STILLNESS IS A STRATEGY

In a culture obsessed with speed, productivity, and pushing through, stillness gets a bad reputation. People think it is passive or soft or even lazy. But the truth is that stillness is not the absence of action, it is the presence of clarity. This is something most of the business world is still catching up to.

Over the years, I have watched many leaders spiral into poor decisions, not because they lacked intelligence, but because they mistook motion for momentum and confused noise for strategy. They made choices at speed without considering direction. It came at the cost of culture misalignment and strategic drift and also burnout, in themselves and in their teams. All because they did not pause long enough to ask the right questions. 

I call it out because I have been there, too.

We wear our busyness like a badge with full calendars, back-to-back meetings, inboxes on fire. Somewhere along the way, we have equated being booked and busy with being effective and important. But leadership is not a race to the finish line. It is a series of deeply considered decisions that ripple far beyond the boardroom. 

Stillness is about becoming intentional, it is what happens when you give your mind space to process and prioritise, to question whether your direction is aligned with what you are building, whether you are reacting… or responding. In my experience, the most effective leaders I have worked with (those who build companies that endure), share one quality. They are calm thinkers who know how to stop, breathe, and zoom out before they zoom in.

In leadership, stillness is a practical, tactical skill that in the real world can be practised by:

• Taking a moment before responding to conflict.

• Leaving space between a stimulus and your reaction.

• Stepping back from a strategic decision to reflect on what the long game is.

• Cancelling a non-essential meeting so your team has space to think.

• Declining a tempting opportunity that does not serve the bigger vision.

My personal practice of stillness has come with experience and a deep understanding of what was not working for me. I am often asked how I stay grounded across multiple ventures, teams, and ambitions. My answer is unglamorous but effective, I schedule stillness. It ranges from a walk without my phone or five minutes before a big meeting to recalibrate, a hot beverage in silence. The tiny rituals remind me of who I am when the noise dies down because I have learned that my best decisions came from the moments when I dared to pause. 

I look upon intentional stillness as mature leadership. In comparison, immature leadership seeks control, reacts quickly, tries to fix everything, and needs constant movement to feel in charge. Mature leadership, on the other hand, knows that clarity needs oxygen, that direction matters more than speed.  

Stillness allows me to see problems before they explode and hear what people are not saying. I am able to tap into intuitive wisdom that logic alone cannot reach and make moves that are not just smart, but sustainable.

So, what does your stillness look like? Maybe it is a boundary on your calendar, or five minutes of journaling each day, or maybe it is a walk, a breath, a “no” that protects your “yes.” Whatever it looks like, I challenge you to find your version of the pause button.