A manager at a software company has promised a retail client that its new ordering system will go live on Monday. Staff have been trained and the launch announced. On Friday, the technical lead reports that an order disappeared during testing. The team cannot reproduce the fault and does not yet know whether it could affect customers.
Delaying would disrupt the client’s plans. Proceeding could expose customers to a problem whose seriousness is still unclear. In an hour, the manager has to speak to the client.
As she prepares, she notices how much she wants Monday’s launch to remain possible. She has defended that date for weeks. How much is her earlier promise shaping what she is willing to hear now?
When a commitment becomes difficult to question
Keeping a promise matters. So does recognising when new information changes what we can responsibly promise.
The difficulty is personal as well as practical. Revising a commitment can feel like exposing poor judgement or letting people down. We may ask for reassurance, discount an awkward detail, or keep looking for a way to preserve the plan.
A useful question at this point is: what does this situation ask of me?
It invites us to examine what deserves attention now: the evidence, the people affected and the choices still available. Our earlier intentions remain part of the picture, alongside circumstances that may have changed.
Responsibility can be shared
For someone already carrying a great deal, that question may sound like another obligation. Its answer can include asking for help, involving someone with the authority to decide, or renegotiating a commitment.
The manager needs the technical lead’s assessment and the client’s understanding of the consequences of delay. She may also need a senior colleague to authorise further testing or a different launch plan. Her responsibility includes bringing those people into the decision and making the uncertainty clear.
Authority matters here. A senior leader can change a target or invite challenge in ways that a junior colleague may be unable to do safely. Asking everyone to take responsibility makes more sense when we also consider what each person has the power to change.
Where Frankl’s view of meaning helps
Viktor Frankl, the Austrian psychiatrist who developed logotherapy, connected meaning with how we respond to the particular circumstances of our lives.[1] He understood freedom as the room to take a stance and shape our lives within the possibilities our circumstances allow.[2]
In working life, a meaningful possibility might be to repair trust after a mistake, give someone a fair hearing, or do a piece of work that another person depends on. Its significance comes into view as we recognise the person or task that needs our response.
Frankl also described meaning through experiences and relationships, and through the attitude we take towards unavoidable suffering.[3] His account leaves room for meaning when achievement or control is limited.
For leadership, I take this to mean asking which of the available responses would serve the people and responsibilities involved. The client needs reliable information to make a decision. Recognising that need gives the manager’s freedom a direction, even if speaking openly puts her earlier assurances under scrutiny.
The freedom to respond
The manager may initially feel trapped between keeping her promise and letting the client down. Asking what the situation calls for can bring other choices into view.
She can tell the client what is known before offering another assurance. She can ask for a short investigation with a clear decision point. She can involve the people affected in examining the consequences of delay, or ask the technical team whether a limited launch could be made safe.
Each option still needs scrutiny. The question does not settle the technical risk or remove the cost of delay. It helps her see where she can act: how she communicates, whose judgement she involves, what she asks to be checked and which commitments she is willing to revisit.
This is the practical connection to Frankl: the question makes the freedom still available to us more visible, and asks what we will use it for. A worthwhile action can remain uncomfortable. We can nevertheless choose a response we have reasons to stand behind.
Three questions before your next decision
Think of a commitment that has become difficult to keep. Before deciding how to proceed, ask:
- What needs attention now? Consider new evidence, assumptions and people whose concerns you have not yet heard.
- What is mine to do? Consider your role, your authority and where you need help or a shared decision.
- What should happen next? Identify one action that serves a purpose you can explain, and when you will review it.
In coaching, I might ask this manager what revisiting the promise would mean to her, and what she is trying to protect by keeping it. Her answer could reveal a concern about trust, loyalty or her own credibility. From there, we could explore how to honour what matters while responding to what has changed.
What does this situation ask of me? And, in answering it, what choices can I now see?
Related reading
Practical Wisdom: Why Strengths Are Not Enough
Focus on What You Can Influence
Sources and further reading
The leadership scenario and reflective practice are original applications developed for this article. They are illustrative, rather than accounts of a client or research case study.
Image credit: Gustave Caillebotte, Le Pont de l’Europe, c. 1876. Public domain. Source: Wikimedia Commons.
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