The Power of the Pause: How Great Leaders Stay Curious When They’re Sure They’re Right

Leading SelfLeading PeopleRunning the Business

Oct 18

Have you ever walked into a situation already knowing how it was going to go? You didn’t need any real evidence because you’d been here before, and last time it went exactly the way you feared it would?

That certainty feels like wisdom. Sometimes it is. But sometimes we have blind spots, we are human.

Our brains are wired to find patterns, assign meaning, and protect us from repeating painful experiences. That’s a gift. And in leadership it’s also worth examining closely. Dr. Tim Elmore, in The Eight Paradoxes of Great Leadership, names something that stopped me to reread: our blind spots are often found conspicuously close to our strengths. The very thing that gives us vision and confidence can also create the conditions where we stop seeing what we are missing. That is not a character flaw. That is a paradox worth understanding.

Great nurse leaders stay curious, even when they’re sure they’re right

When Experience Becomes Conviction

Here’s how it happens. We have an experience. We assign meaning to it. We repeat that meaning enough times that it stops feeling like an interpretation and starts feeling like the truth.

Think about a child who raises their hand in class, gets it wrong, and the class laughs. Something shifts in that moment. They stop raising their hand. Maybe for the rest of that year. Maybe much longer. The classroom is long gone but the rule it wrote is still running.

We do the same thing as leaders. The nurse who disappointed you becomes the template for every new graduate. The initiative that failed becomes the reason every future idea is met with skepticism. The colleague who undermined you becomes the reason you hold everyone at arm’s length.

Your brain isn’t being malicious. It’s being protective. And it is worth asking whether the rule it wrote back then still fits where you are now.

The Algorithm Is Doing It Too

Here’s what makes this even harder in today’s world: the systems around us are actively reinforcing our convictions without us even noticing.

Think about your social media feed. When you engage with a perspective you agree with, the algorithm notices. It shows you more of it. When you unfollow or scroll past a viewpoint that challenges you, the algorithm notices that too. Over time your feed becomes a mirror, reflecting back exactly what you already believe, making it feel like everyone sees the world the way you do.

The news channel you choose. The friends you keep. The professional circles you run in. All of it, curated, consciously or not, around what already feels true to you.

Great leaders have to be intentional about interrupting this. Elmore’s paradox is worth returning to here: the same conviction that drives your vision can quietly narrow your view. If everything you consume confirms what you already believe, you will eventually stop being able to see what you’re missing. And in leadership, what you cannot see is often exactly what matters most.

What It Costs You as a Leader

The real danger of unchecked conviction is that you’ll stop being curious enough to find out if you are wrong.

When you’ve decided a person, a team, or a situation is a certain way, you stop asking questions. You stop listening for surprises. You stop creating space for people to show you who they actually are rather than who you’ve decided they are.

And people feel that. They stop bringing you their best thinking because they already know what you think. They stop taking risks because they sense the verdict has already been reached.

Conviction, left unexamined, quietly closes the door on the very growth you’re trying to lead.

Leadership Is an Inside Job First

The shift begins with a willingness to examine what you believe and ask where it actually came from.

The beliefs that have protected you have done important work. And part of leading well is periodically asking which ones are still earning their place and which ones you have simply outgrown. Separating the wisdom your experience has given you from the bias it has also given you is some of the deepest leadership work you will do. Wisdom and bias have a way of arriving in the same package.

As organizational psychologist Adam Grant reminds us, curiosity fuels creativity, reduces confirmation bias, and prevents stereotyping. It isn’t a personality trait reserved for the naturally inquisitive. It’s a leadership practice available to all of us, every single day.

Try this: think of someone on your team you’ve already formed a strong opinion about. Now ask yourself: When did I decide that? What happened? And is it still true today?

Those questions alone can change everything.

A Practice Worth Trying

The next time you feel completely certain, about a person, a decision, a situation, pause before you act on it. Ask yourself just one question:

What would I have to be willing to see to stay curious here?

You don’t have to abandon your experience. You’ve earned it. But the best leaders hold their convictions loosely enough to keep learning and generously enough to let others surprise them.

The leaders who stay curious longest lead the longest and the best. If this resonated, there’s more where it came from. New leadership insights delivered every two weeks, written specifically for nurse leaders like you.

“Reflection: Think of a conviction you hold about someone on your team or in your organization. Where did it come from and is it still earning its place in how you lead?”

Crystal Lawson