When leadership feels hard, do we assume the work has become harder or do we ever stop to ask why it feels that way?

Most of us don’t pause to question it. We just get on with things. We assume the workload has increased, the pressure has ramped up, or the situation has shifted in some way.

And often, that is partly true.

But what we rarely examine is whether something else has changed at the same time. Something less visible, but more influential: the state of mind we are bringing to the work.

There are days when decisions feel straightforward and days when they feel heavy. Days when judgement feels solid, and days when we find ourselves second-guessing things that would normally feel simple.

We usually explain this by pointing to circumstances. More pressure. More complexity. A tougher conversation. Higher stakes.

But that explanation does not quite hold. If clarity were purely about circumstances, it would not come and go in the way it does.

A more accurate explanation is simpler, and often overlooked.

Our access to clarity changes because our state of mind changes.

The part of leadership we are rarely taught to notice

State of mind is the internal condition we bring to whatever we are dealing with. It quietly shapes how we see problems, how we interpret people, and how confident or hesitant we feel about our decisions.

When the mind is settled, leadership feels more manageable. It is easier to see what matters, prioritise without forcing it, and respond rather than react.

When the mind is busy, the opposite happens. Small things take on more weight than they need to. Decisions feel riskier. We think more, but somehow see less.

The key point is not that the situation has changed. It is that our access to clarity has.

Why we often misread what is going on

Most leadership development trains us to look outward for solutions. When clarity feels missing, the instinct is to gather more information, think things through again, or talk it out one more time.

Sometimes that helps. Often it does not.

What tends to happen instead is that we unintentionally add to the problem. More thinking creates more mental noise. The mind fills with possibilities, consequences, and imagined futures. Rather than settling, it speeds up.

At that point, nothing is wrong with our capability. What we are dealing with is a busy mind.

And a busy mind is not a good place to make decisions from.

A moment from coaching last week

This came into sharp focus for me in a coaching session last week.

The person I was working with arrived tired, unwell, and flat. They talked through what felt wrong: workload, work–life balance, difficulty setting boundaries, and a sense of being overwhelmed.

On the surface, it sounded like a practical problem that needed fixing.

But because I know this person well, I could hear something else. This was not a new or abnormal situation for them. What was different was how they were feeling that day.

So before we looked at any of the issues, I asked them to factor one thing in: how they were feeling physically and emotionally.

That simple acknowledgement created a subtle but important shift. Once their tiredness and low mood were recognised, their thinking softened and opened up.

From there, they were able to see the situation more accurately. This was a genuinely busy period, but it was not permanent. When we mapped the work from that clearer place, it felt different. Still demanding, but no longer overwhelming.

Nothing about the workload had changed. What changed was the lens they were looking through.

What this means for how we lead

When we understand the role state of mind plays, we stop assuming that every difficult moment needs an immediate solution.

We begin to recognise that urgency and reactivity often come from a busy mind, not the situation itself. We see that more thinking does not automatically lead to more clarity, and that how we are thinking matters more than what we are thinking.

A simple internal check becomes available:

What state of mind am I in right now?

That question does not require analysis. It simply brings awareness. And awareness alone often reduces the noise.

One thing to notice this week

If you find yourself stuck, reactive, or overthinking, resist the urge to immediately change the situation.

Pause and notice what is going on internally.

Is your mind settled or busy? Are you present, or already running ahead? Are you responding, or reacting?

You do not need to do anything with the answer. Noticing is enough.

Because the moment you see your state of mind clearly, you have already moved closer to clarity.

And that is usually where better leadership decisions come from.

Aroha, Judith