I once sat across from a leader who had just fired three people in a single afternoon. “I had to act fast,” he said. “The situation was spiraling.” But when I asked what changed between Monday morning and Tuesday at 3 PM, he couldn’t answer. Nothing had changed except his anxiety level. The urgency he felt was real. The need for speed was not. Those three people lost their jobs because a leader confused the pressure he felt with the action required. Urgency screamed. Wisdom whispered. He listened to the wrong voice.

This is one of the most dangerous patterns in leadership: the belief that if something feels urgent, it must be acted on immediately. We have trained ourselves to respond to the volume of our emotions rather than the validity of our reasoning. The tighter the knot in your stomach, the faster you think you need to move. But here is what I have learned after watching dozens of leaders implode: urgency is almost never the Holy Spirit. It is usually fear dressed up as decisiveness.

Yesterday we talked about the gate, the moment before the moment when you still have authority to say what gets in and what stays out. Today, we need to name one of the most common intruders that rushes that gate: the feeling that you must act right now. Because once urgency gets through the gate, it does not wait for wisdom. It does not pause for counsel. It just moves, fast and loud, and you are left cleaning up the wreckage.

The problem is that urgency mimics conviction. It feels important. It feels like leadership. Your heart is pounding. Your mind is racing. Every fiber in you says, “Do something, now.” And because it feels so visceral, so undeniable, we assume it must be true. But the intensity of a feeling is not evidence of its accuracy. A racing heart does not mean the decision is right. It just means your nervous system is activated. And an activated nervous system makes terrible decisions because it is optimized for survival, not wisdom.

Wisdom, by contrast, rarely screams. It does not demand immediate action. It does not create pressure. James 1:19 says, “Be quick to listen, slow to speak and slow to become angry.” Slow. Not passive, not indecisive, but slow. Deliberate. Measured. That is the operating speed of wisdom. But urgency hates slowness. Urgency says, “If you don’t act now, you will lose control. If you wait, it will get worse.” And most of the time, urgency is lying.

Here is the test I have learned to apply when something feels urgent: ask yourself, “What will happen if I wait 24 hours?” Not a week. Not a month. Just 24 hours. If the answer is, “Nothing catastrophic,” then the urgency is probably false. Real emergencies are rare. Most of what feels urgent is just emotionally loud. The leader who fired three people in an afternoon could have waited. The situation would not have collapsed. But his anxiety convinced him that delay was dangerous, so he moved fast and destroyed three careers in the process.

So here is what we are building toward with the Watchman’s Protocol: a framework that helps you distinguish between what is actually urgent and what just feels that way. Because if you cannot tell the difference, you will spend your entire leadership career reacting to false alarms. Tomorrow, we are going to talk about the cost of an ungoverned moment, why one decision made under false urgency can compound into a crisis that takes months to repair. But today, just notice the urgency. Notice when something inside you says, “Act now.” And before you move, ask: Is this wisdom, or is this just fear with a megaphone?

I write about leadership at the intersection of timeless principles and modern workplaces. Follow for weekly insights on building teams that actually work. For more articles like this consider subscribing to my Substack at: https://christianleadership.now