When we’re in the thick of pushing a product forward, or challenging our team, leaders resist the nudge our minds (or our colleagues) give us to slow down. Pausing for even a moment feels like an interruption. But that pause can make all the difference. A few moments of stillness gives our bodies and minds what’s necessary to lead with greater clarity. Let’s take a closer look at the power of the pause in calming our minds, relaxing our bodies, and strengthening our leadership.
Pausing Works… It’s Science!
When your bodymind senses any dysregulation: a high-pressure meeting, a barbed comment, or a difficult memory, something fascinating happens. And it happens fast, thanks to a subconscious process called neuroception.
What happens during neuroception?
- In about a fifth of a second, your nervous system scans your environment for signs of safety, or threats to it.
- If it registers danger, the amygdala jumps into action.
- When threatened or triggered, the amygdala overrides your reflective, rational brain (the prefrontal cortex), which doesn’t fully engage for about half a second.
Notice the time gap between your reactive response and your rational response. Unless you pause to reflect, you’re leading from fear, stress, and reactivity.
How Long is This Gonna Take?
We’re all busier than ever. You may be feeling the mental pushback right now. “Sure. I want to be less reactive, but don’t expect to see me sitting serenely on a mountaintop. I don’t have time for “transformative mindful leadership”.
Maybe you don’t have time for retreats and seminars and workshops. But I’m betting you have a few seconds (or minutes) a day.
- Harvard Business Review found that taking a 2 to 4 second pause between stimulus and response allows the brain to shift how we respond from automatic reaction to conscious choice.
- 10-second pauses can break you out of mental autopilot and get you back to thinking things through, according to Inc.
Leading better in fewer than 5 seconds? Sign us up.
Unplugging for the Win
One of the most effective ways to quiet our minds is to step away from our screens, and silent those devices, even for a short time. When it comes to the tools we use to streamline our business operations, automation can work wonders. But the “automatic” responses our mind serves up might not set us on the best course. It’s not about an either/or approach to tech. We just need to find a balanced way for mindfulness and automation to work together.
- How can you use your workplace tools and devices strategically to promote at least one quiet moment per day?
- If you’re using tools to automate processes at work, can you take 5 of the minutes you regain to think through your goals for the week?
Your Team is Watching: The Real Risks of Powering Through
Remember: reactive leadership doesn’t mean we’re quick on our feet. It means we’re stressed.
And that never bodes well for teams and organizations. Every time we power through, any trust we’ve built with our team takes a hit. When we don’t take the time to calm our nerves and lead with care, they lose confidence in our leadership— and disengage accordingly.
One study surveying 1,000 American employees found that only 7% of them believed their stressed leaders were effective. And only 11% of those employees felt engaged at work. Stress is a given for leaders. But leaving skill gaps in stress management is a costly decision. It leads to numerous negative outcomes, including:
- Ineffective Interpersonal Communication: Short answers, short tempers, unclear instructions: it can all put a stop to effective intra-team and cross-functional collaboration.
- More Mistakes: When your decision-making happens too fast, your risk of inaccuracy increases. Unless there’s a course correction, those mistakes will significantly impact the bottom line.
- Poor Retention: People don’t want to work for leaders who power through and bulldoze at the expense of good ideas or employee morale. Unless you want top talent jumping ship, mindful leadership should be a priority.
Let’s face it, we can’t afford to ignore mindfulness. And even a small step forward will make a bigger difference than you think. Take a few seconds to close your eyes and breathe deeply. What changed in your body? What is clear in your mind? Imagine if your whole team did that, or your entire organization? What could you accomplish together? There’s no better time to find out.
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Lead the Moment is a mindful leadership dispatch from Willow North Growth Partners. Subscribe below for twice-monthly insights, reflections, and practical tips to help mindful leaders tap into the power of the pause.
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