In the space of a single week, one client:
- Nearly ended her relationship
- Missed out on buying a house
- Said goodbye to her closest work friend
She didn’t take time off. She didn’t cancel our session. She led her team, delivered what mattered and kept showing up. Still her capable self. Just closer to the edge than usual.
And that’s what struck me—not because it was unusual, but because no one knew. She didn’t drop any balls. She looked fine.
This is the invisible workload leaders often miss.
What it took to hold it together
The work was solid. No obvious slips. Still thoughtful. Still on brief. But it cost her more than usual.
She wasn’t thinking as quickly. Her energy was lower. Spent by the time she got home. She was holding herself steady—but only just.
From the outside, it looked like business as usual. But the effort it took to maintain that? Exhausting.
Performance tells you what got done. It doesn’t tell you what it took.
When capable people carry too much
People like her carry a lot. Not just their work, but yours too—your priorities, your deadlines, your expectations. They get things done. They don’t complain. And that makes it easy to assume everything’s fine.
Others mistake that for ease. Even they want to believe it.
They’re the reliable one. The steady one. The person others lean on. So they keep showing up.
The risk is that everyone—including them—misses just how stretched they’ve become.
That’s where attunement matters. It’s not about being soft. It’s about being in step—so you can act before they’re stretched too thin.
Good leadership notices before it breaks
Sometimes it’s the small things that make the biggest difference.
You might notice they’ve gone a little quieter. That their responses are slower. That they’re not quite as spacious, as quick to smile, as they usually are.
You could say:
I’ve noticed you seem a little different this week.
Or:
If I adjusted one thing—deadline, meeting, expectation—what would help most?
You won’t always get a clear answer. More likely a polite no. But saying something matters.
It gives people a moment to pause. To take stock, even briefly. To feel, just for a moment, that someone sees what they’re carrying.
You’re not trying to solve it for them. You’re just making it easier for them to adjust before it becomes too much.
The invisible workload builds quietly, even when performance holds.
Support doesn’t mean soft
That client didn’t need time off. She didn’t need a lighter load. She just needed to be held a little more gently that week.
And she found a way to do that for herself—quietly, invisibly, with more effort than anyone around her realised.
That’s often how it goes. People manage a lot, until they’re managing too much. And when they’re good at what they do, it’s easy to miss the signs.
That’s why it matters to notice. To stay connected. Not just to the work, but to the person doing it.
Image from Pexels
