The Urge to Fix: Presencing, Absencing, and the Discipline of Staying
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A Full Week And Wanting Space
I have been traveling this week for work. Between client sessions, a class on Appreciative Inquiry, reading US by Terrence Real, finishing a proposal, managing family logistics, and preparing for ski week, my calendar has been full. Outwardly, everything looks productive and purposeful, but beneath the movement, I am feeling something different: The need/craving for space. I don’t mean the space to rest, and not even quiet. More like the kind of solitude that allows thoughts to unfold without cognitive interruption. I have wanted time to process what I am learning about myself and to follow the questions that have begun to surface. Instead, I have felt a subtle but persistent urgency to “find time” somewhere inside an already crowded week.
What’s intriguing to me is that this urgency is not anxiety in the traditional sense. It is not avoidance or overwhelm. It is the tension that comes from being deeply engaged in awareness without yet having the space to metabolize it. I am experiencing what Otto Scharmer, founder of Theory U at MIT, would describe as presencing. And presencing, I am discovering, is more demanding than it sounds.
Precensing and Abscensing: Two Ways of Showing Up
“Presencing asks something braver. It asks me to stay with uncertainty long enough to understand what it is revealing.”
In Scharmer’s work, he distinguishes between absencing and presencing as two fundamentally different ways of relating to ourselves and to the systems around us. Absencing occurs when we disconnect from our deeper awareness, from one another, and from the broader field of possibility. It is reactive and driven by habitual patterns, defensiveness, or fear. Presencing, by contrast, involves sensing into emerging possibilities and allowing a deeper intelligence to inform action. It requires openness of mind, heart, and will. It is not passive; it is intentional attention.
Recent leadership commentary has connected this distinction to what Vibhas Ratanjee calls the “deficit reflex” in change management. We are quick to diagnose what is broken and to design interventions to repair it. We focus on closing gaps and correcting deficiencies. Yet in doing so, we often bypass the more generative work of cultivating awareness. We treat symptoms while leaving underlying dynamics untouched.
Slowing Down in a Culture of Speed
If I were to describe presencing in my own words, I would say that it is the discipline of becoming still and regulated enough to follow one’s thoughts further than usual, to allow new questions to appear, and to notice what is unfolding internally before moving to solve it. It runs counter to our cultural conditioning because it does not produce an immediate, tangible deliverable. There is no slide deck to show for it, no optimized workflow, no clear metric that captures its value. It looks like slowing down in a world that rewards speed.
Many of us have internalized this equation: if I stop fixing, I stop delivering; if I stop delivering, I lose my value; and if I lose my value, I lose my purpose. This equation drives a great deal of leadership behavior. We redesign processes, introduce new tools, refine strategies, and increase output. None of these are inherently problematic, but they can become substitutes for deeper inquiry.
What Was Really Underneath the “Communication Problem”
I recently worked with a team that asked for help “fixing” how they communicated. They were already skilled professionals who understood the mechanics of effective communication. What emerged, however, was not a lack of technique but a pattern of reactivity rooted in fear—fear of losing control, fear of losing ownership, and fear of becoming irrelevant. Once those fears were acknowledged, the need for additional communication frameworks diminished. The shift occurred not because they acquired a better script but because they developed a more honest awareness of what was driving their interactions. From that awareness, new solutions emerged naturally.
My Own Deficit Reflex
I see the same dynamic in myself. When uncertainty arises in my business, particularly in a world that feels volatile and rapidly changing, I notice how quickly I move toward action. I consider new automation tools, increased content production, or ways to optimize my systems. The movement is subtle but familiar: if I can produce more, refine more, and accelerate more, I will remain relevant. Beneath that reflex is an older story about value and belonging, one that equates performance with worth and productivity with security. There is a younger part of me that learned to prove before she could feel fully heard.
“When uncertainty rises, I notice how quickly I move toward output-as if speed could secure relevance.”
Presencing asks something different. It asks me to remain with the uncertainty long enough to understand what it is revealing. It invites me to trust that awareness itself is generative, that by staying connected to what is emerging in me rather than racing ahead of it, I align my actions more precisely with what is needed. My business and my inner life are not separate domains competing for attention; they are interconnected. When I deepen my awareness, I strengthen the foundation from which I lead.
Leadership Capacity in an Age of Acceleration
In an era where artificial intelligence increasingly enhances performance and output, optimization alone will not distinguish leaders. What will matter more is the capacity to remain grounded in the midst of complexity, to notice reactive patterns before they harden into strategy, and to create space for deeper understanding before taking action. Presencing is not about abandoning results; it is about ensuring that results arise from clarity rather than compulsion.
An Invitation to Stay
The invitation, then, is simple but not easy. The next time you feel the urge to fix, optimize, or correct, pause for a moment and ask yourself whether you are responding to the present situation or to an old narrative about your value. You may discover that what feels like urgency is not a demand for action but a signal to pay closer attention.
Leadership, at its most mature, is less about constant delivery and more about disciplined awareness. Sometimes the most strategic move is not to accelerate but to stay long enough with what is unfolding to see it clearly.
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