Most conversations about growth focus on numbers.
Revenue.
Pipeline.
Forecast accuracy.
What gets talked about far less is how growth actually feels to lead when things start to drift.
Not dramatic failure.
Not visible collapse.
Something quieter.
A constant sense of effort.
Persistent second-guessing.
The feeling of carrying too much context in your head at all times.
This is the real cost of unclear go-to-market. And it shows up long before the numbers force the issue.
When leadership starts to feel heavier than it should
There is a point where leadership stops feeling energising and starts feeling draining.
Meetings require more preparation.
Decisions need more justification.
Simple questions no longer have simple answers.
Leaders find themselves repeatedly explaining the same things in different ways to different people.
Not because teams are slow.
Because clarity is missing.
Growth does not feel blocked. It feels heavy.
Why unclear GTM creates cognitive overload
When GTM is unclear, leaders become the glue.
They reconcile competing narratives.
They translate between functions.
They hold unresolved assumptions in their heads.
Sales says one thing.
Marketing says another.
Product has a third perspective.
None are wrong. But someone has to make it make sense.
That someone is usually the leadership team.
Over time, this creates cognitive overload.
Leaders spend more time arbitrating meaning than shaping direction. Energy goes into alignment rather than progress.
This is exhausting work, even when it looks like “just meetings”.
The hidden emotional toll of constant ambiguity
Ambiguity is emotionally expensive.
When leaders are unsure whether the system is working, every decision carries extra weight.
Is this the right priority.
Are we solving the real problem.
Will this still make sense in three months.
This uncertainty creeps into confidence.
Leaders start to hedge language.
They qualify decisions.
They revisit choices they already made.
From the outside, this looks like caution. From the inside, it feels like erosion.
Why teams don’t see this happening
Most teams never see this toll directly.
They see leaders asking questions.
They see leaders pushing for clarity.
They see leaders involved in everything.
What they don’t see is why.
They don’t see the mental load required to keep a fragmented GTM system functioning. They don’t see the effort required to compensate for lack of shared logic.
So when leaders feel tired, they often internalise it.
They assume it’s a personal resilience issue.
They assume it’s part of the job.
It usually isn’t.
The difference between pressure and drag
Leadership always involves pressure.
Targets matter.
Decisions matter.
Responsibility matters.
But pressure and drag are not the same thing.
Pressure comes from ambition.
Drag comes from friction.
When GTM is clear, pressure feels purposeful. When GTM is unclear, effort dissipates into drag.
Leaders push harder, but progress feels marginal.
That mismatch is deeply demoralising.
Why leaders misdiagnose the source of exhaustion
Most leaders attribute exhaustion to external factors.
The market is tougher.
The pace is faster.
The role has expanded.
These things may be true.
But many leaders would be surprised how much energy is being drained by GTM ambiguity rather than external pressure.
The brain works harder when it has to resolve inconsistencies. Over time, that effort accumulates.
This is why some leaders feel relief, not anxiety, when clarity finally arrives.
What changes when GTM becomes coherent
When GTM logic is clear, leadership load changes immediately.
Decisions get lighter because assumptions are shared.
Conversations shorten because meaning is aligned.
Follow-through improves because expectations are explicit.
Leaders still work hard. But the work feels cleaner.
Energy shifts from interpretation to intention.
This is not about reducing responsibility. It is about reducing unnecessary mental strain.
Why this is a leadership problem, not a stamina problem
Burnout narratives often focus on personal habits.
Better boundaries.
More rest.
Improved resilience.
These matter. But they do not fix systemic drag.
If GTM is unclear, no amount of personal optimisation will remove the cognitive tax it creates.
Clarity is not self-care. It is system design.
And only leadership can create it.
The question leaders rarely ask themselves
Instead of asking, “Why am I so tired?”, a more useful question might be this.
“How much energy am I spending compensating for unclear go-to-market?”
That question reframes exhaustion as information, not weakness.
It also points to a different solution.
Not more effort.
Not more tools.
Better design.
Growth should stretch leaders, not drain them
Leadership should be demanding.
It should challenge thinking.
It should stretch judgement.
It should require courage.
It should not require constant translation, arbitration and mental juggling just to keep the organisation moving forward.
When GTM is unclear, leaders absorb that cost personally.
When GTM is coherent, the organisation carries more of the load itself.
That is the difference between growth that exhausts leaders and growth that sustains them.
And it is one of the most overlooked reasons why GTM clarity matters far beyond the numbers.
