What Leaders and Managers Can Learn from Option B
Jordan managed a twelve-person support team when his father died suddenly, two weeks before the busiest quarter of the year. He came back after five days, certain that staying visibly composed was the only professional option. On his third day back, a teammate quietly took over his hardest client call, and another left a note: "I'll run Thursday's stand-up, you don't need to plan anything." Jordan cried in his office, out of relief more than grief. He'd expected his team to need him fine. Instead, they needed him to let them carry something, and once he let one person carry one meeting, the quarter became survivable instead of impossible.
The whole book, compressed
This edition works through 4 core lessons — take them one at a time, not all at once.
What's different for your conditions
Tap whichever ones sound like you. Nothing here is sent or saved — it's just for your own noticing.
0 of 5 selected
The core lessons, applied to you
Composure Is Not the Same as Strength
Leaders often confuse self-compassion with weakness, assuming softness toward themselves reads to the team as permission to underperform. In practice, a leader who forgives their own slower pace after a setback tends to make clearer decisions than one silently punishing themselves for not being "over it" fast enough. Self-compassion does not lower the bar for the team; it refuses to run your recovery on other people's schedule.
A manager returns from a loss and overloads their calendar to prove nothing has changed, then burns out within a month.
Before your next difficult meeting, privately name one thing you are still adjusting to, and allow yourself less than full capacity.
Small, Specific Wins Rebuild a Leader's Footing
A leader recovering from a setback often searches for one big gesture to prove they are back, and that search delays recovery by ignoring smaller acts of leadership happening daily. Noticing that one meeting went well, one teammate grew more confident, or one decision landed cleanly rebuilds competence faster than waiting for a dramatic comeback that may never arrive on schedule.
A leader dismisses every ordinary win as "not enough" while waiting for one big result to feel like themselves, staying stuck for months.
At the end of each day, name one small thing you did well as a leader, unrelated to any big outcome.
Naming the Real Situation to Your Team
Managers often default to a brisk "I'm fine, let's focus on work," fearing that naming a setback will unsettle the team. But teams already notice a change in their leader's tone, and silence tends to generate more anxiety than a short, honest acknowledgment. A brief, plain statement of what's going on, without demanding sympathy, usually steadies a team faster than pretending nothing changed.
A manager says nothing for weeks while visibly distracted, and the team quietly invents worse explanations for the change.
Give your team one plain sentence about your situation and one clear sentence about what changes for them this week.
Letting Your Team Make Specific Offers
Teams generally want to help a struggling leader, but most default to a vague "let me know what you need," placing the burden of asking on the person with least energy to ask. Leaders who recover with more support tend to let one or two people make concrete offers, covering a specific meeting or task, rather than waiting for a perfectly organized ask that never quite gets made.
A leader can lean so far into self-compassion that they stop showing up for commitments the team depends on, or so far into honesty that every meeting becomes about their situation. The balance is disclosure with boundaries: naming what's true without turning every interaction into processing time. A leader who tells the team once, clearly, then returns attention to the work holds both without abandoning either.
Name one thing, honestly
What is one specific task you have been managing alone that a member of your team would likely be glad to take off your plate, if you simply asked?
Good. Now look back at the "Try this" line under whichever lesson feels most connected to what you just wrote, and treat that as this week's actual assignment — not all 4 at once.
The practices from this edition
0 of 3 selected
Run this for seven days
Give your team one plain sentence about your situation and one clear sentence about what changes for them this week.