Every leader eventually stands at the edge of a transition. It might be a market shift, a new project, or a global crisis. Staring into that fog of uncertainty is unsettling, especially for an SMB leader. The destination is unclear, and the path is filled with risk.
It’s a feeling similar to the one millions of people experience each January when they join a gym. They crave an instant transformation, but real change isn’t a push-button solution. It’s a process that demands what many are unwilling to give: patience with the journey and trust in the small, consistent actions that deliver results.
Exceptional leaders approach change not as a single, terrifying situation, but as a series of deliberate, smaller actions. They know that to navigate the fog, you don’t need exact coordinates for the destination – you just need a clear vision of the outcome. They manage the inherent risk by acknowledging the transition’s true scope, having the patience to break it down, and trusting their people and the process.
The First Hurdle: Acknowledging the Scope
Changes and transitions are like icebergs; most of the complexity is hidden beneath the surface.
Hiring a new person isn’t just about filling a role; it’s about merging a new personality and their unique skillset into an established team culture. A product launch isn’t just a marketing event; it’s the culmination of countless decisions in creation, engineering, design, and logistics.
Good leaders don’t underestimate this hidden depth. They recognize that any transition will likely evolve from its initial concept. They resist the urge to provide quick, simple solutions and instead embrace the complexity. By abandoning rigid thinking, they accept that the process itself will provide learning, independent thinking, and creativity.
The Power of Patience: Breaking Chaos into Concrete Actions
Once a leader grasps the scale of the transition, the first instinct is often to rush. But haste, without checking in or reflection, creates errors and demoralizes teams. The most effective leaders apply a patient, methodical agile approach: they break monumental tasks into smaller, actionable parts. By trusting those doing the work, they open up communication and create a feedback loop that empowers everyone.
Patience here becomes an active, strategic tool. It’s the discipline to let small pieces come together, knowing each completed part builds momentum. Like compound interest on an investment, the value of these small wins grows over time, building not just progress, but confidence and clarity. Setbacks will occur, but the cumulative gains will far outweigh the temporary losses.
A powerful recent example is Canlis, a fine-dining restaurant in Seattle. When the pandemic made their business model impossible overnight, the leadership team broke the existential problem of “how do we survive?” into manageable experiments. As documented by the New York Times, they patiently launched one new concept at a time: a burger drive-thru, then a bagel stand, then a delivery service. Each pivot was a self-contained project, allowing the team to learn and adapt without solving the entire crisis at once.
The Final Ingredient: Trust, Speed, and Retrospection
Breaking a problem down is pointless without trust. A leader must have confidence in the agile process and their people. You must empower your team to own their part of the plan, because micromanaging stifles the essential two-way trust between a leader and their team.
Trusting the process also means embracing the concept of “failing fast.” When tasks are small, decisions can be made quickly. A misstep isn’t a catastrophe; when shared, it’s a low-cost lesson for everyone. This is where the discipline of retrospection and regular check-ins becomes critical. By frequently looking back at what worked and what didn’t, teams learn and adapt, ensuring every action – success or failure – propels them forward. This creates a self-learning team that avoids making the same mistakes down the road.
Consider the transformation of Target under CEO Brian Cornell. Facing the “retail apocalypse,” instead of making one huge, risky bet, Cornell initiated a series of smaller, strategic changes. As detailed by publications like Retail TouchPoints, Target invested patiently and incrementally in remodeling stores, launching successful private-label brands, and enhancing its supply chain. A single change was a small win, but combined with hundreds of other improvements, the small wins compounded, turning Target into a retail leader by transforming a massive risk into a story of sustained, iterative success.
The Leader’s Way Forward
For a leader feeling the pressure of isolation, facing a major transition can be overwhelming. This is especially true for those without a trusted thought partner or a peer group to vet ideas and decisions with, making every choice feel like it’s made in a vacuum. But you don’t need all the answers at once. The concept is simple yet profound: mitigate risk by having the patience to break the challenge into smaller parts and the trust to let the process – and your people – work.
Your job isn’t to eliminate the fog.
It’s to take the first step, light the way for the next one, and have the courage to keep moving forward, even through the setbacks.
