The Courage to Stay in the Middle

I want to name something many of us experience, especially when we’re growing, but rarely talk about out loud. There’s a middle space in growth where things feel uncomfortable and uncertain. The old way doesn’t work anymore, but the new way hasn’t fully formed. Most people assume that discomfort means something is wrong. I’ve come to believe the opposite. That middle space - the tension between who we’ve been and who we’re becoming - is often where growth actually works, if we have the courage to stay there long enough.

For many leaders, this middle space feels deeply unsettling. Nothing is obviously wrong, but nothing feels steady either. What used to work no longer works in quite the same way. Familiar habits feel constraining, yet new ways of operating haven’t fully taken hold. Leaders often describe this moment as frustrating, disorienting, or quietly discouraging, and many assume it means they’ve taken a wrong turn.

In reality, it often means they are exactly where growth begins to matter.

What many leaders are experiencing in this moment is dynamic tension: the pull between who they have been and who they are becoming. It’s the space where old strategies are loosening, but new ones are not yet fully embodied. And because our culture equates comfort with competence, this tension is frequently misunderstood as failure rather than formation.

From an early age, most of us learn that when something feels smooth, familiar, and efficient, we must be doing it right. When something feels awkward, effortful, or uncomfortable, we assume something has gone wrong. That belief follows us into adulthood and shows up powerfully in leadership. Leaders are rewarded for confidence, decisiveness, and composure. Discomfort is often interpreted as uncertainty or lack of readiness. So, when growth begins to stretch a leader beyond familiar ways of operating, the internal narrative quickly turns inward: Something must be wrong. Maybe I’m not cut out for this. Maybe I’m in over my head. Maybe I just need to fake it until I make it.

That moment feels personal because growth doesn’t just challenge behavior, it challenges identity. The strategies that once created success begin to feel incomplete. Not wrong, but no longer sufficient. And because those strategies are familiar and reassuring, their weakening can feel like a loss of capability rather than an invitation to evolve.

This is the point where many leaders step away from growth – maybe not dramatically, but subtly. They double down on what they know. They return to familiar habits that restore a sense of competence and certainty. From the outside, it can look like resistance or a shift in priorities. From the inside, it often feels like relief and self-preservation.

What’s missed is that this discomfort is not a sign that growth isn’t working. It is a sign that growth has entered its most important phase.

Every meaningful change includes a middle period that feels inefficient and exposed. There is almost always a lag between insight and integration - between seeing something differently and living it consistently. During that lag, leaders often feel less fluent, less confident, and less certain of themselves, especially those who have built their credibility on being capable and composed. But what’s happening in this phase is not regression. It’s reorganization. Old internal structures are loosening so new ones can take shape.

One of the reasons leaders abandon growth prematurely is our deep discomfort with this middle space. We want progress to feel linear. We expect clarity to increase alongside effort. When it doesn’t and things feel messier instead of smoother, we assume the process is failing. Leaders then reach for what restores steadiness quickly: certainty, control, and familiar ways of leading. These moves feel reassuring, but they also quietly interrupt the very growth that was beginning to form.

Another reason leaders step away too soon is that real growth asks them to loosen who they believe they need to be in order to lead well. For leaders whose identity is built around being strong, decisive, or indispensable, growth can feel like losing ground rather than expanding capacity. Without language for this identity disruption, leaders interpret the discomfort as danger and retreat to what they know.

The tragedy is that this moment, the moment when leaders are most tempted to abandon growth, is often the moment they are closest to integration. The awkwardness, uncertainty, and temporary loss of confidence are signs that something new is organizing beneath the surface. Growth starts working before it feels good. The discomfort fades not because growth stops, but because it settles in.

Leaders who move through this phase successfully are not the ones who avoid discomfort. They are the ones who stop interpreting discomfort as failure. They normalize the tension and recognize it as a positive signal. Instead of asking, How do I get back to feeling comfortable? they ask, What might I be outgrowing? Instead of rushing to restore certainty, they slow down long enough for a new way of leading to take root.

This kind of perseverance doesn’t look dramatic. It’s quiet. It looks like staying curious instead of judgmental, allowing things to feel awkward without immediately fixing them, and resisting the urge to perform confidence rather than build it. It’s the willingness to remain in the middle long enough for growth to do what it’s meant to do.

Growth does not fail because leaders lack discipline or desire. It falters when discomfort is misread. When leaders expect growth to feel affirming and immediately effective, they are more likely to step away at the very moment it begins to matter.

A more useful question in moments of tension is not What am I doing wrong? but What is trying to emerge here? That question reframes discomfort as part of the process rather than a signal to stop. It creates space to stay.

Growth asks leaders to tolerate dynamic tension long enough for a new identity, mindset, or way of leading to fully form. That isn’t weakness. It’s courage. And when leaders learn to stay - without retreating and without pretending - growth doesn’t just work.

It lasts.

Kimberly Dudash, PCC
Executive Coach & Leadership Development Strategist
Founder and CEO, Dudash Executive Coaching
Refining Leadership from the Inside Out​