ISSUE #032 | THE LEADERSHIP CONTRARIAN
We're Not in a Storm. We're in a Stormy Season.
A few weeks ago I was sitting with one of my coaching clients. She started her company more than fifteen years ago, and in the last year and a half it has taken off. People from all over want what she offers. It's been exciting, exhausting, and everything in between.
But this year, her company has been hit by several major storms. Not the normal problems that come with growth, bigger ones. And each time, another one seemed to come out of nowhere.
At one point she said something I haven't been able to shake: "If I could just know what was coming, I could handle it. But these things keep coming out of left field."
She's not wrong. And she's not alone.
The Storm Isn't the Problem. The Forecast Is.
Most leaders I talk to right now are treating the everyday challenges as isolated problems (storms) to be solved independent of the rest of the world. Something isolated. Something temporary. Something you brace for, push through, and recover from when the skies clear. It’s just so easy to get tunnel vision.
Here's the problem: that's not what this is.
We're not just experiencing several isolated storms. We're in a stormy season. And the difference between those two things changes how you need to lead.
Why Bracing Doesn't Work Anymore
Human beings are actually good at storms. When we know something hard is coming, we brace for it. We rally. We buck up and make it through. You've done it before, and so have your people.
But bracing for a storm is different than preparing for winter. A storm asks for a burst of effort to hunker down, push through, recover. A winter asks for something else entirely: pacing, provisions, and endurance. If you brace for one storm, get through it, and let your guard down, and then another one hits, you take that one harder. After the second or third, something in you starts to wear down. Not because you're weak, but because you set your expectations on calm, and the calm never came.
That's what was happening to my client. Every storm got treated as the last one. And because the past year and a half had been like drinking from a fire hydrant, she never had a moment to stop, look up, and see the pattern. When there's that much water around you, you can't tell the fire-hydrant water from the rain.
This Season Has a Name
In their book The Fourth Turning, researchers William Strauss and Neil Howe argue that history moves in cycles of roughly eighty years, and that each cycle passes through four seasons, just like the calendar year. Spring, summer, fall, winter. The idea that history repeats itself isn't just a saying. It's a pattern people have observed going back to the ancient world.
By their logic, we're in winter. The last quarter of the cycle. The stormy season.
You don't have to take the theory as gospel to recognize what it describes. Look around: geopolitical conflict, economic whiplash, businesses opening, closing, and consolidating, and AI rewriting the rules in real time. VUCA used to show up about once a decade - a short, sharp stretch of chaos, and then things settled. Now we're living in an extended run of it. Not a storm. A season of storms.
And it's not abstract. Another client of mine does international business. A good customer in Asia paid net-15 like clockwork for four years. Now that same customer is 90 to 120 days out, and it's putting a real pinch on cash flow for my client's company here in the States. That's the stormy season showing up on an accounts receivable report. It's probably showing up somewhere in your business too.
You Handle This Better Than Your People Do
Here's something else you need to know, and it may be the most important part of this issue.
One of the superpowers many entrepreneurs have in common is their ability to tolerate volatility better than most people. Many of you actually like a certain amount of risk and unpredictability. In fact entrepreneurs look at ambiguity like a special treat. That's part of what made most of you a founder.
But the people who work for you are not wired the same way. Most of them thrive in stability, and they do their best work when things feel steady. A stormy season is hard on them in ways it isn't hard on you. If you lead them as if they enjoy or even manage ambiguity the same way you do, you'll misread their fatigue as a people problem when it's really a weather problem in your company.
Leading Through a Stormy Season
When my client saw the difference between a storm and a stormy season, it was an "a-ha" moment. The pressure didn't disappear, but the confusion did. Here's the progression we walked through, and it's the same one I'd give you.
1. See the season clearly: Stop treating each disruption as a freak event. Name the season out loud to yourself first. You can't lead through weather you refuse to acknowledge.
2. Reset your expectations: If the pattern holds, this season likely has years left in it, not weeks. That sounds discouraging, but it's actually a relief. Leaders would rather know how long the hard stretch is than keep getting surprised. You can manage a marathon. You can't manage a sprint that never ends.
3. Build resilience for the distance: Take care of yourself. Keep counsel around you that reminds you to look up when you're buried in the day-to-day. You can't be the steady one in the room if you're running on fumes.
4. Give your people context: Don't be afraid that telling them the truth will discourage them. It's the opposite. People are remarkably resilient when they have the right frame. They would much rather know they're in a season than be told, storm after storm, that this is the last one. Just don't promise it will end sooner than it will. Promising that a storm will end soon and not being able to deliver will burn through trust faster than you can imagine.
This Too Shall Pass — Really
Here's the encouraging part, and it's not wishful thinking. In cycle after cycle throughout history, the stormy season ends. Right at the point where it feels like it will last forever, it breaks. The hurricane passes, the blue skies come back, you clean up the mess, and you move on.
Winter always ends. But the leaders and companies that come out of it well are the ones who stopped waiting for it to end early - and started leading like it was winter.
One Question
So here's the question worth sitting with this week: Have you been leading your company like this is a storm or like it's a stormy season?
Your people are watching how you read the weather, and they'll take their cue from you.
Until next time,
Keep learning.
Keep growing.
And God bless,
Michael Redman
Half a Bubble Out (HaBO)
Business Consulting | Leadership Coaching
