From Overwhelmed to Aligned
When Rachel stepped into her new leadership role at a large asset management firm, she inherited a team buried under chaos — manual processes, constant fire drills, outdated systems, and regulations coming from every direction.
It was overwhelming. Errors piled up. The pressure from Compliance, Risk, and senior management was constant. And with ten new hires joining her first year, onboarding felt like triage instead of training.
Rachel was determined to turn things around. When the team faced an audit that first summer, she discovered something alarming; they had no written procedures. Instead of panicking, she gathered her team and turned it into a group effort.
Everyone raised their hands to own a process. Each procedure had a maker and a checker. Within weeks, they built a foundation of structure and accountability together. It was a huge win, but it didn’t solve everything.
Despite progress, Rachel was still carrying too much of the weight herself. She was trying to fix every issue, make every decision, and protect her team from the chaos, all while being scrutinized by senior leadership.
In hindsight, here’s what Rachel could have done differently to move from overwhelmed to aligned:
Empowered her team to take the lead on problem-solving initiatives rather than being the only point of control.
Proposed solutions upward bringing senior management options instead of only updates on problems.
Delegated ownership of key systems and workflows so accountability was distributed, not centralized.
Created small “clarity sprints” focused weekly goals to fix one process or control at a time instead of trying to fix everything at once.
Set clear boundaries to protect her own bandwidth and model sustainable leadership behavior for her team.
Rachel’s story is one many leaders can relate to; high expectations, low clarity, and a team eager to help but unsure how.
The turning point came when she shifted from trying to control the chaos to co-creating clarity with her team.