Most leaders are moving faster than ever. That does not always mean they are making progress.

---

Hey Spark Family,

I was talking with a leader recently who said something I have heard in a dozen different ways this year.

“We are moving so fast. I just don’t know if we are actually moving forward.”

That sentence stayed with me because I think it names something many leaders are feeling, even if they have not said it out loud yet.

Her team was not lazy. They were moving constantly. Meetings were full. Slack was active. Decisions were being discussed. Priorities were being revisited. People were answering emails early, late, and in between. From the outside, it looked like momentum.

But when we slowed it down, a different pattern appeared.

The team was very busy reacting, updating, aligning, circling back, and trying to keep up. What they were not doing enough of was making clear decisions, protecting focused time, and moving the highest-value work forward in a way people could feel.

That is the part that matters.

Because motion can be loud. Progress is usually quieter.

Motion fills the calendar. Progress changes the outcome.

Motion gives us the feeling that we are doing a lot. Progress gives us evidence that what we are doing is actually working.

And right now, a lot of leaders are confusing the two.

The Research Is Clear

The data tells a pretty powerful story about why so many teams feel busy but not always effective.

➡ Microsoft’s 2025 Work Trend Index found that employees can be interrupted every two minutes during core work hours. For the highest-volume users, that adds up to 275 interruptions a day from meetings, emails, and chats.

➡ Asana’s Anatomy of Work Index found that knowledge workers spend 60% of their time on “work about work,” meaning the updates, status checks, coordination, searching, switching, and chasing that surround the actual work.

➡ Atlassian’s 2025 State of Teams research found that leaders and teams waste 25% of their time just searching for answers.

That is a lot of movement.

A lot of responsiveness.

A lot of effort.

But it is not always progress.

This is what I want leaders to really sit with: your team can be working hard, communicating constantly, and still losing momentum on the work that matters most.

Not because people do not care.

Because speed without clarity turns into spin.

What I'm Seeing In The Field

What I see over and over is that most teams do not realize they are stuck because stuck looks different now.

It does not always look like silence, disengagement, or missed deadlines. Sometimes it looks like back-to-back meetings, late-night messages, overflowing project channels, and very smart people giving very thoughtful updates on work that still is not actually moving.

A team thinks they need another meeting when what they really need is a decision.

A leader thinks people need more communication when what they really need is clearer prioritization.

A company celebrates urgency, then wonders why everyone is exhausted and the most strategic work keeps getting pushed to the edges of the day.

None of this comes from bad intent. In fact, it usually comes from commitment. People want to be responsive. Leaders want to be helpful. Teams want to stay connected. Everyone is trying to make sure nothing gets missed.

But without clarity, responsiveness can become its own trap.

People start treating every request like it matters equally. Every update feels urgent. Every conversation becomes another loop. And before long, the team is moving constantly, but the most important work is still waiting for a clean path forward.

That is when leaders have to pause and ask the question underneath all the activity:

Is this movement creating progress, or is it just helping us feel productive?

↓

What We Teach Leaders Inside Spark Brilliance

When I work with leaders on this, the first shift is simple but not always easy.

Stop measuring momentum by how full the week feels.

Start measuring it by what is actually moving forward.

A full calendar is not proof of progress. A busy team is not proof of alignment. A fast pace is not proof that the right work is getting done.

The leaders who navigate this well create what I call progress clarity. They make it unmistakably clear what matters most, what can wait, what needs a decision, and what success actually looks like this week.

That last part is important.

Because teams do not just need big goals. They need visible movement.

They need to know, “By the end of this week, what should be clearer, decided, completed, advanced, or removed?”

That one question can change the energy in a room.

It takes the team out of vague busyness and brings them back to meaningful movement.

It also helps leaders notice where they may be unintentionally creating spin. Sometimes the leader is the one adding another conversation instead of making the call. Sometimes the leader is keeping too many priorities alive because they do not want to disappoint anyone. Sometimes the leader is asking for speed, but has not clarified direction.

And people cannot move forward confidently when they are still trying to guess what matters most.

🌟 Your Challenge This Week

Before your week gets moving, look at the work in front of you and ask a different set of questions.

Not “Are we busy?”

You already know the answer.

Ask:

• What are the three things that most need to move forward this week?
• What decision would create the most momentum?
• What meeting, update, or process is creating motion but not progress?
• Where are people being responsive at the expense of being effective?

And the one worth sitting with longest:

Are you rewarding your team for moving fast, or are you helping them move forward?

The leaders who create real momentum are not the ones who make everything move faster.

They are the ones who make the right things clearer.

Because when clarity goes up, wasted motion goes down.

And that is when teams stop spinning and start building.

With gratitude,
​Jackie

P.S. – If your team feels busy but not meaningfully further along, that is not a failure. Reach out if this feels like you and you want some support to move forward, faster. ✨

Did someone forward this to you? Subscribe to get it delivered directly.