Quiet progress beats noisy activity

One learned and enhanced practice this year that has supported my growth has been reflection.

As I look back through coaching session notes and post session reflections, two themes surface again and again, particularly at CRO, CCO and CEO level.

Complexity and contradiction.

It often starts as competing priorities or conflicting signals.
Decisions that can be right and wrong at the same time, for different reasons.

Always present in the background are revenue pressures, customer risk, board or stakeholder expectations and in many cases organisational politics.

Alongside a constant expectation to absorb everything calmly. To translate ambiguity into certainty. To make decisions with imperfect data and live with the certainty of consequences.

The irony is this: the more senior the role, the fewer places there are to work through that complexity in a genuinely safe space.

There is no secret sauce, but being able to think clearly, consider alternative narratives and simply be human by removing the mask was critical to success in most cases.

At the top, everyone brings you their problems. Few recognise that you are human too, and fewer still ask where you take yours.

Why this matters more than it used to

One of the unintended consequences of constant connectivity is that activity has become highly visible, while progress has not.

Leaders are rewarded for being present, responsive, and busy. Calendars fill quickly. Dashboards glow green. Slack and Teams hum constantly. From the outside, everything looks healthy.

Yet underneath, many leaders describe a persistent sense of drift. The organisation is moving, but not always in the same direction.

Real progress tends to be quieter. It results in fewer escalations, better judgement calls, and decisions that stick without constant reinforcement. None of that photographs well for internal updates, but it compounds over time.

What leaders often miss

In my experience, the biggest constraint on progress is rarely capability. It is attention.

When everything feels urgent, nothing gets the thinking it deserves. Leaders default to speed over clarity, action over alignment, and motion over direction.

The leaders who make the most impact are often doing less, not more. They create space to think, they involve others earlier, and they are deliberate about what not to carry themselves.

Those choices look small in the moment. Over time, they are decisive.

A closing reflection

Most meaningful change does not announce itself. It accumulates quietly, through better conversations, clearer decisions, and consistent follow-through.

If you are leading something complex and it feels noisier than it should, that is often a signal worth paying attention to.