You’ve got five meetings today. A decision hanging over your head: launch now or wait until spring? Three final-round candidates to interview. A key team member just announced maternity leave. And this isn’t an unusually busy week. This is every week.

In this pressure cooker, you’re expected to think clearly, forecast wisely, and act decisively.

Consider this

Prussian General Carl von Clausewitz coined the phrase “fog of war” while studying the Napoleonic Wars. Smoke, distance, rough terrain, and the chaos of battle made full visibility impossible. Even brilliant generals made mistakes because they were operating with delayed reports, imperfect information, and unpredictable enemies.

Clausewitz concluded that the answer wasn’t to seek perfect clarity, because it didn’t exist. Instead, generals needed to remain adaptable, flexible, and steady in judgment. The fog is real, but we don’t have to be paralyzed by it.

Putting it into play

Every day brings its own fog of war, especially for leaders. Stress narrows our thinking, pushing our brains into survival mode. Great for combat but disastrous for the cognitive demands of leadership: discernment, planning, decision-making.

What’s missing is time to think. Space to reflect. The mental clarity required for leadership doesn’t appear while sprinting from meeting to meeting or reacting to every ping of your phone.

While the fog is real, you don’t have to be consumed by it. You can make time and protect your time. Go for a walk. Block a window in your calendar. Bring a notebook. Give your mind the spaciousness your role requires.

Leadership demands clarity, and clarity requires space.