What We Cultivate When We Pause

In almost every leadership space I work in — whether it’s a room of senior leaders navigating change, a coaching conversation with a woman stepping into a bigger role, or a group of students trying to make sense of their place in the world — I begin with the pause.

It’s not because I think reflection is a nice-to-have. It’s because without it, most of what we call leadership is just reaction. Habit. Projection. Or performance.

The pause isn’t about slowing down for its own sake. It’s about paying attention — to what’s actually happening in the system, to what’s surfacing in us, and to the dissonance between the two. Without that, we risk mistaking speed for clarity and decisiveness for depth.

Leadership, at least the kind I care about, starts in that space: the one that’s quiet, sometimes uncomfortable, but where something more honest can start to take shape. In that space, people begin to ask better questions. About power. About purpose. About how they’ve been showing up, and what the moment might actually be asking of them.

This isn’t the dramatic part of the work. It rarely shows up in strategy decks or stakeholder updates. But it’s the part that makes the rest of the work possible.

I return to it often. Not because I’ve mastered it — but because when I don’t, I notice the difference. In myself. In the people I work with. And in the kind of change we’re able to support.