It’s 80 degrees in Northern Michigan. Every day. The kind of stretch that makes you want to drop the doors off your Jeep and just go.
On Saturday, I was behind two guys doing exactly that. Mid-aged, hats on backwards, golf clubs stacked in the back seat, Van Halen loud enough to hear through closed windows at the stoplight. Their vibe was palpable. I promise I’m not trying to build a stereotype here — this was just what was happening in front of me.
Then the light turned green, they tore off, and one of their fancy golf club covers flew straight out of the Jeep, sailed over my windshield, and was gone.
I’m a see-something-say-something person. But in this case, there was nothing to see-something-say-something about. I couldn’t call them. I couldn’t flag them down. I couldn’t pull over and chase down a piece of golf equipment on a two-lane road. By the time I processed what happened, it was over.
So instead, I did what any of us would do: I wrote the scene that was about to unfold at their house.
“Bro, where’s my club cover?” “Dude, I saw you put it on.” “Seriously, where is it: that’s expensive. It came with the driver.”
And they’d go back and forth like that for another minute or two, running through theories, none of which would be right. Because I had the one clue that mattered, and they didn’t: it was somewhere on the road between the Brown Trout Motel and the Whi-Ski Bar in Boyne City, probably already flattened beyond recognition, indistinguishable, at this point, from the porcupine roadkill it was now keeping company with.
Why is this a leadership story?
Because it has conflict. My conflict.
I had the clues to a mystery, and I could not stand being unable to do anything about it. I was an observer with information and zero ability to act on it.
That feeling, that itch, is worth paying attention to, because it shows up constantly in our work, and it’s rarely as harmless as a lost club cover. So I want you to sit with three questions, because they describe three very different versions of powerlessness, and they call for three very different responses.
Are you an observer, but powerless? You see the problem clearly. You may even see it coming before anyone else does. But you genuinely have no lever to pull, no authority, no relationship, no mechanism. This was me on Saturday. When this is the real situation, the leadership move isn’t to force an action you don’t have. It’s to let it go, cleanly, without it eating at you. Manufacturing action where none is possible isn’t diligence: it’s just noise.
Are you an observer with power, but no influence? This one’s trickier, and more common than we like to admit. You technically have the authority to act, the title, the seat at the table, the sign-off, but you don’t have the trust, the relationship, or the credibility to make that action land. You can issue the directive. Nobody will actually follow it. If this is you, the work isn’t more authority. It’s influence-building: showing up consistently, understanding what the other side actually needs, earning the right to be heard before you need to be heard.
Are you an observer with power and influence, but no will? This is the one that should make us most uncomfortable, because it’s the one that’s entirely on us. You could act. People would follow you if you did. And you’re choosing not to, because it’s uncomfortable, because it might cost you something, because it’s easier to stay a spectator to a problem you’re fully equipped to solve.
The question I want you to sit with
What are you observing right now that is driving you crazy?
Now ask: what’s your actual relationship to it? Is it genuinely beyond your control, my golf club cover on Saturday? Or is it something you can change or influence, and you’ve been telling yourself it’s out of your hands because that story is more comfortable than the alternative?
Here’s the honest answer, and it’s one I have to give myself as often as I give it to anyone I coach: situations that are truly, completely beyond our control are rare. Rarer than we let ourselves believe. Most of the time, when we say “there’s nothing I can do,” what we actually mean is “there’s nothing I’m willing to do yet.”
Mine really was one of the rare ones. I had no number to call, no way to catch them, no move available to me at all. That’s genuinely different from telling yourself a story to avoid the uncomfortable one.
So, which one is your golf club cover?
And hey, if one of you two guys from Saturday reads this: it’s gone. But at least the mystery’s solved.
