Ever notice how silence spreads faster than the truth?
When people delay hard conversations, they think time will fix it.
It doesn’t.
It festers.
That’s the psychology of immediacy: the ability to face reality in real time.
It’s a leadership skill rooted in courage, not comfort.
Avoidance teaches the brain that silence equals safety.
Over time, that rewires culture into emotional numbness…
And numb cultures can’t perform.
When leaders practice relationship immediacy (addressing tension, feedback, or emotion as it happens) and here-and-now immediacy (naming what’s real in the moment), they restore connection, trust, and momentum.
Performance isn’t built on perfection but on delivering in time to matter.
What immediacy has taught me:
The longer truth waits, the weaker it lands.
Courage now is better than cleanup later.