True leadership isn’t just about flooring the gas—it’s about room reading.

If you’re a 90-day-scale leader in a 365-day-stabilization org, the most respectful thing you can do is take a sip of water and move to the next room. If you feel the role isn’t a match, say so—and say it early. A fast fail on a Monday afternoon isn’t critical when you’re searching for honesty. You take a sip of water, chew a piece of gum, and move on.

Hurry-up-and-wait is real

A lot of organizations don’t need fast movers all the time—but there are seasons when they absolutely do.

In one prior role at a large systems and infrastructure shop, I saw plenty of hurry-up-and-wait, then suddenly: this needed to be done two months ago—let’s go. You have to read the room and find the balance. It’s an art, honestly.

The easiest way I’ve found to calibrate:

  • Ask at the end of a team sync: “What is our 60-day outlook?”
  • Request alerts on early signals of what is coming, not just what is due today

Moving slowly matters as much as moving fast

The more important skill than moving fast is knowing how to move slowly.

Moving slowly is just as important. You’ll sit in meetings, develop plans, discuss concepts, study, and get the basics done. I’ll be the first to admit it openly: there have been stretches that felt like days turned into weeks on hold—I was ready to take action. It’s not all about any one person, though. It’s the entire team and the org.

To succeed at higher-level IT and technology work, you have to do both. I have no problem going slow, fast, or in-between. I just need to know the speed we’re supposed to drive at.

I don’t learn that speed limit from a single manager. I learn it from peers and from the technical and point-of-contact network inside the organization.

Don’t forget the human element

If you need to move fast, don’t forget the human element.

A bull in a china shop destroys. A well-tuned conveyor belt in a factory keeps production moving smoothly—even at 150% of normal load.

If you have war stories about cadence and priorities—when the room said “slow” while everything in you said “go,” or the reverse—share them in the Reliability Lounge community.

This post was imported from the author’s LinkedIn.