We are used to associating leadership with taking action. A problem arises, a decision needs to be made. The team gets stuck, direction needs to be given. Something is not working, intervention is needed.
And often that is exactly what is required but not always.
Sometimes, our need to respond immediately says more about our own discomfort with uncertainty than about what the situation actually requires. I see this often in my work with leaders.
If someone makes a mistake, we introduce a new rule. If the results are not there, we change the process. If there is silence in a meeting, we rush to fill it. If the team does not know the answer, the leader is the first to provide one.
All of this can look like responsibility. Sometimes, however, it is exactly the opposite.
Because every time a leader offers a solution too quickly, they take away an opportunity for the team to think, take initiative and build its own capacity.
There is a significant difference between a leader who is available and a leader without whom nothing can happen.
The first develops people. The second, often entirely unintentionally, creates dependence on themselves.
That is why, before I react, I increasingly ask myself one question: What will happen if, this time, I do nothing – at least not immediately?
Perhaps I will notice something I did not see at first. Perhaps someone else will come up with a better solution. Perhaps I will realise that the problem is not where I thought it was. And perhaps I will still need to act. But when I do, I will act with greater clarity.
Leadership is most often visible in what we do.
Yet, I believe that a leader’s maturity is very often revealed in what they are capable of not doing too soon.
Not every pause is an absence of leadership. Sometimes, it is leadership in its most mature form.
