The Power of the Pause: Leadership Lessons in Times of Crisis

Confessions 2.5.25 Layci & Mary
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[00:00:00] Welcome to Confessions of a Terrible Leader, where real leaders share the raw truth about the lessons they learned the hard way so you don't have to. Join our host, Layci Nelson, founder of Transcend Leadership Collective and former terrible leader. On this podcast, we invite you to step into the confessional and get real with the messy stories and behind the scenes reality of leadership.

Let's get to it. Hello friends, and welcome back to Confessions of a Terrible Leader. I'm your friendly neighborhood podcast producer, Mary Skop, here today with Layci Nelson, our fearless leader. Layci, welcome to this wintry edition of the Q& A with Layci and Mary. Thank you. Thank you. I truly love recording these episodes, so it's really fun.

It's fun. I'm ready for whatever you throw at me. Okay. I think I am. Maybe I'm not. You are. I know you are. Layci has had a little baby sneak peek of what I'm going to ask. I did. I did. It's a [00:01:00] question of vulnerability because we like to practice what we preach here at Transcend Leadership Collective, and sometimes that's really hard, and sometimes it's not that difficult.

But today, I'm going to ask Layci to step into the confessional for a moment. Yep. Yep. Can you share with the listeners, what is one thing that you wish you had done differently in 2024 as a leader? If you could press rewind and do a redo, what would you do? Okay, it took me 0. 2 seconds to come up with this because I have been reaping the harvest of this choice that I made for several months.

And it impacts every single person on the team. And so, what my confession is, is Listeners, you may or may not know, I lost my dad at the end of August, my dad died. And right at that exact time, I mean, within a week prior, perhaps, it was like, I think maybe one week prior, I had [00:02:00] onboarded a fractional marketing director to come in and help us out and get some pieces in order.

My intention being To be fully engaged in getting him connected, onboarded, getting all of us with very clear expectations to be in the middle of the wobble that will happen when you change your team in a way like that. That was my intention, and then, unexpectedly, My dad, sort of unexpected. That's a whole nother episode.

It is. It is. Yeah, my dad had chronic health issues for a long time, but his passing was not something like we knew was gonna be super soon. So, anyways. Right. At that point, What I should have done is had a discussion and just paused the project. See if I could pause the project contractually, can we pause this until probably the right time would have been right now in the new year.

Right. And I [00:03:00] didn't do that. Part of it is honestly, I didn't think because I went into just reactive shock, grief. I did know to take some time off. So I have learned from my last loss. But pushing myself to work through it wasn't the answer, but what I did not do effectively was back up and look at all the what's new, what can be paused, what do I want to focus on, where do I want to put my very limited capacity and energy that I do have.

I didn't do that inventory. And it's just one more lesson stacked up, you know, okay, unfortunately, I know life is going to hit bumps again. When I have something of that magnitude happen again, because life is life and it will, I need to not only take the time off that I need, not try to push through, and also to take inventory of, is there anything that we need to put on pause?

Yeah, that was my biggest [00:04:00] mistake. And things have been bumpy, rocky, communication hasn't been clear, roles and expectations of who's carrying out which parts with all that's required when you're getting your marketing in order. That was really messy and I am the person that is accountable to the mess, not anyone else.

On the team. Including the person that we brought on. Should he be listening? It's not you, it's me. Hi, I'm the problem. It's me. It was not my most, by any stretch, smooth, glorious onboarding of anyone. I should have paused it. And I didn't. And lesson number 9, 226 learned. Right. But that was definitely my biggest mistake because not only was it like, well, the resources could have probably been used more effectively, obviously I want to be a good steward of every cent that comes into the business, but also the questioning, the disconnect, the confusion it causes within the [00:05:00] team, that's already dealing with a boss with less capacity than I normally have.

Was not helpful. So there you go. That's my 2024 confessional what I learned And I'm giving myself grace and now I'm putting in the work, the time, the thought to clean it up. I mean, it's not like, Oh, the world's falling apart, but it is something that needs to be refined and should have happened a long time ago.

And it didn't. There we go. That is a tough one. And when you were talking about, I should have paused, it made me think about our company scorecard and how we have different options. We have choices of how we want to prioritize our projects, and we have a behind, in progress, pause, we do have a pause button, and we have a done, and done is like the most, of course, the glorious one, the green check mark, we're like, yes, done.

Yeah, yes. It made me realize when you said that, the pause [00:06:00] button is the one the entire team uses the least. That is so true. I just realized that. Real time revelation, folks. We're not good at pausing. No, no. We're really not good at it. We're not. And we all have had, without going into any detail, it's safe to say that every single team member this year has dealt with a wild amount of life.

And grief and surprises, not happy surprises, not a surprise party, but like this is terrible. Right. But we've had amazing and joyful things happen as well. Yes. Realizing we utilize that pause button the least out of all of the options. Have we ever? I think twice. I think maybe twice. Twice sounds about right.

I think I've utilized it once. Which is ridiculous, and I should not do that to myself. Right. This is a terrific lesson for all of us to learn. Yeah. To utilize that pause button, whether it's literal or figurative, please use your pause button. A million percent. Use your pause button [00:07:00] because there's going to be things that can't pause.

Yeah. Like I can't pause making payroll. That's not gonna work. That's true. That's gonna lead to other problems. Exactly. I can't. pause other things. And I think in the moment, it is very uncomfortable to do it, to hit pause. It feels yucky. It feels like failure to some of us. Yeah. Which it's not, but we have been programmed and socialized.

So it feels like we're not doing something we're supposed to be doing. It's an incomplete, we don't want to take the DNF did not finish. Right. We don't want to take that. However, I will say, you know, I'm talking to myself very firmly, it's the lazy option because I'm not willing to take the pain and to put in the thought work of, okay, we have to prioritize because if my capacity went from 10 down to a four, something is going to break.

And when I choose not to be intentional about what I'm [00:08:00] pausing and the chips just fall where they may, that is not an accountable. Effective, best practice, best way to approach it. Yeah. But it in the moment is the easiest way, in the moment, to approach it. Sure. Cause we think, I can't stop. I have got to push through, push ahead.

It's such a conditioning, like you said, it is absolutely social conditioning. And we are so accustomed to just doing that, and you're right, in the moment, it is easier to just head down, just keep plowing through, without counting the cost of what other things are going to be lost along the way. And it's going to take us even longer to get back to where we were going.

Yes. It's not a time saver. It is not. It feels like it in the moment, but it's not. I think one of the things that we have started doing in our reviews is going, what are the gains we made that we don't want to lose? Yeah. I love that question. What [00:09:00] are the gains that we don't want to have fall apart because we're not giving them the time and attention that they need?

And I think that that could be a great starting question next time I hit a bump. What are the gains we don't want to lose? And also remembering that missed opportunity is not a failing of any sort. It's a decision. A missed opportunity, it actually can be the best choice you make for your organization at that time.

Because of things like bandwidth capacity executing at the level that you want to execute at. We are growing very quickly right now, which is an exciting place to be. Mm hmm. And I have to continue to be disciplined, which I'm pretty effective at when I'm not in crises. Right. What I'm learning is, when crises hit, it's more important than ever that I pause.

Mm. Cultivate the pause. Mm. And go, okay, I'm going to go from a nine [00:10:00] to a three. And I'm probably going to be at a three for a couple months. Yeah. What are the most important things? What are the gains? Not bringing in new. Right. What are the gains? What are the things we want to, that I want to hold on to?

Where do I want to pour my emotional energy, time energy? What kind of questions do I want to be answering, right? What am I going to be up for, for fielding during this time? And giving all of you permission to ask me those really hard questions next time crises hit. Yeah. I hope I get some years in between major things.

I sure hope you do. I would like that. It's been a rough go. Like, uh, there's been much, much loss in a shockingly short amount of time and yes, I hope there's a lot of peace ahead for quite some time. Me too. I'm not counting on it because I'm very much a pragmatic and a realist. I'm hopeful for it and I will welcome it, but I also am not going to operate in a state of catastrophizing where I'm just always [00:11:00] waiting for the other shoe to drop, right?

Oh gosh, that's even more crippling. You can't do anything then. When thinking about grief, especially grief, inevitably rewires our brains. Yep. They are not the same afterwards. And when I hear you say, I'm giving myself grace. I'm really glad to hear that because your brain does what it's going to do in grief.

And I think grace is the only way through that. Yes. Yes. If you have not experienced deep grief yet in your life, I'm actually happy for you. And Pragmatic cheerful Layci coming in here. You will. Yeah. Don't worry, kids. It gets much worse. No, I'm kidding.

A very cheerful elderly gentleman used to say that to me at a church I used to attend. I did not take offense to it because he was such a loving and sweet individual and he was not dismissing other people's difficulties, but in the right moment. His timing was always good. He would say, don't worry, [00:12:00] kids, it gets much worse.

Anyway, on that delightful note. Oh, I will say I never used to understand when I was younger. I'm not I'm still not a crier, but I never used to understand when I was younger. Why? A lot of people that were my age now would, like, tear up so easily. Ugh. Things would hit them and they would get overwhelmed with emotion.

And I couldn't relate at all. I was like, why are people crying about all kinds of stuff? What's your problem? Yeah. Right. Like, pulled together. Yeah. I now have a whole nother level of tenderness. that only in me was born through experiencing really hard stuff. It makes the beautiful moments in life that much more beautiful.

Yeah. I now have a deeper understanding of why a lot of very elderly people love babies. Oh, yeah. Yeah. Right? They like hold them and they'll weep, not losing it, but there will be tears streaming down their [00:13:00] face. Yeah, it's life. Yeah, it's incredible. Hopefully I get to be a hundred and holding a baby, right?

Like I'm starting to understand the ups and downs of life allows me to just exist at a deeper level across the board. Oh, absolutely. It is the gift of aging. And you and I are both in our middle age years and we still have kids at home. Yep. So there's a lot of still being very much in the thick of it. I mean, obviously if you have teenagers, you know, you're in the thick of it without being in the baby years.

Yeah. It's a whole new rodeo, different kind of trying to keep them alive. Right. Yep. Yes, but it is truly extraordinary. I was even reflecting on when I was going for my walk this morning in extremely ridiculously cold weather, but it makes me feel alive. Yes. I will walk when it's well into the negatives, not because I love that, but it makes me feel so alive, but I was reflecting on how this is going to sound a little morbid.

Okay. I'm just going to come out and say that I'm going to preface it with that, but I was reflecting on how I could potentially [00:14:00] be halfway through my life. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And it was not a thought that sent me into a tailspin of panic, but I noticed right away as I was walking and avoiding dog poop, just the thought of that, like I could potentially be halfway through my life.

What it did do for me was I felt this overwhelming sense of gratitude and I thought I have had an extraordinary life. Mhm. And that is not something I would have thought about in my 20s. In my 20s, I so often asked the question, is this it? At the time? Yeah, that was it at the time. But you have to just get a little farther and you do have to experience grief and struggle.

And I just also want to say there's a difference between meaningful struggle and dangerous struggle. Yes. So please, please note the difference there. Good, meaningful struggle does give great meaning to our lives and increases our capacity. But if you find that your life is a nonstop [00:15:00] dangerous struggle, Look into that.

Get some help. There are resources. Yes. I have been there. You should not always be living in that state. Yes. Yeah, no, it's not a constant. That's not good. But anyway, yes, just thoughts of my middle aged Midwestern woman morning walks. So. I love it. I love it. I did also get out and got my workout in this morning.

Good for you. My thoughts were not as deep. I think I was dancing and singing to G6, like a G6, this morning. Okay, love that. Yeah, yeah. I did have the thought of, they always say like, you'll know if they're, if someone's Gen X or like late millennial, if they put their hands in the air when they're dancing.

It's embarrassing and true. Yes, and it's so true. I have to be like, Mary, stop. Put your hands down. I don't even care for you. I do not even care. My hands are going to be up and everyone around. I, you know, I am cringe and I am free. Yeah, absolutely. I'm [00:16:00] cringe and I'm free. It's the best place to be. It's amazing.

Yes. Oh, wow. Well, this has been a really wonderful conversation that has taken a lot of twists and turns that I didn't actually anticipate. And yeah, me either. I am absolutely here for it. And as always, Layci, I really appreciate your time. I see your calendar. I know how crazy your schedule is and especially this week.

Oh my gosh. So we are not going to keep Layci any longer. Again, thank you for your time and friends who manage like a leader. Thanks for listening to Confessions of a Terrible Leader. If you're feeling brave and have your own terrible leader story that you'd like to share, head over to transcendleadershipcollective.

com slash podcast to fill out a guest application. We'd love to hear from you. Confessions of a Terrible Leader is hosted by Layci Nelson and produced and edited by Fixation Point Productions. Music is by Leif Olson and Mary Skop from the band The Number of Months. Confessions of a Terrible Leader is a free leadership resource offered by Transcend Leadership Collective.

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