When Was the Last Time You Cleared the Windscreen?

🟦 Business After 60 Conversation

One of the least discussed problems facing experienced business owners isn’t cash flow, staffing or productivity. It’s leadership fatigue.

After years of making decisions, solving problems and carrying responsibility, even very capable leaders can reach a point where the business starts to look more complicated than it really is.

The symptoms are familiar: more meetings, more spreadsheets, more KPIs and more analysis.

But sometimes the problem isn’t a lack of information.

It’s a lack of clarity.

Sometimes stepping away from the business is the best way to regain perspective and make better decisions.

Let me ask you something straightforward.

When you first started or took charge of your business, how did you make decisions?

If you’re anything like me, you made them fast.

You looked at the situation, trusted your gut and moved forward with conviction.

You didn’t always get it right, but you moved.

You had clarity about where you were going and what needed to be done.

Now fast-forward to where you are today.

When a problem crops up — cash flow, productivity, staff, sales — what’s the immediate reaction?

Is it to trust that original instinct?

Or is it to call another meeting, ask for another spreadsheet, demand three more KPIs and start digging through layers of data?

Over the last few years, I’ve sat down with dozens of exceptional, experienced business leaders.

People who have built great companies through experience, grit and talent.

And do you know what I’ve noticed, often over a good meal or a round of golf?

Sometimes You Don’t Need Another Answer

More often than not, they already know the answer to their biggest problem.

They don’t need another spreadsheet.

They don’t necessarily need another KPI.

They certainly don’t need another 50-page report telling them what they already know.

They’re tired.

And I think that’s something we don’t talk about enough.

When you spend years fighting daily fires, the windscreen gets dirty.

Everything starts looking like a crisis.

Every metric becomes critical.

Every problem demands your attention.

And that sharp, decisive edge you once relied on gets buried beneath the operational noise.

You haven’t necessarily lost your ability to lead.

You’ve just lost the space to hear yourself think.

So let’s take a breath and drop the guard for five minutes.

Ask yourself:

If you could only fix ONE operational headache in your business this month, which one would actually move the needle?

Are you genuinely stuck on the solution, or are you simply too exhausted from running the daily machine to execute it?

What’s the one report or meeting in your weekly calendar that adds almost no value, but you keep doing out of habit?

When was the last time you took yourself completely out of the building for a day — no laptop, no dashboards — just to think?

Management thinking often tells us that when a business is struggling, we need more control, more data and more tracking.

My experience tells me that sometimes we need something much simpler.

Distance.

Simplicity.

Perspective.

I’ve spent a lot of my working life helping business owners identify problems and work out what needs to change.

But there’s something I’ve learned along the way.

Even the best business mind in the world can’t solve a problem for someone who isn’t ready to listen.

And perhaps that’s true for all of us.

Sometimes the hardest thing isn’t finding the answer.

It’s clearing enough space to see the answer we already have.

And perhaps I should be honest here.

I haven’t been immune to this myself.

After many years of helping business owners identify problems, find solutions and push for change, I think I’ve experienced a little leadership fatigue of my own.

Not because I’ve stopped enjoying business. Quite the opposite.

I’ve simply become increasingly aware that I want to spend my energy differently.

Sometimes clearing the windscreen isn’t about finding a better route.

It’s about deciding which road you actually want to be on.

So…

How does your windscreen look right now?

Are you making decisions with the clarity and conviction you once had?

Or has the noise of running the business started to obscure the road ahead?

I’d genuinely love to hear your thoughts.