Dear Leaders, stop creating work emergencies

Vidushi Sandhir
Nov 1 · 5 min read

Kon Ferry Institute published a report in November 2018 on work stress. Survey respondents included Corporate Americans. I urge you to pause, read the statistics and let the reality sink in.

More than three-quarters of the respondents, 76%, say stress at work has had a negative impact on their personal relationships, and 66% say they have lost sleep due to work stress. A small but significant number, 16%, say they’ve had to quit a job due to stress.

Many people have shared with me stories of conference rooms mimicking war rooms. Something is declared as a ‘work emergency’ or ‘fire fight’. Many entry level analysts admitted that such messaging would often make them tremble and actually buy into the concept of emergency.

Work emergency is a cancer that has spread. I am here to make a case for radiotherapy.


Emergency, as defined by Merriam Webster — “a serious, unexpected, and often dangerous situation requiring immediate action.”

Pause, breathe and let the definition sink in.

If you had not already figured out from my bullet points, I am a consultant. I also love use cases and examples — yay! So here are a few questions to help reacquaint you with the concept of emergency. Fret not my dear leaders, I am here to help

Is someone close to you dead or about to die in the next 48 hours?

Has someone close to you been diagnosed with an illness and needs your immediate physical presence and support?

Has your child been left at the school without a guardian to pick them up?

Is someone in anaphylactic shock?

Are you in the middle of a natural disaster such as tornado, hurricane, earthquake, wildfire?

Is your house burning down?

Are you in a war zone?

Is the stock market crashing, likely to crash or has crashed?

Did you get stuck in an elevator?

Have you forgotten to smile, giggle, laugh?

Have you not seen your kids and/or partner or spent time with them in the last 7 days?

Did you spill a glass of your favorite red? Ok, I digress, you get the picture.

So, above are a few of the many questions you can ask yourself before declaring anything an emergency for your team.

If the answer to all the questions is ‘No’ — IT IS NOT AN EMERGENCY.

I have known only a couple of leaders in my lifetime who are able to maintain a calm head and treat their teams with respect during a storm. Such leaders do not need to CREATE emergencies. Their teams step up voluntarily out of respect.

Yes leaders — RESPECT. What you try to get through fear can be earned through considerate action.


All right, so now that we have established a clear definition of an emergency, let us take a moment to acknowledge the many people around the world who DO deal with emergencies on a daily basis. The context will help strengthen your concepts on real vs. fake emergencies and then you can pass a fake test and celebrate. How utterly exciting!

Some people I have had the privilege of knowing are doctors who take graveyard shifts and work tirelessly to do all that they can medically and emotionally for their patients. The decisions they take — those are emergencies.

I have had the privilege of being part of organizations, such as The Trevor Project, which operates a crisis helpline to provide a fighting chance to at risk youth. The calls they get — those are emergencies.

I know firefighters who put their comfort aside to save a family’s life story saved in a house. These people fight ACTUAL FIREFIGHTS.

Organizations such as United Nations and International Rescue Committee support the rehabilitation of refugees — those are physical and mental emergencies.

People who serve in armed forces — I do not even need to expound on this one.


So, take a moment and instead of disregarding these comparisons as unfair, try to put your job in a little bit of perspective. Not all of us have the opportunity, or the courage to contribute to the society in jobs that allow us to make the world a better, safer and happier place.

However, in whatever job you do, if you can TRY to grow a vagina (**shrugs** vagina is just stronger than balls!) and set a precedent to calmly handle a client or a boss, without an unjustified and unnecessary pressure of ‘emergency’ or ‘fire fight’ — I urge you, do it.

Unless you — yes you, the top leaders — start taking small steps in changing the way we live our work lives, we will be stuck in an endless loop of meaningless fake emergencies. In that loop, we forget that life can be lived in a balance.

All it takes is one precedent.

You will earn the respect of your team like never before and teach your team, by example, to treat their teams a little better. It is a ripple effect — and it is beautiful.

For the first time in your life, you might actually be ‘leading’.

Rome was not built in a day, nor can the cancer be radio-therapied in one. I am not naive. I am however an optimist and do believe that 1 constructive step, two out of ten push backs, will create a ripple for change and it will only grow bigger from hereon out.

I promise you, I really do, that if you push back maybe 2 out of 10 times, on what you would generally declare a ‘work emergency’, THE WORLD WILL NOT FALL APART, AND THE SUN WILL RISE TOMORROW. What a shocker!

Vidushi Sandhir

Written by

Technology Consultant by day. A spiritual vagabond, passionate learner and dreamer. Empowering healing for people, currently through Reiki and Ayurvedic Marma

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