It felt like a gut punch

It was the middle of the pandemic.
We had our annual online global conference of CEOs and the theme that year was ‘Grit.’

A few weeks before, we were sent a copy of Angela Duckworth’s book by the same name as a pre-read.

It felt like a gut punch.

My team and I had been working full tilt. 

We’d successfully pivoted the business to remote working, grown revenue and profit when many competitors and the market generally were contracting.

It was tough but we were succeeding.

And now we were being told, in a not to subtle way, that we needed more grit.

Here were a group of highly successful leaders who were thriving in the face of adversity being told to buck up and put their shoulders to the wheel.  

How tone-deaf could you be?

Surely in this situation, what we needed was empathy and support – a space to listen and be heard so we could carry on and fight the good fight even more energised.

I’m sure it was well intentioned, but sometimes motivation misses the mark.
The problem isn’t the message.
It’s the moment.
Even the best intentioned themes can land badly when they don’t match the emotional reality of the people hearing them.

It’s a reminder that leadership communication is contextual.
What inspires one group can exhaust another.
And the further you are from the front line, the easier it is to lose sight of what your teams are already carrying.

The real issue wasn’t a lack of grit.
It was that we were already drenched in it.
What we needed wasn’t another call to push harder, but permission to pause.
Empathy. Recognition. Space to breathe.
And only then, a call to action.

That’s the paradox of resilience: push it too far, and it breaks.
Sometimes the grittiest thing a leader can do is to say, “You’ve done enough for now. Let’s rest and rebuild. And then we can move forward even stronger.”

Looking back, I can see the intentions behind that message were good. Those who chose the theme wanted to inspire, not alienate.
But it taught me something I’ve never forgotten: timing, tone, and empathy matter too.

Because true grit isn’t about driving endlessly forward.
It’s about staying human while you do.