As a Leader, How Often Do You Make a Date with Yourself to Stop, Reflect and Think?

When we are busy and under pressure, it is far too easy to compromise the things which can’t be seen. The things which aren’t tangible and the things which don’t give immediate impact to the bottom line. Things such as making time to stop, reflect and think.

As a busy leader with a demanding role and pressed for time, scheduling time in your diary just for thinking may seem implausible. You may tell yourself you don’t have the time, that you’ve got too much to do, or because you’re so busy, pausing, reflecting and thinking, may not even enter your head. But making time to switch off, to reflect and to think has many benefits, not just for you personally as a leader, but for the organisation and your teams.

If you want to maximise your performance as a leader, your thought life is just as important as anything else that you do. Just because you can’t physically touch it, doesn’t mean you don’t need to invest the time for it and here are 5 reasons why as a leader you need to make regular time to pause, reflect and think if you are to stay at the top of your game.

It enables you to get off the treadmill

Many organisations have developed a culture whereby constant busyness is the done thing. Working late, taking work home, being available 24/7 for some people has become the norm.

We are bombarded with apps and devices to free up our time and make our lives easier, but instead, we’re probably busier than ever, more stressed than ever, with less free time to do the things we really want to do. In the UK in 2015/16, stress accounted for 37% of all work related ill health cases and 45% of all working days lost due to ill health.

Making time to stop, reflect and think enables you to stop and question ‘why?’. Why are things done the way they are done? Why is something not working? Why is something working? Having time to pause, enables you to reflect on how effective or ineffective things really are.

It may feel as if you’re on a treadmill with no timer set and no stop button, cramming more and more things in the hours that you have, going faster and faster with no end in sight. Making regular time to stop, reflect and think enables you to step off the treadmill, switch off momentarily and go back to what you need to do with a refreshed mind.

It increases self awareness

Self awareness is essential if you are to be a highly effective leader. A lack of self awareness can cause you to act and behave in a way that does not serve the teams you lead or the organisation in the best possible way.  

Being self aware enables you to modify your behaviour to suit the situation as and when required, without compromising who you are. It enables you to know your strengths and your weaknesses so you know when to play to your strengths and how to best support your weaknesses.

If you are not making regular time to stop, reflect and think about why you’ve made certain decisions, or why you’ve responded or reacted the way you have, or why other people have acted the way they have towards you, you will carry on regardless. This could potentially have negative implications.

Self awareness comes through self reflection. Can you really afford not to make the time for it?

It aids creative thinking and problem solving

It is hard to be creative, innovative and solution focused if you are constantly on the go and not letting your mind be still. Constant busyness and distractions can stifle your creativity, perpetuate problems and hinder effective decision making.

Being still, practising mindfulness and switching off from all distractions can help your creative juices to flow. With your creative juices flowing, you are more energised, more innovative and it is easier to identify solutions to problems you face.

If you feel as if you are constantly firefighting and being reactive rather than proactive, make regular to stop, be still and free yourself from busyness and distractions.

It helps to keep things in perspective

When we are under a lot of pressure, our minds have a way of ruminating negatively and blowing things out of proportion. This can lead to stressful, negative, unhelpful thinking and behaviour. When we are like this, our perception may not necessarily be an accurate reflection of the reality of the situation.

Having regular time to stop, reflect, examine and challenge our thoughts, helps to regulate our thinking and manage our emotions. It allows you to keep your thoughts and emotions in check and keep things in perspective. With perspective, you are able to view things more rationally. A rational outlook makes for better, informed decisions.

It makes you a better leader

When you put it all together, making regular time to stop, reflect and think helps to make you a higher performing, more innovative and effective leader.

When you are at your optimal, you perform better and make better decisions. You are more likely to be more considerate of others because you won’t be so self absorbed and caught up in your stresses and woes.

All in all, making regular time to stop and think is not just a good thing to do, it is THE thing to do.

You might be telling yourself that your diary is crammed full of appointments and meetings and thinking, how on earth are you going to find the time to stop and do nothing. You may also be concerned about other peoples’ perception of you if they see that you’re doing ‘nothing’. After all, it may have been drummed in to you over the years that you must always be seen to be busy as a leader.

But you will not be doing nothing. You are attending to your thought life, which is an essential part of leadership effectiveness.

Rather than viewing it as doing nothing, view it as an important part of your working week. Allocate time for it in your diary. Put your out of office on, set your phone to voicemail, close the door, and just like any other meeting you have, let people know that you are unavailable.

These are just a few reasons as to the benefits of making regular time to stop, reflect and think, there are many more. Give your thought life the importance that it deserves, you will be grateful in the long run that you did.

Do you have regular dates with yourself to stop, reflect and think, or if you don’t, how will you build time in to your busy schedule for it? Please let me know below. 

ABOUT ME:

I am The Coach for High Achieving Introverted Women, an Executive, Career, Business Coach, Writer, Speaker, UK top 50 Business Adviser and the founder of Abounding Solutions . With over 25 years coaching and leadership experience, I help women (with a particular emphasis on introverted women) to be authentic, bold, confident leaders and excel in their careers and businesses.

I also help organisations develop the talent pipeline of female employees so that more women make it to senior management roles.

I write here on LinkedIn, on my website and on Huffington Post on subjects to help women achieve optimal potential in their careers and businesses.

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