This Is the Month Your Presence Matters Most

Presidential Consultants
Mar 19
7 min read

I’m a football guy. That’s what I grew up watching, and it’s still what I follow the most. But every year around this time, I find myself paying attention to March Madness, and it’s not just the games. It’s how the games feel.

You can see the difference right away. The pace is a little tighter. The reactions are quicker. One run can shift everything. And you start to notice things you might not pay attention to earlier in the season. You notice how players respond when something doesn’t go their way. You notice how they look to the bench. You notice whether they seem settled or whether something feels off. At that level, everybody is talented. That part is already decided. What you’re really watching is how teams handle the moment they’re in.

Every March, without fail, there’s a stretch where that becomes very clear. And what I’ve come to realize is that something similar is happening inside our organizations at the same time, even if we don’t always name it that way.

The March Reality: Same Work, Different Moment

The work hasn’t changed. People are still showing up. The expectations are still there. The mission still matters just as much as it did a few months ago. But the experience of the work starts to feel different.

At the beginning of the year, there’s usually a little more energy to draw from. People are coming in fresh. There’s a natural reset that happens, and even when things are busy, there’s a sense that, “Okay, we’re getting into it.” By the time you get to March, people have been carrying that pace for a while, and that starts to show up in small but meaningful ways.

It shows up in how quickly someone gets frustrated, or how long it takes to recover from a tough day. It shows up in conversations that feel a little shorter, a little more direct than they used to. Nothing about the job has changed on paper, but the way people are experiencing it has.

And this is also the point in the year where another pattern begins to take shape. Every year, across helping professions, whether you are in a school system, a social services agency, a behavioral health organization, or a hospital, you see a similar curve. It's called the ‘Quitting Curve’. Turnover starts to rise in April, and by the time you get into May and June, it becomes much more visible. By July, you’re feeling the full impact of it.

From the outside, it can look like something that just happened. But those decisions rarely start in April. They start earlier. They start in moments like this, where people are quietly taking stock of how they feel, how sustainable the pace is, and whether they can keep going the way things are.

So when we talk about March, we’re not just talking about another month on the calendar. We’re talking about a moment where the conditions tighten a bit, where the same work feels heavier, and where the way leaders show up begins to carry more weight than it did before. The good news is, now that you know, there is so much we can do.

What Leaders Need to Understand in This Moment

Once you recognize this shift, the question becomes how leadership is experienced during it.

In moments like this, people are not looking for something new to be introduced. They are looking for steadiness. They are paying closer attention than usual, even if they don’t say it directly. They notice tone. They notice how leaders respond when things get off track. They notice whether communication brings clarity or adds pressure, and whether their leaders feel present in what the work actually requires right now.

This is also where leadership presence can begin to slip, often without intention. As pressure builds, leaders take on more. They stay focused on solving problems and keeping things moving. But in doing that, conversations can become shorter, check-ins more transactional, and visibility more limited. From the leader’s perspective, they are doing what the moment requires. From the team’s perspective, something feels different, and that difference starts to matter.

In high-pressure environments, people take their cues from leadership. When presence feels steady, the work feels more manageable. When it doesn’t, uncertainty fills the space.

The leaders who move through this part of the year well are not doing everything differently. What they are doing is adjusting how they show up in a few key ways that make a real difference in how their teams experience the work.

The Three Presence Shifts Leaders Must Make in March

From Visibility to Intentional Visibility

Being accessible is not the same as being present in a way that people can feel. In March, visibility needs to become more intentional.

This means getting closer to where the work is happening and paying attention to how people are experiencing it, not just whether it is getting done. It also means slowing down enough in those interactions to actually notice what is being said and what is not. I think about a director in a social services agency we worked with to make small adjustments during this time of year. Instead of staying focused on reports and deadlines in her office, she started spending part of her morning with her team during their huddles. She did not change the agenda or take over the conversation. She listened. When she asked questions, they were simple and direct. “Where are things getting stuck right now?” or “What’s been harder this week than it was last week?”

What changed was not the workload. It was the experience of it. Her team felt like someone was paying attention to the reality of their work, not just the outcomes. That alone reduced some of the pressure they were carrying.

From Direction to Reinforced Clarity

Earlier in the year, leaders can set direction and expect people to carry it forward with energy and focus. By March, that same direction often needs to be reinforced in a way that helps people stay grounded.

When people are managing multiple demands over time, it becomes harder to hold everything at once. Priorities can start to blur, and when everything feels important, it becomes difficult to know where to focus.

Strong leaders respond to that by narrowing the field. They restate what matters most right now, and they make it clear what does not need attention in this moment.

In one school we worked with, the principal noticed that staff were feeling pulled in several directions as the semester progressed. Instead of introducing anything new, she used a faculty meeting to bring the team back to their core instructional priorities. She named the two areas that would remain the focus through the end of the term and gave explicit permission to set aside lower-priority initiatives.

That level of clarity helped teachers concentrate their effort where it would have the most impact. It reduced the sense of being spread thin and gave people a clearer path forward.

From Pace to Intentional Pacing

As the pressure builds, there is a natural tendency to move faster. There is more to do, and it can feel like the only way to keep up is to keep pushing.

Over time, that creates a constant sense of urgency that wears people down.

Leaders who are paying attention recognize that pace needs to be managed, not just endured. They look for opportunities to slow things down just enough to help their teams stay steady.

In a behavioral health organization, I saw this play out with a clinical manager who realized her team was moving from one session to the next with no time to reset. The schedule had been built for efficiency, but it left people carrying emotional weight from one interaction straight into the next.

She made a small adjustment to create short, protected breaks between sessions. It did not change the overall workload, but it changed how that workload felt. Clinicians had a moment to regroup, which allowed them to be more present with the next person they served.

That kind of pacing does not reduce demand, but it helps people manage it in a more sustainable way.

March Doesn’t Have to Mean Madness

When leaders stay visible, reinforce what matters most, and manage the pace in ways that support their teams, the impact becomes clear. Teams feel more grounded in the middle of demanding work. Communication becomes clearer. Issues surface earlier because people feel space to speak up. The work is still challenging, but it feels more manageable.

Like your favorite college team that stays composed under pressure, steadiness creates consistency. That doesn’t happen by accident. It’s shaped by how leaders show up. March is not a time to reset everything. It’s a time to lead with greater awareness and intention because, in moments like these, teams respond to the presence of the person leading them through it.

Master Trainer, International Speaker and author of the book “Invincible Social Worker”, Anthony President has empowered and inspired more than 100,000 professionals to perform, produce and partner better at their places of work. Thousands of companies and organizations have been transformed as a result of Anthony’s work.

As Founder and CEO of Presidential Consultants, LLC, Anthony leads a team of more than two dozen experienced learning development and coaching professionals who together serve more than 16,000 helping professionals each year in the areas of leadership, inclusion, and workplace wellness. As a thought leader in the field, Anthony continues to research, innovate, and drive positive change in the realm of professional development and organizational transformation.

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