Latest / Lead With Clarity: Practical Insight for Senior Leaders / The Discipline of the Pause
Transcript
- Blake Holman: Welcome to Lead with Clarity. This is a space for leaders who want to grow without losing themselves in the process. Each episode is a short reflection on leadership, influence, and the inner work that shapes how we show up for others. It's not hype, not noise, just clear thinking for the journey and leading well. Today's episode is entitled The Discipline of the Pause. Here we go. Today I want to sit with a line from Michael Bungay Stenier. The coach and author who has probably done more than anyone to teach leaders how to ask better questions before they answer them. The line is this he said, stay curious a little longer, rush to action a little slower. Two clauses, one discipline. I want to talk about what that discipline actually looks like in the room because I think the words are simpler than the practice. Here's a leadership moment I've seen many times. A team brings a problem to the executive, the problem has some heat on it. Maybe a customer is upset, maybe a launch is slipping, maybe a hire is not working out. The executive listens. And then, often within about 90 seconds, the executive starts telling the team what to do. That's not leadership. That is discomfort management. The common misread of this quote is that it is a productivity tip. Slow down, take your time, be thoughtful. That's not what he is saying. He is naming a specific psychological tax to That senior people pay when they are certain too early. When you rush to action, you'd close options. When you close options, you also close the door on the information that would have shown up if you had stayed in the question for another beat. Let me reframe this. Curiosity is not the opposite of decisiveness. Curiosity is the raw material of decisiveness. When you stay in the question, you are not delaying the decision. You're earning it. You're making sure that when you finally do move, you are moving on the actual problem and not the version of the problem that first walked into the room. I have found this is especially true for leaders who are technically excellent. If you build your career on being the fastest one to the right answer, this is the discipline that your next stage of leadership will demand of you. At some point, your job stops being the person with the answer, and it becomes the person who protects the space where the right answer can emerge. There's a piece of this that lands differently in an environment where the tools are getting faster too. When your systems can generate an answer in three seconds, the temptation to move on that answer in the fourth second is enormous. Timeless wisdom does not go away here. It sharpens. Staying curious a little longer becomes one of the few things you can still do that a tool cannot do for you. The judgment about whether the fast answer is the right answer, whether it fits this team, this moment, or This customer is entirely yours to hold. So here's what I would carry forward from Michael's line. When you feel the pull to act, name it. Ask yourself quietly, what is the pressure I'm feeling right now? Sometimes the pressure is real. Sometimes the pressure is just your own discomfort with the pause. Both of them are worth knowing. Then ask one more question. Just one, not a discovery process, not an audit. One more question than you would normally ask. That is often the whole difference between a decision you regret and a decision you defend. Great leaders are not the fastest to act. They are the slowest to close the question. That's what makes their action, when it finally comes, worth following. Stay curious a little longer, rush to action a little slower. Thanks for spending this time with me. I'll be back tomorrow.