Leadership often appears to reward speed. We admire decisive people who respond immediately, solve problems quickly and seem to have an answer for everything. Organisations frequently reinforce this expectation. Emails demand instant replies, meetings produce immediate actions and leaders can easily feel that their value is measured by how rapidly they move from one issue to the next.
There are certainly moments when decisive action is exactly what leadership requires. If people are at risk, if there is a safeguarding concern, a serious safety issue or a genuine crisis unfolding, hesitation can make matters worse. Leaders are entrusted with responsibility because there are occasions when someone simply has to make a decision.
The difficulty is that most situations are not genuine crises, even though they often feel like them. Many leadership mistakes happen not because people lack ability or good intentions, but because they confuse urgency with importance. Feeling pressure to act is not always the same as needing to act.
Over the past two decades, that may be the biggest lesson I have learnt.
The Pressure to Act
When I first moved into leadership, I suspect I behaved much like many new leaders do. There was an underlying belief that leadership meant doing something. If a concern was raised, I wanted to respond. If someone disagreed with a decision, I wanted to explain it immediately. If a situation became uncomfortable, I felt responsible for resolving it as quickly as possible.
Looking back, I can see that some of those actions improved situations, while others simply added another layer of complexity. Experience has gradually taught me that intervention is not always the same as improvement.
Periods of organisational change provide a good example. Leaders naturally receive feedback when introducing something new. Some of it is constructive, some emotional, some based on incomplete information and some simply reflects people’s natural uncertainty. Early in my career I sometimes felt the need to respond to every concern. What I eventually learnt was that reacting to every comment can unintentionally create more uncertainty rather than less. People often need time to experience a change before they are in a position to judge it fairly. Occasionally the wisest leadership decision is to observe, listen and allow the situation to settle before deciding whether anything actually needs to change.
That requires confidence because choosing not to react can easily be mistaken for indecision. In reality, thoughtful restraint is often far more difficult than immediate action.
The Confidence to Pause
One phrase has stayed with me throughout my career: Don’t prove it, improve it.
New leaders can sometimes feel pressure to prove they deserve their position. The temptation is to demonstrate leadership by making decisions quickly, offering immediate solutions or becoming involved in every issue that arises. Experienced leaders often become more comfortable with a different approach. They recognise that leadership is not about appearing busy. It is about making the best contribution to the situation in front of them.
That does not mean becoming slow or passive. There have been occasions when I have waited too long before acting, just as there have been occasions when I have acted too quickly. Neither approach is automatically right. Leadership is not about choosing one pace. It is about recognising which pace each situation requires.
I once worked closely with a colleague whose natural leadership style was much more direct than my own. We developed a healthy relationship because we understood our differences rather than trying to change them. Sometimes they would remind me that people needed clarity about when a decision would be made. Equally, there were occasions when I encouraged them to give a situation another twenty four hours before acting. Neither of us was trying to win the argument. We were helping each other find the right pace.
That experience reinforced something I now believe strongly. Diverse leadership teams are valuable because they challenge one another’s instincts. Leaders who surround themselves only with people who think exactly as they do can easily mistake personal preference for good judgement.
Creating Thinking Space
As my own leadership developed, I realised that creating space was not only important for my own decisions. It also mattered for the people around me.
Many leaders unintentionally become the answer to every question. Staff bring them decisions because they want reassurance rather than direction. Initially that can feel flattering. Over time it becomes limiting, both for the leader and for the team.
I have always been happy for people to run ideas past me, but there were many occasions when my response afterwards was simply, “You already knew the answer.”
That was not intended to dismiss their concerns. Quite the opposite. It was an attempt to help them recognise that they already possessed the judgement they were looking for. My role was not to become a permanent comfort blanket. My role was to help people become increasingly confident in their own decision making.
Good leadership develops independent thinkers rather than dependent followers.
The same principle applies during difficult conversations. When emotions are running high, people often become focused on winning the discussion rather than solving the problem. Experienced leaders recognise that very little productive thinking happens while emotions are overwhelming judgement. Before searching for solutions, they create enough space for people to think clearly again. They ask questions instead of making assumptions. They slow the conversation rather than accelerating it. They protect dignity while maintaining accountability.
The goal is not to avoid difficult conversations. It is to make them more productive.
Experience Changes Everything
The leader I am today is very different from the leader I was twenty years ago.
I am calmer than I used to be, although certainly not perfect. There are still moments when I become frustrated or disappointed, but I have learnt that my emotional response should rarely become someone else’s burden. One principle I have gradually adopted is that complaints go upwards, they should never go down. Leaders need trusted people with whom they can think aloud, reflect honestly and process difficult situations. That is one of the reasons coaching has been so valuable in my own development. Having a wife whose professional world sits completely outside education has also helped me see situations through a different lens. Fresh perspectives often create the thinking space that busy leaders struggle to give themselves.
None of this happened overnight. It came through experience, mistakes and reflection. There have been decisions where I should have moved more quickly. Others where I should have waited longer. Leadership does not eliminate those moments. It teaches us to learn from them.
Perhaps that is why I have become increasingly sceptical whenever leadership is presented as a collection of simple rules. There is no formula that tells you exactly when to wait and exactly when to act. Context always matters. The people matter. The culture matters. The consequences matter.
What remains constant is the need to think before acting.
Choosing the Right Pace
If I could offer one piece of advice to someone beginning their leadership journey, it would not be to become slower or faster. It would be to become more deliberate.
There will be times when immediate action is absolutely the right decision. There will be other occasions when a night’s sleep, another conversation or simply allowing people time to adjust will produce a far better outcome. Learning the difference is one of the quiet skills that experience gradually develops.
You will make mistakes. You will occasionally react too quickly. You will sometimes hesitate when you should have acted. That is part of leadership.
What matters is that your decisions are rooted in clear values rather than emotion, ego or the desire to prove yourself. If you genuinely believe in your organisation’s vision and values, and you consistently use them to guide your thinking, you will not make every perfect decision. None of us do. But over time, you are far more likely to make decisions that people trust, respect and understand.
Good leaders are not remembered because they always acted first. More often, they are remembered because they created enough space for the right decision to emerge.
If you enjoyed this article, you can continue exploring these ideas through the growing collection of short leadership videos published across TikTok, Instagram, YouTube, Facebook and LinkedIn. Wherever you choose to follow, I hope the reflections encourage you to think a little differently about the quieter moments that shape leadership every day.