Accustomed to doing, striving, and achieving, leaders are too often addicted to speed and action. But we live and lead in an increasingly volatile, uncertain, complex, and ambiguous world. Change is constant and we are on information overload. The way forward is often unclear. How can leaders deal with critical decisions, develop creative solutions, and thrive in the relentless pace of their 24/7 reality?
Paradoxically, Kevin Cashman contends that the answer is not to act more quickly but to pause more deeply—to slow down to go fast, to stop and prioritize, to make time to discern and think clearly. Rather than doing more, we need to learn to do differently. The Pause Principle offers a catalytic process to move from mere management efficiency and transaction to leadership innovation and transformation.
Pausing is a poweful methodology to imbue continuous growth in three critical domains: personal leadership, development of others, and fostering of innovation cultures. Drawing on decades of experience working with senior leaders, personal stories, and research in psychology, neuroscience, and leadership development, Cashman focuses our attention on our inherent power to ground our leadership and our organizations in authenticity, generativity, and purposeful transformation.
The demands on global leaders have never been more challenging. With so much coming at them, leaders must pause to make sense of it all. The Pause Principle offers breakthrough practices for leading as a whole person, harnessing one’s drive to create more compelling, creative, and sustainable futures.
About the Author:
Kevin is a best-selling author, top-ten thought leader, world-class speaker, global CEO coach and pioneer of the grow the whole person to grow the whole leader approach to integrated leadership development.
He is the founder of the Chief Executive Institute, referred to as the Mayo Clinic of executive development by Fast Company magazine. He also founded LeaderSource, recognized as one of the top three leadership development programs globally. In 2006, LeaderSource joined Korn/Ferry International, where Kevin is now Senior Partner, CEO and Executive Development. Kevin has written scores of articles on leadership and talent management and has been featured in The Wall Street Journal, Chief Executive, Human Resource Executive, Fast Company, Strategy & Leadership, Oprah, CNN, National Public Radio and other national media.
He is the former leadership columnist for Forbes.com and has been named as one of the Top 10 Thought Leaders by Leadership Excellence Magazine for several years. Mr. Cashman holds a degree in psychology from St. John’s University and is an adjunct professor for the University of Minnesota Executive Education program. He is a senior fellow in the Caux Round Table, a global consortium of CEOs dedicated to enhancing principle-based leadership internationally, and a board member for the University of St. Thomas Center for Ethical Business Cultures fostering ethical leadership in corporations.
