“We love what you’re doing but you move too fast.”
That was a key takeaway from a coaching client’s 360: that he’s doing amazing work that the company desperately needs … but he moves too fast. Could he slow down a bit?
But at the same time, people said they appreciated his drive to execute, especially given the importance of his role in ensuring compliance. Not the most exciting stuff, but a mistake could cost the company a lot of money — and more importantly, put customers’ data at risk.
He was understandably a little frustrated by the paradoxical feedback. Which was it? Slow down or keep driving?
He was stuck until we reframed what “slowing down” might actually mean.
As we dug into the qualitative feedback and bounced it against the quantitative, we made a new connection: everyone supports the changes he’s making — they just don’t feel well-informed before they happen.
For this leader, the message was that slowing down doesn’t mean losing urgency or doing less. It doesn’t mean asking permission for every change, or endless consensus-building.
Our working theory: that “slowing down” in this case means being intentional about bringing people along in the journey.
Yes, that takes a bit more time upfront. But it saves time on the back end because you don’t have people resisting a change they didn’t see coming. You don’t have to re-explain, re-sell, re-do. You bring them along, and they feel like they’re co-creating, rather than something happening to them.
The paradox: slowing down to bring people along actually speeds you up.
Like I said, it’s a working theory, and we’ll see how it plays out as he changes his approach.
But I see this pattern everywhere — including in leadership teams full of fast-paced drivers who can’t understand why people won’t just “get with the program.”
Same pattern, different scale.
So here’s the question I left them with — and I’ll leave it with you:
Where are you moving so fast that you’re leaving people behind?
Hey there! I’m a leadership team whisperer, executive coach, and speaker. I guide leadership teams in high-growth companies to achieve rapid growth in a healthy, sustainable way. I coach senior leaders to discover the path to lead with ease.
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