When Strategy Meets Real Life

What a Year of Crisis Taught Me About Leadership, Communication, and Grace

Some decisions are made in boardrooms. Others happen in places you never expect. Hospital hallways. Waiting rooms. In between phone calls, where you’re trying to sound focused while your mind is somewhere else entirely.

That’s the kind of year I had.

Within six months, my mother died after a catastrophic stroke, my father fell and ended up in neurological ICU with a traumatic brain injury and a broken hand, and my husband ended up in the ICU with a spinal cord injury and emergency spine surgery.

I’m still not used to writing that in one paragraph. But that’s how it unfolded.

I’m not sharing this for sympathy. I’m sharing it because that sequence of events changed how I think about leadership in a way no professional experience ever had. There wasn’t a clean separation between my work and the rest of my life anymore. Some days, the overlap felt manageable. Other days, it didn’t. Either way, the ideas I’d spent years talking about were suddenly being tested without much warning.

A lot of what I believed about balance and control didn’t survive that year intact. Some of it probably shouldn’t have.

The Myth of “Holding It All Together”

I spend much of my professional life working with leaders during periods of pressure or transition. The expectation in those moments is steadiness. Clear thinking. Decisions that move things forward, even when the path isn’t obvious.

What I hadn’t fully appreciated before this year is how different prolonged strain feels. It doesn’t arrive all at once. It stretches on. It asks you to adjust, then adjust again, often before you feel ready.

Resilience, I learned, isn’t about grit or speed. It isn’t powering through or pretending you’re fine.

Most days, it showed up quietly.

I slowed down because moving fast led to mistakes. I cut meetings and commitments that drained energy but didn’t really change outcomes. I showed up less polished than usual, which took some getting used to. I also stopped explaining myself as much, mostly because I didn’t have the energy to.

None of that was part of a plan. It was simply what worked.

What surprised me was how quickly the unnecessary parts of work fell away once I stopped trying to manage everything at once. Some habits I’d defended for years turned out not to matter much at all when capacity was limited.

When life is heavy, there’s very little patience for performance. Noise becomes exhausting. You start to value clarity in a different way.

What the Year Changed About How I Communicate

One thing became obvious fairly early on. Communication only works if the person on the receiving end has the capacity to take it in.

When you’re dealing with grief, caregiving, or long stretches of uncertainty, your tolerance for spin drops fast. So does your patience for urgency that doesn’t actually change anything. What you want instead is straightforward information, delivered calmly, without extra layers.

Living inside that reality sharpened my instincts in a way I didn’t expect.

It reinforced some beliefs I already held, but it also challenged how often we overcomplicate things. Empathy isn’t about saying more. Psychological safety doesn’t come from tone alone. And steady communication under pressure takes discipline, not charisma.

The leaders and clients who handled this year well weren’t the ones who checked in the most or said the right thing every time. They were consistent. They adjusted expectations when needed. They didn’t make me carry the weight of managing their reactions on top of everything else.

That mattered more than they probably realized.

The Weight That Isn’t Always Visible

It’s possible to perform well while carrying far more than people see. I know that now in a very real way.

Professional boundaries still matter. Accountability still matters. But capacity isn’t always obvious, and it shouldn’t require a full explanation to be respected.

At Fionix, trust has never been a slogan. It’s something we try to practice in how decisions are made and how people are treated when circumstances change. This year made that belief more personal for me.

I’ve become more attentive to how leaders communicate expectations, how willing they are to be flexible, and whether compassion shows up alongside confidence. Those signals tell people far more than any formal message ever could.

How This Year Shifted My Leadership

I don’t lead the same way I did a year ago. That wasn’t intentional at first, but it’s something I’m choosing to keep.

I’m more deliberate now. I take longer on decisions that deserve it and move quickly on the ones that don’t. I ignore urgency that isn’t tied to real outcomes. I listen more than I explain. I’m more comfortable leaving some things unsaid.

What’s left feels steadier, even if it’s less polished. There’s less performance in it, and more honesty. That tradeoff feels worth it.

Moving Forward With Intention

Not every personal experience belongs in a professional space. But leadership doesn’t pause when life gets complicated, and communication doesn’t become less important just because the pressure is personal.

The leaders I trust most aren’t the loudest or the most confident in the room. They’re the ones who stay consistent, communicate clearly, and don’t lose their footing when circumstances shift.

This past year clarified something I’m carrying with me into the next one.

Strategy and humanity aren’t in conflict. They strengthen each other when they’re practiced with intention.

As the year ahead begins, I’m being more deliberate about where energy goes, how decisions are made, and what kind of leadership actually sustains people over time.

Because how we communicate, especially when things are hard, tells people whether they feel safe, supported, and seen.

And that matters more than almost anything else.