An employee misses a deadline.
A team member pushes back.
A candidate interviews poorly.
A colleague reacts unexpectedly.
Your brain will create an explanation before you’ve finished processing what happened.
Sometimes that explanation is right.
Often it’s the first one available, not the most accurate one.
The habit that changes more than most leaders expect:
Pause before concluding.
Not forever.
Long enough to ask what you might be missing.
Long enough to challenge the certainty before you act on it.
Then move.
The pause doesn’t slow you down.
It keeps you from having to reverse course later.
