a day ago
Why Real Leaders Don't Rush: The Hidden Power Of Presence
"Active pauses" are celebrated in strategic decision-making amid uncertainty, showing that leaders who deliberately slow down often make better choices than those who rush to action.
The difference? What I call 'robust presence' – a concept that builds on this 'active pause,' as described in HBR, but goes deeper.
This isn't about disconnecting or stepping back from the action. It's about becoming so present that you're actually more connected to the people and dynamics around you.
Like horses in the wild – they're not meditating in a zen bubble. They're hyper-attuned to their environment, reading every signal, sensing every shift in energy. Their stillness is engaged, aware, strategic.
In a culture that rewards instant responses and celebrates "bias toward action," the most effective leaders I've worked with over the past decade aren't the ones who speak first or move fastest. They're the ones who can access this kind of robust presence – and it might be the most underutilized leadership skill in the modern workplace.
Why My Toughest Executive Coaches Don't Speak at All
As a certified EQUUS facilitator, I have delivered equine-assisted learning sessions for a wide range of humans, from Fortune 500 C-suite leaders to small business owners in growth mode to founders and frontline hospitality professionals preparing for retirement.
Why horses? They're prey animals whose survival depends on reading authentic presence. They don't respond to your title, your confidence, or your charisma. They respond to congruence: when your internal state matches your external signals.
When a Fortune 500 CEO steps into the arena buzzing with anxious energy – even while speaking calmly and smiling – the horse won't engage. They wait. Watch. Feel for something real.
Only when the leader drops into genuine presence – aligned, grounded, and attuned – do the horses move toward them. It's a 1,200-pound feedback system that cuts through posturing and performance to reveal actual leadership Neuroscience of Strategic Stillness
Dr. Daniel Siegel's research at UCLA reveals why presence matters so much for leadership effectiveness. When we're reactive (rushing between meetings, responding from stress) we operate primarily from the amygdala, our brain's alarm system. This triggers fight-or-flight responses that narrow our cognitive range and limit creative problem-solving.
But when we practice what Siegel calls 'mindful awareness,' what I call robust presence, we activate the prefrontal cortex. This region governs executive function: strategic thinking, emotional regulation, empathy, and complex decision-making. Research shows that leaders who develop mindfulness practices demonstrate measurably improved strategic thinking and emotional regulation.
The business case is clear: presence isn't the opposite of productivity. It's the prerequisite for meaningful progress.
Three Tools for Building Presence Under Pressure
Presence isn't something you're born with. It's a learnable skill. Here are three techniques I teach executives to strengthen their capacity for strategic stillness:
Noise Cancellation: Before important decisions, do a mental audit. What background tabs are running in your mind? Unspoken team conflicts, personal stress, overcommitments? Name them specifically. One client discovered she was carrying worry about her teenage daughter's college admissiosn process into every meeting, diluting her focus. Simply acknowledging this pattern helped her compartmentalize more effectively.
Reflex Rituals: Create micro-pauses before automatic responses. When someone asks for a decision, take three conscious breaths before answering. Ask yourself: "Am I responding from habit, pressure, or actual alignment with our goals?" This simple practice helped one tech CEO break his "knee-jerk yes" habit, dramatically improving his team's project quality, and controlling costs.
Somatic Grounding: Presence isn't just mental – it's physical. Use your body as an early warning system. Tight shoulders often signal overwhelm. Shallow breathing indicates stress. A clenched jaw suggests you're holding back something that needs to be said. One pharmaceutical executive I worked with learned to recognize his 'decision fatigue posture': slumped shoulders, clenched jaw, downcast eyes, and a telltale restlessness in his hands. When he saw himself in that state, he committed to taking a 5-minute walk before making any more Competitive Advantage of Slowing Down
I recently worked with an executive who came to her sabbatical more burned out than when she was leading full-time. She'd created a 12-point plan for her "rest period"—language learning, parenting goals, personal brand strategy. When she entered the arena, the horse refused to engage with her frantic energy.
Only after she admitted the pressure she felt to perform even in rest did the horse approach and rest its head on her shoulder. "That," she said, "was the first real breath I've taken in months."
Six months later, she returned to work with a different leadership style. Instead of managing through urgency, she led through clarity. One team member pulled her aside after a big launch and said, 'I don't know what changed, but it feels like we can breathe again.' And they could… because she finally was.
The ROI of Robust Presence
When leaders reclaim presence, they don't just avoid costly mistakes – they unlock capacity for breakthrough thinking. Their teams feel psychologically safer. Their decisions reflect wisdom, not just speed.
In our acceleration-obsessed culture, robust presence is a quiet competitive advantage. The leaders who master it don't just move fast. They move right. And that protects time, energy, and trust that can be wasted when decisions have to be reversed down the road.
The question isn't whether you can afford to slow down. It's whether you can afford not to.
What would change in your leadership if you got robustly present before your next big decision?
Take our brief Subtract to Succeed diagnostic to identify your biggest energy drain and discover your natural skill, whether presence or one of the other two.
