If you had a stone in your shoe, you’d stop and deal with it.
At first, you might keep walking. It’s uncomfortable, but manageable. You tell yourself you’ll sort it out later.
But once it becomes a pressure point, you stop. You unlace your shoe, sit down, shake it out, remove the stone. You don’t question whether stopping is justified. You simply recognise that continuing would change how you move, and eventually, how you function.
So why, when the pressure is mental or emotional, do we so often do the opposite?
When the stone isn’t physical, we tend to walk on.
In leadership or education, this is where tolerated discomfort often takes hold. It isn’t sharp enough to force a stop, and it isn’t visible enough to explain easily. So we adjust our stride. We normalise the friction. We keep going.
Over time, what we’re tolerating quietly begins to shape how we lead, decide, and show up.
In education especially, we’re often praised for coping, even when coping comes at a cost.
Whether you’re leading in education, safeguarding others, or running a business, many of us become skilled at carrying discomfort without naming it. We tell ourselves it’s just a busy season, that people are relying on us, that we’ll pause when things settle.
So instead of stopping, we tighten our laces and keep moving.
The stone might show up as the emotional weight you carry home at the end of the day. It might be decisions you’re holding alone because leadership can feel isolating. It might be a creeping misalignment between your values and how things are being done, or constant pressure to keep going without space to reflect.
Sometimes, it’s simply a quiet sense that you’re coping, but not really thriving. One gentle place to start is simply naming the stone. Not fixing it. Not judging it.
Just finishing this sentence honestly:
“The thing that’s been quietly uncomfortable for me lately is…”
Clarity often begins there. If this were physical, we’d recognise the wisdom in stopping. Stopping isn’t failure. It’s awareness. Unlacing doesn’t mean stepping away forever. It means creating a little space to think.
“The best leader knows how to make followers feel themselves powerful.”
But when leaders are carrying unexamined discomfort alone, that power becomes harder to share. Presence narrows. Decisions feel heavier. Leadership turns into something to endure, rather than something that enables others to grow. There’s also a wider system at play. Edgar Schein reminds us that:
“Culture is what a group learns over time as it solves its problems.”
Over time, tolerated discomfort can quietly become part of a leadership culture, simply because it’s how problems have been survived rather than examined. And this feels important to name.
What we tolerate in leadership often says more about our values under pressure than our intentions ever could.
When things feel heavy, I often invite leaders to pause and ask:
- Where do I need to stop rather than push on?
- What might it look like to unlace, even briefly, and create thinking space?
- What is the one stone that needs removing right now?
- And how do I want to restart, differently this time?
A quiet rule that helps here is this: you don’t remove every stone at once. You choose the one causing the most discomfort now. Sometimes the discomfort isn’t about workload at all. It’s about friction. A useful question can be:
Which of my values feels rubbed or compromised right now?
When values are under pressure, our bodies often notice before our minds do. One final question I often leave people with is this:
Who do you currently have a safe, confidential space with, to take your shoe off and think out loud?
If the answer is “no one”, that’s not a failure. It’s simply information.
👉 What stone have you been walking on, and what might change if you stopped to remove it?
A little about me
I’m Georgie McIntyre, a coach, supervisor, and strategist supporting educators, safeguarding professionals, founders, and senior leaders who carry significant responsibility for others.
My work centres on calm, values-led leadership, ethical growth, and creating safe, reflective spaces where people can pause, think clearly, and lead sustainably, without burning out or losing sight of what matters most.
If this reflection resonated and you’d like more like it, you can sign up to The Calm Clearing, my newsletter for thoughtful pauses, gentle insight, and grounded reflections on leadership, supervision, and sustainable growth.
👉 Enter The Calm Clearing here.
Georgie 🌱
