The unchecked worship of urgency derails progress and exhausts teams. Effective leaders know how to channel urgency strategically, unlocking productivity that lasts.
Urgency: From Productivity Catalyst to Strategic Saboteur
Urgency is often lionized as the heartbeat of productivity, a rallying cry for leaders who urge their teams to “move faster” or “work harder.” But this misplaced worship confuses motion with momentum, and activity with achievement. Urgency, unanchored by strategy, becomes a wrecking ball—smashing decision-making frameworks and unravelling long-term objectives [1]. It typically surfaces when operations falter, tempting organizations to double down on frantic busyness rather than confronting the root inefficiencies. This frenzy doesn’t fix the problem; it amplifies it. Judgment is clouded, reactive decisions replace strategic ones, and success metrics shift disastrously—from delivering results to simply looking busy. In the end, urgency mutates from a supposed cure into the very disease it was meant to heal.
If boosting productivity were as simple as raising demands or commanding subordinates to “hurry up” or “work harder,” leadership would require little skill or sophistication. Executive leadership, however, is fundamentally about strategy—the art of rigging the game to achieve the greatest likelihood of winning [2]. It is about creating structures for precision and effective execution, ensuring that efforts are consistently aligned with well-operationalised objectives.
Leadership Missteps: Why Speed Alone Isn’t Strategy
The price of misplaced urgency is steep and unforgiving. Burnout takes root when employees sense a chasm between their relentless efforts and the rewards they expect to follow [3]. Without clear and tangible outcomes, urgency becomes a ravenous cycle, draining cognitive and physiological reserves until exhaustion sets in. Ironically, as mental capacity wanes under the strain, the perceived need for urgency intensifies—a desperate bid to sustain productivity at the cost of long-term resilience. This vicious feedback loop doesn’t just harm individuals; it erodes the collective capacity of organizations to thrive.
Motivation is a fundamental, evolutionarily ingrained mechanism, deeply rooted in the brain’s dopamine system, which links effort to reward [4]. This system inherently drives engagement by reinforcing behaviours that lead to perceived positive outcomes. However, its efficacy hinges on the alignment between expected rewards and the behaviours required to achieve them. In environments where negative interactions—such as punitive feedback or a lack of recognition—dominate, this alignment falters. The anticipated reward may transform into a deterrent, eroding intrinsic motivation. When employees associate effort with fear of failure or social conflict rather than achievement, the dopamine system shifts from driving engagement to triggering avoidance behaviours.
The Science of Sustainable Urgency: Activating True Engagement
Since the neural systems underpinning engagement are inherent and already existing in every human [4], the question becomes how to ensure that these systems are proficiently activated for the right behaviours and tasks, in the right direction, and with the desired intensity. The dopamine system, which governs motivation by linking effort to reward, thrives on clarity, novelty, and meaningful progress. Clear, attainable goals create a roadmap for action, providing the brain with measurable markers of success that activate reward pathways. Novel and engaging challenges sustain interest and tap into the brain’s natural curiosity, while consistent recognition—be it verbal praise, tangible incentives, or opportunities for growth—ensures that desired behaviours are positively reinforced.
It is a well-documented phenomenon, first observed in the Hawthorne studies of the 1920s, that employees subjected to positive observation tend to enhance their performance[5]. Moreover, urgency can be positively perceived when tied to a motivated pursuit of recognition, leading to increased employee output and engagement [6]. These insights point to two indispensable leadership tools: structured follow-up and recognition.
Establishing a sustainable, long-term approach to tracking employee contributions is not just a managerial strategy—it is a fundamental human necessity. People have an innate need for their work to be noticed and discussed, and when follow-up is conducted thoughtfully and in person, it can significantly boost productivity. Similarly, recognition and positive reinforcement tap into employees’ neural predispositions, allowing leaders to identify and amplify desired behaviours. By doing so, they increase the frequency and intensity of these behaviours, turning observation and recognition into powerful drivers of both individual and organizational performance.
Alexander Klaréus
Head of Insight