How do I lead across complex organisations without burning out or losing myself?

This question usually comes from people who are still performing well. They’re not at breaking point. They’re trusted.

They’re relied on. But they can feel that leading this way is costing more than it used to, and they don’t want that cost to quietly shape who they become.

What’s often happening in these roles is easy to miss. Leading across complex organisations means you’re constantly moving between different priorities, languages, and measures of success.

One conversation is about long-term direction. The next is about immediate delivery. One stakeholder wants caution. Another wants speed. And because you can see the whole picture, you become the one who holds it together.

Over time, that creates a particular kind of strain. Not because the work is too hard, but because the complexity never really lands anywhere.

It sits with you. You carry the context, the trade-offs, the unsaid tensions, and you keep moving. From the outside, this looks like competence. Inside, it often feels like holding your breath.

When people ask me this question, they usually assume the answer is personal resilience. How to cope better. Push less. Switch off more effectively.

But that’s rarely the real lever. The shift happens when leaders stop absorbing complexity and start redistributing it.

That can look like slowing conversations down so direction becomes clearer. It can mean naming the trade-offs instead of smoothing them over.

It can mean working through a smaller number of aligned relationships rather than trying to be the connector for everyone. None of this reduces responsibility. It changes where it sits.

As soon as complexity is held in structure, narrative, and shared ownership, something important happens.

You no longer need to harden to stay effective. Judgment comes back. Presence comes back. Energy follows.

If you’re leading in a complex environment and feel yourself tightening, it’s usually not because you’re doing too much. It’s because too much is landing with you. You’re the one translating between priorities.

You’re the one smoothing trade-offs. You’re the one carrying the context so others don’t have to.

A simple way to notice this is to pay attention to where decisions feel heavy. Where conversations repeat. Where you find yourself explaining the same thing in different ways to different people.

Those are often signals that something meant to be shared, named, or structured is sitting in you instead.

Leadership becomes more sustainable when those things move out of your system and into the work itself. Into clearer direction.

Fewer interfaces. Shared ownership. Not to reduce responsibility, but to hold it where it actually belongs.

So here’s the question I often ask at this point in the conversation:

Where am I currently being the glue, when what’s actually needed is clarity, structure, or a decision that others can hold?

You don’t need to harden to lead well in complex organisations. But you do need to stop being the place where everything lands.

Warmly,

Rita

This is part of my Ask Me Anything series, where I respond to real questions that come up in my work.