Urgency Is Not A Leadership Style

When you hear “nurses strike” you might think it’s only a healthcare story. It’s not. It’s a clean example of what happens when demand keeps rising but support does not. That gap becomes a mental health problem, then a performance problem, then a culture problem, and eventually a retention problem. In NYC, nurses were saying the same thing workers everywhere say in different words: “We can’t keep doing this pace with this staffing and pretend it’s fine.” 

Here’s the key challenge to pull from that story: when an organization runs on “always urgent” and “figure it out,” people adapt by over-functioning. For a while, leaders may even mistake that for commitment. But it’s really a warning light. Burnout doesn’t just show up as exhaustion, it shows up as errors, short tempers, disengagement, sick time, and people quietly job-searching during lunch.

So, what do you do if you’re not running a hospital, you’re running a team, a restaurant, a nonprofit, a corporate department, whatever?

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Solution 1: Force Trade-offs, On Purpose

Workers: instead of absorbing more, ask for priority decisions in plain language. “I can deliver A and B by Friday. If C is also due, what moves?”

Leaders: stop accepting “add it on” as free. Every new ask needs an explicit “this replaces that.” This reduces chaos and resentment, and it turns stress into a solvable planning problem.

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Solution 2: Make Expectations Visible, Not Implied

Workers: clarify what “urgent” means, what a good deliverable looks like, and what response time is expected. Vague expectations create constant mental load.

Leaders: set norms your team can repeat. Define urgency tiers. Put due dates on requests. Cut “drive-by work” that shows up in chats at 4:55 pm. Culture improves when people aren’t guessing the rules.

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Solution 3: Protect Recovery Like It’s Part Of Performance

Workers: pick one small recovery habit you can actually keep. Real lunch twice this week. Five-minute reset between meetings. No email in bed.

Leaders: model the boundary, then back it up. If people take time off and return to punishment piles, they stop resting. Sustainable performance requires real recovery, not just “self-care” posters.

Recommended Reading To Go Deeper

Burnout (Emily and Amelia Nagoski)

Set Boundaries, Find Peace (Nedra Glover Tawwab)

Essentialism (Greg McKeown)

Dare to Lead (Brené Brown)