Pets &Perspectives
A practice in lightness and leadership.
If you spend enough time around senior leaders, you notice two parallel realities. There is the official one, full of plans, metrics, and talking points. And then there is the quiet, unflattering one: the hesitation before a hard decision, the calibrated silence in a meeting, the strange relief when an email crisis resolves itself without intervention.
Pets live entirely in the second reality. They have no use for strategy decks. They react only to what is present: tension in a room, pace, avoidance, urgency, inertia. In that sense, they are ruthless ethnographers of leadership. They notice how we move before we’ve decided what story to tell about it.
These vignettes are not about animals. They are about the private physics of leadership, made visible in fur and paws.
Rejecting That Goal
The Pet PerspectiveBall. Clear. Achievable.
Still no.
Sometimes leadership is knowing which goals deserve your energy-and which are just orange nonsense.
Your KPIs are not compelling. Fetch canceled.
Accidental Leadership
The Pet PerspectiveWhat It Takes to Lead Right Now:
I climbed up here because I thought someone should.
Now everyone’s watching like I meant to.
So I’m staying upright. Trying to breathe.
Trying to make it look intentional.
Sometimes leadership is just being the one who didn’t sit down.
The All-Hands Aftermath
The Pet PerspectiveIs this how you feel after the all-hands? You showed up. You heard words like “mission-aligned” and “strategic clarity.”
Then they casually mentioned “reductions.”
The message was clear: stay focused, stay excellent, stay worried.
Intuitive Prioritization
The Pet PerspectiveThis is not procrastination.
This is intuitive prioritization.
This cat said “no thanks” to hustle and became an upholstered croissant.
What would change if you scheduled recovery time as part of your leadership practice?
Digital Collapse
The Pet PerspectiveThe scroll pulled me under.
I flailed.
Then gravity took me.
And now I’m here. Flattened by information and one terrible headline too many.
Please send snacks. Or silence. Either works.
When Imposter Syndrome Hits
The Pet PerspectiveYou thought you were doing fine until a 3-foot, bronze version of your job title showed up
and just stood there looking… permanent.
And suddenly, you felt small. Like maybe you were just borrowing the role.
That’s just your brain having a weird day.
Which voice are you listening to - the one that doubts, or the one that dares?
None of this was really about the pets. If it landed, let’s talk about your team.
Start a conversation