What Does It Mean to Play the Long Game in Leadership and Systems Change?
Field Notes | Freya + Co
If you are feeling unsettled right now, you are not alone.
These days, there is a lot of dissonance in the public domain. Funding uncertainty. Shifting priorities. Big questions with very few clear answers. Many leaders are being asked to show progress fast, to offer reassurance, to produce visible wins, often in systems that feel anything but stable. That tension is not new. But it feels sharper right now.
Over years of working inside complex systems, including public health, human services, coalitions, and statewide planning, I have come to see moments like this as an invitation to recommit to the long game. Not as a strategy. As a stance.
The long game asks us to slow down just enough to notice what is really happening, to lead with care, and to resist the pull of short-term fixes that feel good but cost us later. Donella Meadows warned that quick fixes can undermine long-term system health. Ron Heifetz reminds us that adaptive change cannot be rushed without doing damage.
Systems change is slow by design. That is not a flaw. It is how systems hold together. When resistance shows up, it is often information, not failure. Impatience usually signals misaligned expectations, not lack of progress.
Sustainable leadership in moments like these is not about intensity or performative certainty. It is about staying power. Being present long enough for trust to build, for learning to happen, for people to tell the truth. Margaret Wheatley has written that stability comes from relationships, not control.
Patience in this context is not passive. It is active discernment. It is holding tension without forcing resolution. It is listening carefully before acting. Heifetz talks about regulating the pace of change. Move too fast and the system breaks. Move too slow and nothing happens.
Playing the long game also means thinking in patterns, not just moments. It means watching for unintended consequences and investing early in trust and relationships, even when the pressure is to get to the work. Time and again, I have seen that coalitions that build trust early move faster later. The work becomes easier because the system itself is healthier.
When we rush, we lose things that matter. Trust erodes. Learning gets cut short. Burnout creeps in. Change becomes fragile. Amy Edmondson’s research shows how quickly psychological safety disappears in high-pressure environments. When people stop telling the truth, systems lose their ability to adapt.
The long game makes different things possible. Deeper ownership. Stronger relationships. Shared leadership. Real resilience.
In practice, choosing the long game looks like setting honest timelines, designing processes that respect human limits, naming tradeoffs out loud, and resisting the urge to overpromise certainty. It is a series of small, intentional choices made over time.
As we move further into this year, I keep coming back to this question. Where is urgency crowding out wisdom, and what would it look like to slow down with intention?
The long game is not about waiting for change. It is about becoming the kind of leader and organization that can sustain it.
