I Can't Give My Team a Lot of Me Right Now

The final episode of The Unburying series. 

Most leaders won't say it out loud, I can't give my team a lot of me right now. But they feel it. 

In this episode, Mark Walker names the impossible math of leadership depletion: your people need more, you have less, and the gap is where leaders quietly unravel. 

This episode breaks the myth that showing up fully means showing up at full capacity, draws a hard line between depletion as an excuse and depletion as an honest assessment, and gives you one simple five-minute reset practice you can use before any high-stakes interaction. 

A direct word for anyone who's been running on empty long enough to know something needs to change.

If you're tired of trying to do this alone, grab a free strategy session here. No pitch. Focused on helping you get clarity and experience coaching.

Check out the free Brotherhood of Being for any guys that are needing support without all the BS.

Transcript

The Unburying Series Finale Setup

SPEAKER_00 0:01

Hey there. Welcome back to Fierce Encouragement. My name is Mark Walker. I'm a certified life and executive coach and your host. This is the final episode of what I'm calling the unburying. It's like a three-part series that's about leadership transitions. And it's kind of about what happens when that version of us that we've been leading with kind of stops fitting in or stops feeling at home. And what it actually takes to find our way back. So episode 78 was that one question we talk about having to ask before any decision. Does this path have a heart? Episode 79 was about that inheritance stepping into a team that we didn't necessarily build. And this episode is about something that most people, most leaders, just won't say out loud. I can't give my team a lot of me right now. Maybe you've thought about it. Maybe you felt it in your body before a meeting, that anxiety. And maybe you got good at pushing through it anyways. And maybe you've just been living off of it for months and telling yourself it's just a temporary thing, that it'll pass away and you'll just need to get through this stretch. Well, this is the episode for you if you're in that mode. So I was working with a senior IT leader, uh, the same one that I've been referencing a couple times in this short series. Again, super capable, really intelligent, deeply committed leader in the IT sphere, and one that's really committed to his people. Something that's rare, at least that I find that's rare in the conversations I have. And this leader was in the middle of one of those big transitions for himself. And during the middle of our session, he said something that kind of woke me up and made me take note right in that moment.

When Your Team Needs More

SPEAKER_00 2:12

He said, I need to start shifting my thinking. They need me more right now, and I'm not going to be able to give my team a lot of me. That's three sentences, right? And I think every leader that I've ever worked with or worked under or worked alongside with has kind of said that and felt that exact same thing. The impossible math of leadership depletion. Your people need more, right? But you have less. And the gap between those two things is where a lot of leaders quietly start to suffer and unravel and unspool. And here's what makes it worse. Nobody talks about this. The culture of leadership, especially in tech, especially in high-performing tech organizations or organizations, period, they run on an unspoken energy, an unspoken belief that the leader is the one who holds it together. The leader is the one who doesn't flinch. The leader is the one who absorbs the blows and the pressure, so the team doesn't have to. And really, if that story, if that beingness in that mode is left unchecked, it will take you apart, quickly or slowly. There's a myth underneath all of this that needs to get named. And this isn't just about tech or leadership, but it's it's making explicit what's need what needs to be said. The myth is this that showing up fully for your team means you need to show up at full capacity. The myth is that presence equals performance. That good leadership looks like energy and clarity and decisiveness all the time on demand, always uh available to play, and regardless of what's happening under the surface for you as a leader. And when you can't produce that, when you're running on fumes and when you're dealing with uh something personal, when your body is sending you signals all the time that you might be ignoring for weeks or months, then that shame spiral can kick in too. I should be able to handle this. What's wrong with me? I've handled harder things. Where am I failing? And the truth is this nothing is wrong with you. You're human. Leaders are human. And the belief that you can just push and grind and cajole yourself into this sustainable leadership energy, it's not discipline. That's a slow leak, it's a crack.

Why Depletion Erodes Team Trust

SPEAKER_00 5:26

And here's the reframe that can help us change everything. And this is leading from that emptiness or that empty tank, it isn't noble. Spinning yourself out and emptying your own tank and not taking care of it, that is a liability for your team. So when you're depleted and you show up anyway, when you're not present but just present shaped, your team can feel that. And I've had a lot of leaders uh push that away. But it's true. Ask them, have you asked them? Teams, just like children, can read your energy before you even say a word. Our teams and the people around us, they calibrate to that energy. They're really honest and reflect back the state that you're in. So in this case, they pull back when you're depleted and low energy and not protecting your sleep and your diet and your exercise. Your team will pull back. They even stop bringing uh the real stuff to you as a leader. They can't trust you. And the thing is here, you were trying to protect them, whether it's the team performance or the time or the culture or the trust, but this depleted energy quietly erodes that trust that you're trying to build, that safety. The most generous thing you can do for your team is to not give them a more depleted version of you. It's give them a less burnt out and spun out version of you, and give them a more present and authentic one. And I want to draw one line very clearly before we move further into this topic.

Excuse Versus Honest Assessment

SPEAKER_00 7:31

There is a difference between I can't give my team a lot of me right now as an excuse and as an honest assessment. The excuse version sounds something like, hey, I'm busy, I'm overwhelmed, I'll show up when things get more settled down. You know, the one I hear all the time, when I have time. But the truth is, things never settle down. They just don't. So we keep deferring, we keep pushing it off, and the team keeps waiting. Keeps waiting, there's that vacuum. And you keep performing just enough to avoid any deep, crucial conversations that you know you might need to have. The honest assessment version sounds more like this. Something is genuinely depleted in me right now. I know it, I feel it, I can see it in my life, and I need to make a real decision about what to do with this. Now, this second version, the second honest assessment, it takes a ton of courage because it means admitting something out loud that pretty much every leader I've ever met, they're not supposed to admit this. When we slow down and face that depletion in ourselves, that authentic or real depletion in ourselves, it takes courage to open that door. And sometimes we can't unopen it. We can't get the toothpaste back in the tube. But truly, it's also the only version that helps you lead somewhere real. So

The Four Step Leader Reset

SPEAKER_00 9:25

here's one practice I wanted to share with you today: some simple, practical uh five minutes or less. And I'm calling this the leader's reset. And I practiced this with a conversation I had a few weeks ago. So do this before any high-stakes interaction, before a one-on-one, or before a big team meeting, or even before one of those crucial difficult conversations that you might need to have, or before you walk back into that room after a hard morning or a difficult day. So first step, step one, just stop. Physically, sit down, step outside, close your door. Even a minute counts. Heck, even 30 seconds counts. You cannot reset while you're moving physically. Step two, one breath. One real breath, not a perfunctory inhale, exhale, but a full breath and a slowed down exhale. Maybe the hand on your chest if that helps connect and ground you. Just let your nervous system know the sprint is paused. Step number three, name your actual state. Not the state that you want to project yourself into, but name where you're at right now. Ah, I'm heavy, I'm scattered, I'm anxious, I'm tired, I'm scared. Just name it internally. And we really don't have to fix anything here. Just be honest about what you're walking with on the path. Step four, set a micro intention. One thing. Not some um huge aspiration like, hey, let me be a great leader today. Get specific. Uh get tiny, get small, get granular. Maybe something like, I'm going to listen more than I talk in this meeting. Or I'm going to ask one real honest question. Or perhaps even something like, I'm I'm going to make eye contact and hold presence and mean it and feel it during this meeting. And that's it. Four steps. You can do this in less than five minutes. Step one, stop. Step two, breath, a real one. Step three, name your actual state. And step four, set that micro intention. Now it's not going to fill up your empty gas tank as a leader, but this practice done again and again will change that quality, that felt sense of what you're bringing into the room. And over time, and again, over time, it takes time, but this builds up that muscle of our presence. And it builds up that high capacity, that leader, leadership and leaders and people who are people who bring us through problems and struggles. This is what it runs on. This is the gas and the muscle, if you will, and the presence that people crave. Now, this is difficult to share, or at least it feels difficult as I kind of come to this point in the podcast.

When A Reset Will Not Fix It

SPEAKER_00 12:56

Now, you might be listening and you might be noticing that you've been running on empty for more than a few weeks. If this isn't a rough patch, but it maybe feels like more of a pattern, a consistent pattern. Well, this reset practice isn't going to be enough on its own. It will help, but it won't be enough. Now, something needs to change at a structural action-based level. And that might mean a real conversation with somebody you trust, a peer, a mentor, uh a coach, a doctor, your partner, uh, someone who isn't gonna tell you just to push through. Uh, we're already good at that, usually as leaders on our own. And this is what I've seen over and over and over again in all the conversations I've had over the past few years. It's the the leaders who wait, uh, the leaders who hesitate and then they find themselves with an empty tank or completely dry. Uh, they might have a health scare, a diagnosis, um, a blow-up at the house, um, maybe a breakdown, or maybe a moment where they just really genuinely feel that they can't function anymore. And they look back, and then they can see those hundred moments where they knew, where the signal was really clear that something was wrong, something was off. Even someone or something was pointing at the problem, like right at the problem. And they didn't know how to go towards the problem. And because they always told themselves and they had those ancient voices in their heads telling them they didn't have time. Grind, keep going. But I just want to point it out: you have time, you have time now. You might not have time later.

The Cost Of Pretending

SPEAKER_00 14:55

And this is the end of my little unburying three episodes. And this is kind of one through line through them all that I wanted to create. And I would really recommend going back and listening to episode 77, 78, and this one's 79. Or, I'm sorry, 79, and then this one's 80. But again, in episode 78, we talked about that um that kind of question that's a little before everything, right? Does this path have a heart? Before any time we make a decision or plug into anything, before any transitions in our life, feel, get a felt sense, what's actually alive in your body. Episode 79 was about the inheritance, stepping into your room in your life that was working, um, and then trying to find our way to bring ourselves back into it with an authenticity instead of inheriting those problems or those structures that other leaders or other people had. And then this episode, episode 80. So this is more about the cost of pretending. What does it cost us physically, mentally, wages? What does it cost to pretend that we're fine when we're not? And what's that one small practice that can start to shift it and change it? This unburying isn't dramatic. And it doesn't usually happen in that single moment. It happens with those small decisions, those clear, honest conversations that we can have. And really, it happens in those quiet moments where we choose to stop performing and we start to feel what's actually true for us. This is where I work. This is where leadership lives. It's not in that performance, but it's more in the presence that we crave. So I'll say what I said in the last couple episodes, because it is still true for me, and I believe it's true for everyone, that leadership transitions and changes are where the identity work lives.

Free Strategy Session Offer

SPEAKER_00 17:13

So again, I work one-on-one with leaders who are in exactly these moments we've been describing in the series: the depletion, uh, that gap between who they are and who they want to be, that identity, um, the inherited team, the inherited good team or the inherited bad team, and even that path where we stopped feeling like it was ours. And these are smart people, intellectual people, high functioning, high achievers. These aren't people who are lazy, but they're also people who push and are really honest enough with themselves to know something needs to shift and something is ready to change, and they don't quite know what to do about it. So I offer a free strategy session. One conversation, no pitch, no pressure, all connected to helping you. And a leader I worked with uh after one of our sessions a little while ago talked about after our strategy session, he actually said this I physically feel lighter after that time we just spent together. Damn. One conversation. That's what's available to you. The link is in the show notes. Tell me what you're unburying in your own life. Tell me what you got from this series if you enjoyed it. And I really thank you for being here and spending your time. So, this is episode 80 of Fierce

Final Takeaways And Listener Requests

SPEAKER_00 18:44

Encouragement. I can't believe it's been 80 episodes, but and this is the final episode of uh the little series called The Unburying, pulling these things out, and especially excavating what leadership looks like on the inside. Leading from empty, leading from disempowerment, it isn't noble. I think it's a liability in our workplace. The most generous and noble and altruistic thing you can do for your team is to show up present, even if that means showing up in a smaller way for a while. Five minutes, stop, breathe, name your state, set one microintention. This is really where it starts. My name is Mark Walker. This has been Fierce Encouragement. Please subscribe to this series if it meant something to you. Share it with one leader who might need to hear something from this, and please leave a review or a thumbs up or whatever you got out there. And that really helps people find the show and spread the word. And I really appreciate you listening. Wherever you're at, take care of yourselves. Keep encouraging yourself fiercely. And I hope you have a great day, a great evening wherever you're at. And we'll see you on the next episode. All right now. Bye bye.