80 MPH Looks Different from the Driver’s Seat

I read a quote this weekend that stopped me cold:

Man. That’ll preach.

Because that is not just a quote about cars. That is leadership, it's every tense steering committee, every late-night cutover decision, every executive conversation where you’re trying to stay calm while twenty variables are moving at once and half the room only sees two of them.

And maybe the reason it hit me so hard is because I’ve now sat in both seats.

I’ve been the passenger before. I’ve sat there questioning decisions. Wondering why leadership made something look harder than it needed to be. Wondering why they did not communicate more clearly, move more quickly, push back sooner, or just tell everybody what was really going on. From the passenger seat, it is easy to think the road looks straight, the weather looks fine, and the speed feels manageable.

Then one day you end up behind the wheel.

Now you are watching traffic patterns nobody else sees. You are listening for sounds under the hood. You are checking mirrors, watching fuel, trying to keep the car on the road, keeping the people inside calm, and hoping everybody arrives safely without fully realizing how close you came to swerving into a ditch three exits back.

That quote says a lot without saying much at all.

And I think there is a lesson in it for leadership across every part of the ERP world.

Leadership looks obvious until you are the one accountable

One of the humbling things about growing in your career is realizing how many opinions you had before you had ownership.

It is easy to critique a project manager until you have to manage a project where the client wants fixed dates, the team needs more time, the scope is expanding, the budget is tight, and nobody wants to hear the honest answer.

It is easy to question a CIO or COO until you are the one balancing business pressure, technical debt, organizational politics, people burnout, and a system that is somehow both mission-critical and held together by habits nobody documented.

It is easy to think a consulting leader should “just be transparent” until you realize transparency is not dumping every fear, every risk, and every unprocessed thought into the room.

Real transparency takes judgment. People do not need every anxiety from the driver. They do need confidence, context, honesty, and enough visibility to understand where the road is headed.

That is the tension.

Transparency matters, but so does timing

That quote also made me think about one of the hardest parts of leadership: deciding how much of the road to narrate while you are still driving it.

I believe leaders should be transparent. I believe people deserve context. I believe teams work better when they understand the “why” behind the pace, the pressure, and the decisions.

That is not transparency. That is leakage.

The best leaders I have seen do something better.

They bring people along for the ride.

They explain the terrain. They explain the speed. They explain the risk. They explain what is known and what is not. They explain what they are watching. They explain why a decision was made.

Wanting the wheel means respecting the road

There is another side to this too.

If you are in the passenger seat today, and you want to lead someday, this quote is for you too.

I think one of the best signs of maturity in a future leader is curiosity without arrogance.

Ask why. Ask what factors are being weighed. Ask what tradeoffs are in play. Ask what you may not be seeing yet.

But ask with humility.

Not every leadership decision is brilliant. Let’s not romanticize it. Some leaders absolutely make poor calls. I for SURE make some terrible calls. Ask around. Some communicate badly. Some mistake silence for strength. Some drive too fast, too loose, or with no map at all.

The leaders I understand better now

One of the most personal parts of all this is realizing how much more appreciation I have now for leaders I didn’t fully understand when I worked for them.

There were moments in my career where I thought people were overthinking things. Delaying. Being too careful. Holding back information. Taking too long to align.

Now I realize some of them were probably doing the hard work of keeping people safe while navigating conditions I could not see.

They were watching for budget cliffs. They were absorbing executive pressure. They were protecting the team from noise. They were buying time. They were choosing the least bad option, not the perfect one.

I did not always know that from where I was sitting. Now I do.

And if I am being honest, that realization comes with a little conviction too. Because when you finally get the full view from the driver’s seat, you start remembering every time you judged the driver without seeing the road.

That does not fill you with guilt as much as it fills you with perspective.

And perspective, if you let it, will make you softer in the right ways and stronger in the right ways.

A few things I’d tell any ERP leader right now

If you are leading in consulting, remember that your team cannot read your mind. Narrate the road more often.

If you are leading on the end-user side, do not underestimate how much your calm shapes the organization’s ability to change.

If you are an up-and-coming leader, trade certainty for curiosity. You will learn faster that way.

If you are carrying more than people see, do not let that become an excuse for isolation. Bring people in where it helps them grow.

If you are frustrated with a leader above you, ask yourself whether you are reacting to bad leadership or just incomplete visibility.

That question alone can save a lot of unnecessary resentment.

And in a world full of ERP projects, consulting pressure, and organizational change, we probably need less resentment and more perspective.

That quote got me this morning because it put words to something many of us feel but do not say enough:

And maybe great leadership is not just about driving well.

Maybe it is about helping the people in the car understand why the road feels the way it does, where you are headed, and what it takes to keep moving forward together.

That is leadership in consulting.

That is leadership at the end user.That is leadership in ERP.

And if you have ever moved from passenger to driver, you know exactly what I mean.

Until next time, keep your hands at 10 and 2,

DynamicsDad