We have a cat — Sybil — who has the worst case of FOMO I have ever seen. She will stand at the window of the kitchen door, asking to go outside. And almost as soon as she is let out, she turns her back and begins to look through the window into the kitchen. She doesn’t last more than a minute before meowing to ask to come in.

If we go outside with her, she is more content to play and explore. I know some of this is about being with her people. But as I made my coffee this morning and watched her ask to come back in with the bright green and blue world at her back, I had to wonder how often I do the same thing.

Leaders are often tasked with — well — leading. Setting the compass, rallying the troops, whacking the bush. Tally ho, let’s go.

And sometimes we get so good at focusing on that next thing, we forget to lead where we are.

I’ll put myself on the spot here. I’ve been deep in the work of building and promoting Nonprofit Academy Summer Camp — a blast from the moment the idea came to me. I’m also looking ahead to the fifth anniversary cohort of Q3LC, taking everything I learned from NPA Summer Camp and rolling it into our next campaign. There’s deep work happening on my coaching philosophy over at ejpitmancoaching. And Magnetize 2027 is already on the horizon.

Setting the compass, rallying the troops, whacking the bush. Tally ho!

And so on the first day when the compass was set, the troops were rallied, and the bush was whacked — I wasn’t quite sure what to do with myself. If I’m not marching onward, am I leading?

Here is where I identify with Sybil. Meow meow. What am I missing over there?

What does leadership look like when things are already in motion — when the steady, careful work has been implemented and is simply… working?

As leaders, it makes sense that we like the feeling of action and impact. It’s tempting to manufacture more of it — another idea, a sudden change of direction, a little mission drift — just to feel useful again.

But I’m unconvinced that leadership, true leadership, is meant to mean stress and motion all the time. I’m equally unconvinced it’s meant to be static or passive — just observing from a comfortable chair.

I think there’s a third way. Not compass-setting. Not sitting still. Call it tending.

Not every season is about blazing a trail. Some seasons are about walking the one you’ve already made — checking the signposts, encouraging the people on it, pulling a few weeds — and trusting that growth is happening even when it isn’t dramatic.

Then: checking in with the team. Following through on promises. Celebrating quiet progress. Making small adjustments instead of sweeping changes. Trusting the systems we carefully built when we were the ones setting the compass in the first place.

That takes a different kind of courage. Not the courage to start something, but the courage to believe momentum doesn’t always need more pushing. Sometimes it just needs space to carry itself.

We rarely get applause for that kind of leadership. New ideas are exciting. New directions are energizing. New projects make us feel useful. But the leadership that stays, that pays attention, that notices something is working and resists the urge to fix it just because standing still feels uncomfortable — that’s leadership too. Maybe the harder kind.

Maybe that’s what Sybil was reminding me this morning. She wasn’t unhappy outside. She just couldn’t stop wondering if something better was happening somewhere else.

I wonder how often I do the same. How often I miss the satisfaction of watching good work take root, because I’m already peering through another window.

So today, instead of looking for another door to open, I’m going to spend a little more time where I already am.

Because leading isn’t only setting the compass, rallying the troops, and whacking the bush.

Sometimes it’s walking beside the people who are already on the path — tally ho retired for the day — paying attention, making course corrections when they’re needed, and trusting that steady, faithful leadership can carry us farther than frantic motion ever could.