168 - Stillness Is a CEO Skill: How to Create Mental Space to Lead, Not React
Discover how CEOs can overcome the challenge of 'no time to think.' Learn why stillness is a powerful skill for creating mental space for clarity, leverage, and vision so you lead strategically, not reactively. Includes a practical 4-stage framework and habits to think better, not harder.
Stillness Is a CEO Skill: How to Create Mental Space to Lead, Not React
Most CEOs wear busyness like a badge of honor, but it’s often a sign of reactive leadership. When you’re always firefighting, you stop thinking strategically. And when leaders stop thinking, businesses stop growing.
This episode explores why “I don’t have time to think” is one of the most dangerous statements a founder can make and what to do instead.
You’ll learn a four-stage framework:
Margin → Clarity → Leverage → Vision.
It’s a practical model for creating the mental space every CEO needs to lead with intention, not impulse.
You’ll also discover the habits that separate strategic thinkers from operational doers, the small shifts that reclaim focus and create disproportionate results.
Because your business doesn’t need more of your time.
It needs more of your thinking.
This episode is for founders who want to shift from reacting to leading with consistent mastery, despite constant motion.
Highlights:
00:00 The Busyness Badge of CEOs
00:53 The Power of Stillness
01:26 Pitfalls of Reactive Leadership
02:28 From Chaos to Clarity: A CEO's Journey
03:15 Embracing Strategic Leadership
04:26 The Urgency of Strategic Thinking
Links:
Website: https://www.marcogrueter.com/
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/marcogrueter/
Transcript:
Question: Why do you think so many CEOs wear busyness like a badge of honor?
I hear from a lot of CEOs that they don't have time to think because they're so busy. Um, and they wear it as a badge of honor almost. But to me this is, this is a red flag because a CEO that has no time to think is actually a reactive.
CEO is someone that builds reactive businesses at the end and. Reactive CEOs are being taken over by active, proactive CEOs that build businesses, uh, on, on purpose and, and not reactive. So it's a huge red flag if a CEO has not realized that. Taking the space to think is actually a strategic activity needed as a leader.
Question: Most founders see stillness as a luxury. You see it as leverage. What does that actually mean?
Because most, most CEOs confuse stillness with inactivity. That's wrong. Uh, stillness means take the time to think, take the time to take strategic decisions and prepare yourself. For the next important steps in your business.
So that means stillness as a strategic activity for your business.
Question: Why reactive CEOs can't scale?
So, so what is actually a problem of being a reactive CEO number one is you become the bottleneck of your business. Not having time to think, not giving strategic direction and just reacting makes you. The biggest bottleneck, uh, in the, in the company.
Number two is you kind of, you don't see the bigger points, you don't see the trees in the forest, and you're just basically running around and treating everything the same. And that's very critical because you miss these inflection points, um, to to hook into your business and, and create the, the most strategic.
Uh, levers that you could. Then number three, because of reacting, you build fragile systems, you don't think strategic enough to create future proof, uh, systems. And the fourth one, you can't develop any other people. You're just, uh, busy reacting and you should develop your next leadership level.
Question: If you had to take a founder from chaos to clarity, what would that process look like?
So, so how I. Would solve this. So you come from a reactive to an active, uh, CEO. First, I would just create the space, um, to think, to, to, uh, reflect. Then you need to see patterns, uh, what's actually going on. Um, and once you, you, once you identify these patents, you need to take strategic action and not just react.
I think these are the, the top three levers and then. This allows you as the last lever to actually create a vision on. Where should that business go and always act towards that vision.
Question: Why do you think so many founders resist stepping into that more strategic role?
Often CEO resist to become this more active role and not being the firefighter or the Reactive Co because they don't see the ROI right away, but the ROI is huge of, of being.
In that more strategic role, first you have better decisions all the time. Fewer bottlenecks, fewer firefights. You have much stronger teams. People know what they need to do and what they, what you expect from them because you have time. To give that strategic direction, you become a better leader in the market.
Uh, because you communicate to the outside what's your vision and you, you exactly. You actually know it and go towards it. And I think the most important at the end is personally you, you gain freedom. You are the person that has time to reflect, to be the better person for your employees, for your clients, and actually. Prioritize what's important.
Question: So why does this matter more than ever?
So why does this matter more than ever? Um, 'cause the speed of change is increasing and at a very high level, and by only reacting, you don't realize and you don't support the change, and you just can't move faster and faster and faster.
You need to think better. And. Support your business in a strategic way because it creates a dangerous gap if you just move faster and faster. Market markets are evolving right now and at almost an exponential speed, but your thinking remains linear. You will never be as fast as the current evolution of the markets.
So taking a step back and, and come into this strategic thinking mode. Gives you the opportunity to look at the current situation as a strategic leader and not as a reactive leader. So you, you basically choose, act as a leader and in that disruption that is going on or just being disrupted. That's very simple.