Clear Your Path with Pause & Perspective

Dr. Sara Reed
Jan 23
5 min read

"Genuinely processing a situation, particularly a challenging one, requires time and space."

- Brad Stulberg in his book "Master of Change"

Big Idea Upfront: As a leader, time and space for pause and perspective are essential to adding clarity for a path forward.

Question to Consider: How do I need to build habits to create time and space for pause and perspective for clarity in my leadership?

#inspiredbybooks

#drreedsreflection

Leadership and life often move fast -- often faster than we can take time to process, to consider, and to take intentional action to move forward. Many pieces of leadership are challenging -- which means to take Brad's advice, we need to find (or create) time and space to process situations. I was recently reflecting on the leadership opportunities that have been on my leadership journey ... I often say that somehow, I find my way to sticky, messy organizations that I can help go through an important transition or transformation. (In one military organization, I was given the call sign "Wolf" from the character in the movie Pulp Fiction .... who I read in one article was the "Master of Crisis Management." I smile when I think of that now.)

While I don't always go in knowing what is going to happen; like many leaders, when we stop to realize what we have done in the past that has helped us gain skills, we can learn a lot for how we can face a current challenge -- or we can lean into help with the processing that makes us even better.

And the first step is ironically ... to stop and pause.

Pause

One of my absolute favorite leadership tools is .... wait for it ... take a breath ... the pause. It is the intentional cultivation of a habit of pausing, taking a breath, thinking, and then choosing a response ...

Curiosity?
Acknowledgment?
Space to think?
Recognition?
Gratitude?

We are all guilty of jumping to conclusions, speaking before thinking, being harsher than we intended, etc. It can be hard to bounce from meeting to meeting or context to context and maintain focus and presence, which has become more and more the work of leaders. BUT -- without the pause, we can accidentally:

Jump to an erroneous conclusion
Damage a relationship
Declare before we are ready
Commit to an uninformed opinion

Kevin Cashman writes in his book The Pause Principle,

The Pause Principle is the conscious, intentional process of stepping back, within ourselves and outside of ourselves, to lead forward with greater authenticity, purpose & contribution.

Don't we all want to be more authentic, lead with clarity of purpose and contribute? What Brad and Kevin are encouraging us all to do is to start with the pause, and to do this also takes time and space.

Question to consider

On a scale of 1 - 10, 1 being - I never pause to 10 - I am a master of pausing, how would you rate yourself on the power of practice the pause? Why?

Time & Space

I read Jim Detert's article in MIT Sloan Review earlier this week and cringed. I hated reading bad habits I definitely need to recommit to breaking in his article, and reading it was a reminder to me that without time and space, we tend to do things that negatively impact our relationships.

Three potential negative impacts when we don't have (or find) time and space to process challenging circumstances and effectiveness as leaders. A few things that can happen without time and space:

Distraction (Clearly not being with the person or people you are ... distraction can happen in all aspects of life.)
Multitasking (So much tells us that multitasking is bad for your brain and for your relationships ... and it's one that as leaders we are asked more and more towards this practice.)
Failure to include others (I would suggest that part of this is related to being overwhelmed ... we can forget to be curious or to consider who might provide us insights)

Note: There are a few other items in Jim's article. Highly recommend the read, if you want to dig deeper and have a moment of realizing that you (as we all do) have work to do.)

On the flip side, how we create time and space as leaders is personal. Some people benefit from actual space - being alone and thinking. Others benefit from processing with people (coaches are great support for this). Others need to sleep, exercise, or spend time in caring environments.

My "go tos" include sleep, exercise, reading, reflection & processing with trusted advisors in my life.

Questions to consider:

(1) What circumstances in your life lead you to distraction, multitasking, and failure to include others?

(2) What might be a small change to create more time and space in your circumstances?

(3) What are your time and space creators that can help you process something that is challenging?

Perspective

One of the most dangerous things we can do as leaders (and humans) is get so far into our own thinking that we forget that others might have a different view or perspective that could help move us forward. When facing a challenge, this is even more likely.

One of my favorite ideas is perspective getting. Charles Duhigg, in his book Supercommunicators: How to Unlock the Secret Language of Connection, wrote about this concep, and Alison Wood Brooks includes this concept in her newly released book TALK: The Science of Conversation & The Art of Being Ourselves. She highlights one of my leadership principles when she writes,

"But there is actually a fantastic way to know someone else's mind: ask them."

Their emphasis of this reframe resonated with me because we can never fully "take" someone's perspective because each of our perspectives come from our own experiences and lenses of looking at the world and a situation, so no matter how well we think we know someone, it is worth embracing curiosity and considering ... what might I not know? What might I learn from this person? Who might give me perspective of my current leadership challenge?

When we consider what Brad suggests in his book about processing, perspective getting can be even more important because when things are hard, we can want to find allies, not people who will help us to zoom out and to consider something different. (Note: We all need allies -- and we also need our loving critics who care enough about us to help us think differently.)

Question to consider:

When you are going through a challenging situation, who can you gain perspective from?

Leadership is an honor and a responsibility ... that includes many challenges, from specific team member situations to big, unanticipated crises. When we are facing a challenging situation, what would it take for more of us to follow Brad's advice -- and take the time and space to process by leveraging the power of the pause and gaining perspective?