenges and a slashed budget.
This is arguably the toughest part of leadership, keeping the bike upright when everything is shaking. Keeping a crew engaged and moving towards a shared objective they see value in. I’ve been speaking to several senior HR leaders in Luxembourg over recent weeks and one pattern emerges clearly. The happiest and most productive teams, even in firms that have had layoffs, have a leader who is clear on the vision and mission, but is flexible on how to get there, allowing the team creativity in execution.
“The toughest part of leadership is keeping the bike upright when everything is shaking. You don’t do that by clamping down; you do it by giving your team the space to self-correct.”
Loose Wrists: The Secret to Navigating Corporate Turbulence
I use the motorbiking analogy for this style of leadership as keeping your wrists loose. Whilst the DRIVE discipline is about maintaining momentum through the storm, the 'how' is actually found in the next stage of the framework that covers the relational aspect: ENGAGE your Ecosystem.
When the road gets rough, the bike starts to wobble around. Instinct tells us to tighten our grip, but that makes the rider fight the road - we get tired but the road does not and we’ll eventually hurt. The way to make it through safely is, conversely, to loosen your grip, to let the front wobble a little and self-correct. Just as the leader does not clamp down on the team, but allows them flexibility in reaching an agreed goal.
In the vein of pause, this post is an invitation for you to reflect on the way you are leading at the moment, and here’s a modified version of one reflective exercise from my book. Ideally you do this by hand, there is something about the physical act of writing that slows the mind enough to let the real answers surface.
Mirror Check
Q1. Reflect on a recent instruction you gave. Did you provide a clear destination and guardrails, or did you try to provide the turn-by-turn like a GPS? If you stepped back to give your team more space, would the result be a genuine disaster, or might they surprise you with a different route than the one you would have taken?
Q2. In your team meetings and one-to-ones, are you the first or last to speak? Your silence gives others the space to speak. If your team is hesitating to take initiative, is it because they have been trained to wait for your direction?
Thank you for reading this far. If any of this resonates, I’d love to welcome you as a reader and to stay connected. Please join the mailing list for future posts, share your thoughts in the comments, or find me on LinkedIn.
