Leaders who run too fast or too slow mostly work without a pacer, a 125-person survey reports

The figures come from one vantage point. Respondents picked a current or former leader and said why that person tends to run too fast, too slowly or at just the right speed ^[2]. Everything downstream, including the pacer count, rests on an employee's account of one boss, in a sample of 125 people across a range of professional and leadership roles ^[1].

Scaled to that sample, the split is easy to picture. More than 93% of 125 is about 116 people, and 60% of their leaders is roughly 70 leaders with no pacer ^[11]. The skew in direction is sharper than the pacer gap: three-quarters of the mismatched leaders ran fast and one-quarter slow, which is three fast leaders for every slow one ^[5][12].

The column's case for a pacer is that it removes a monitoring task. The authors say pacers reduce the performer's cognitive load, help manage energy and prevent second-guessing and anxiety ^[13]. In the running example, Jakob Ingebrigtsen's pacer slows him when he is too fast, speeds him when he is too slow, and otherwise lets him follow without tracking his own timing ^[8]. Those pacers are elite athletes whose sole goal is helping him win, and they step off the course when their part of the race is done ^[10]. A company has no finish line to mark that exit, so someone has to choose the stop point. The survey, as described, asked whether a pacer existed and who it was ^[3].

Two limits apply. An employee who calls a boss too fast may be describing a difference in temperament, and the excerpt does not include the pacer identities, the reported consequences for leaders and teams, or the warning signals the column promises ^[9]. Respondents were asked about those consequences ^[3], so the authors hold data we cannot see. Until it is visible, the 40% and 60% show how often pacers were present. They do not show that a pacer improved anything. The authors' other grounding is experience: they say they have repeatedly seen these problems while coaching senior leaders ^[16].

The decision this quarter is whether to name a pacer, and the consequence arrives next quarter. The authors say running too fast or too slowly creates performance problems for the leader, the team and the organization ^[17]. Without a baseline of what right speed means, taken before the pacer starts, next quarter's review will have only the same kind of evidence this survey has: perception.