Many companies are addicted to fake urgency, and it’s killing their culture from the inside out.
When everything becomes urgent, nothing really is. The constant scramble to meet artificial deadlines adds unnecessary stress for your team, and slowly erodes their focus, removes their autonomy, and weakens their trust in management.
A lot of the time, it doesn’t achieve much.
In this article, we’ll explore why this false urgency can be damaging, the key signs to look for, and how leaders can set the tone for a more focused, calm, and productive culture.
There’s a big difference between real and artificial urgency. One is rooted in business-critical needs, and the other is usually the result of poor planning, bad communication, or unclear priorities.
Artificial urgency, or false urgency, shows up when tasks that should have been planned in advance are passed on as last-minute must-dos. It’s the sudden panic that exists mainly because someone didn’t prepare properly.
I’ve worked in high-growth businesses where it felt like every other email was marked as urgent. At first, it can feel exciting, that you’re contributing and making a real difference on important tasks.
This wears off over time when you realise it’s not urgency, it’s just being busy without making any worthwhile progress.
Most false urgency isn’t malicious, but it is annoying. It’s not driven by crisis, it’s driven by chaos disguised as culture.
It creeps in through broken habits:
And then there’s hero culture where the loudest firefighter gets the praise, never mind that they lit the match in the first place.
The worst part is that it feels productive and provides the illusion of progress. You’re trading meaningful work for noise, and the work that actually makes an impact on the business is drowned out.
False urgency often feels like efficiency, but it’s just reactive noise. Planning, not panic, is what moves companies forward.
“Being busy is not the same as being productive. Busyness is often the by-product of a lack of focus.” - Cal Newport, author of Deep Work
Artificial urgency might feel productive, but it’s often the opposite. Left unaddressed, it can create a culture of chaos.
It chips away at your team’s ability to plan, focus, or prioritise. Instead of making meaningful progress, they’re constantly reshuffling their day to tackle someone else’s ‘ASAP’.
Worse still, it breeds burnout and apathy. People stop caring about fake urgency, stress levels rise, motivation drops, and your best people quietly check out or head elsewhere.
This can impact staff retention and performance, as employees with high stress levels are three times more likely to leave.
Breaking the cycle of artificial urgency starts with leaders taking a proactive role in reshaping how work is planned, prioritised, and communicated.
Here’s how to reset the tone and reintroduce focus into your organisation.
Urgency needs context, and it should be used sparingly. Without a shared definition, urgency becomes subjective, and that’s where problems start.
Create a simple framework to separate the truly urgent from the merely noisy. For example:
Communicate this clearly. You might even include urgency labels in your project management tools to build better habits over time.
Most ‘urgent’ tasks are just poor planning in disguise.
If you want less panic, plan earlier. That means clearer briefs, proper deadlines, and buffer time before things fall apart.
Even light rituals like Monday stand-ups, weekly roadmaps or Friday wrap-ups create rhythm. And rhythm is better than chaos.
Focused work that drives innovation and real results can’t happen when your team is constantly reacting.
Protect it like a core asset by blocking out meeting-free hours, encouraging async updates, and removing the expectation of instant replies.
Dropbox uses company-wide time blocks for collaborative work. Outside of this time, employees are empowered to decline meetings, and to continue to design their calendars around how and when they work best.
Mid-level leaders are often on the receiving end of false urgency from above, but they need permission to push back effectively.
Encourage them to clarify the real timelines behind urgent requests, and to ask about trade-offs such as work which can be paused to allow time.
This approach builds a culture of accountability without friction.
Teams don’t just listen to what leaders say, they absorb how they behave. If the leadership team is always in crisis mode, everyone else assumes panic is part of the job.
Instead, show restraint. Slow the pace when it matters. Say no more often. Prioritise better.
Calm leadership isn’t passive. It’s decisive. And it sets the tone for the rest of the business.
When everything feels urgent, it signals to your team that priorities are unclear and planning is absent.
Over time, this creates a reactive culture where fear and confusion take the place of trust and clarity. People stop thinking strategically and start scrambling to keep up, often at the cost of quality, morale, and focus.
If you’re serious about building a high-performing team, stop rewarding panic. Stop glorifying the last-minute sprint. Show your team that real leadership means foresight, not firefighting.