How to Lead When You’re Also Just Trying to Survive the Week
Let’s be honest: some weeks don’t feel like leadership, they feel like pure triage. Your brain is juggling too many things. There are deadlines slipping through the cracks, people asking for your input on seven unrelated things, if you hear the Slack three knock sound ONE MORE TIME you’re going to WHIP YOUR LAPTOP OUT THE WINDOW, and you still haven’t figured out what’s for dinner. You’re not running at peak strategic energy—you’re just trying to get to Friday in one piece.
And yet, the team still needs you. Not just as a task manager, but as a leader. So what does leadership look like when you’re deep in the weeds?
Step 1: Be Honest About the Season You’re In
Leadership doesn’t mean pretending everything is under control. In fact, that façade is exactly what breaks trust when things inevitably fall apart. Instead, be honest about what capacity looks like for you right now.
Say something like, “This week is overloaded for me, so I may be a little slower than usual, but I’ll make sure we hit the essentials.” This small moment of honesty makes a massive difference. It gives your team permission to be honest too. And when people are honest about capacity, work gets managed more clearly, and expectations get aligned.
You don’t have to overshare, you just need to be a little bit human.
Step 2: Set Micro-Goals
If your brain is foggy and the big picture feels overwhelming, zoom in. Leadership doesn’t always look like big strategy meetings and five-year roadmaps. Realistically, most of the time it looks like choosing three things that will keep the ship moving this week and letting the rest go.
Pick your non-negotiables. Communicate them to your team. Push back on anything that distracts from them. When things feel chaotic, focus is everything.
This doesn’t make you a smaller leader. It makes you an intentional one, which makes your team more likely to trust you and follow you.
Step 3: Lead with Empathy (Including and ESPECIALLY for Yourself)
Empathy is one of the most powerful tools in your leadership toolkit. But it’s not just for your team—it’s also for you.
You’re not a machine. You’re a person, and people have limits. If you extend grace to your team, extend it to yourself too. If someone misses a deadline, you’re likely to say, “That’s okay, we’ll adjust.” So if you miss one, don’t spiral. Own it, communicate, and move forward. Same rules apply.
Leading through a hard week means showing your team what it looks like to take care of yourself while still getting things done. That’s a lesson they’ll carry longer than anything in a slide deck.
Step 4: Keep the Feedback Loop Open
It’s easy to go silent when you’re overwhelmed, but silence is contagious. The more quiet you get, the more uncertain your team feels. The antidote? Low-lift check-ins and quick feedback.
You don’t need a full retro or performance review. You just need five seconds to say, “That message you wrote? Perfectly handled,” or “Thanks for jumping on that task—huge help.”
These little signals matter. They remind your team that even in the chaos, you see them. And that kind of acknowledgment builds the kind of loyalty that makes people want to follow you.
Step 5: Protect Your Recovery Time
When you're in survival mode, the temptation is to squeeze out every last drop of energy. But that’s the fastest path to full burnout.
You cannot lead well without rest. You can’t lead at all if you’re completely depleted. If your body is telling you to slow down, listen. Rest doesn’t mean laziness.
I’m going to repeat that because you need to read it twice. In big font.
REST
DOESN’T
MEAN
LAZINESS.
Close your laptop. Say no to one more meeting. Take a walk. Phone a friend. Eat something that makes you happy. Go be a person for a bit.
And if you need to literally schedule the downtime on your calendar so it doesn’t get overrun? Do it.
Leadership doesn’t always look polished. Sometimes it looks like surviving the week with integrity, modeling care, and staying focused on what really matters.
You don’t have to be at 100% to be a good leader. You just have to be real, present, and clear about what’s possible right now.
That’s leadership.
And yes, they’ll follow you through it. Just don’t throw your laptop out the window please, those repairs aren’t cheap.