The Power of Hurry up Slowly in a Fast-Moving World

In a world obsessed with speed, true leadership strength lies in knowing when to slow down. By applying pace with intention, leaders can reduce risk, improve clarity, and achieve lasting growth.

We often see speed celebrated as a hallmark of strong leadership in business. Decisiveness and rapid execution are seen as proof of capability, and leaders around the world are expected to move quickly, scale fast and deliver measurable results quarter after quarter. But the truth is, sustained performance tells a more disciplined story.

Working with CEOs, boards and founders across different markets, I often see the same pattern. The organizations that endure shifting markets, economic cycles and technological change are rarely the ones moving the fastest at every moment. More often, they are the ones led by people who understand and use pace deliberately.

Put simply, these are leaders who know when acceleration creates advantage and when holding back protects judgment. This is what I call the ‘hurry up slowly’ mindset.

It’s not about slowing down. It’s about moving deliberately, with intention and clarity. When applied effectively, it can have a measurable impact on achieving long-lasting, sustainable growth.

Why pace has become a leadership risk issue

If you’re reading this and feeling the pressure, then you are not alone. From Australia to Europe and the United States, the leaders I’ve worked with around the world are navigating similar challenges. They’re facing compressed timelines, higher expectations from boards and investors and the constant push to do more with new technologies like AI.

And through it all, leaders consistently tell me that their capacity to focus, make sound decisions and support their teams is being stretched like never before.

This phenomenon is also being reflected in the data. A Deloitte survey conducted with Workplace Intelligence found that nearly 70 percent of C-Suite executives would consider quitting for a job that better supports their wellbeing. It’s a statistic that reflects more than fatigue. It signals structural pressure inside leadership environments and a quiet leadership brain drain that compounds over time as talented people at every level decide the job is no longer worth the cost.

When speed becomes default behavior rather than a strategic choice, risk increases.

The pressure doesn’t only come from above. It comes from staff expectations, from a leader’s own standards and from the cultural assumption that being busy equals being effective. I see this on the floors and in the Zoom calls of organizations of all sizes – the ‘just smash it out’ mentality that leaves teams busy being busy, actively occupied without necessarily being productive.

We need to remember that when speed becomes default behavior rather than a strategic choice, risk increases.

I see this play out regularly in transformation projects. Unstructured urgency that creates duplicated work, reactive decisions and leadership fatigue. Over time, it erodes clarity and confidence inside teams.

Pace is not simply a productivity lever. It is increasingly a governance issue.

One question I ask leaders is where they can apply speed where it genuinely creates value? By choosing where to accelerate and where to pause, leaders can convert pressure into progress, rather than having it show up as noise or stress.

What neuroscience tells us about rushed decisions

There is also a biological explanation behind this dynamic.

When people operate under sustained time pressure, the brain shifts into a stress response. Our brain’s ‘fear center’ becomes more active, narrowing attention and favoring fast, emotional reactions. This pushes decision-making away from deliberate, reflective thinking and toward habits, biases and shortcuts. Cognitive research shows that prolonged urgency can reduce working memory capacity and analytical depth over time.

Daniel Kahneman’s work on fast and slow thinking helps explain this. Under pressure, instinct tends to dominate while reflection recedes. The good news is, when creating even brief pauses, the prefrontal cortex re-engages. This region governs planning, ethical reasoning and long-term judgment.

Additionally, research from the University of London suggests multitasking can reduce cognitive performance by up to 40 percent. In negotiation studies published in the Journal of Applied Psychology, even short pauses before responding improved analytical responses and moderated emotional reactivity. It shows that small delays can materially improve decision quality, ultimately having a much more beneficial impact long-term.

Growth achieved at unsustainable speed often requires correction later, at a higher cost.

There is also the question of information reliability. Surveys from the Reuters Institute show that up to 50 percent of people encounter false or misleading information at least weekly. A study from Copenhagen Business School found that under normal conditions, people correctly judge whether information is true or false only 60 percent of the time – slightly better than a coin flip.

Add time pressure and that figure gets worse. In an era where leaders are increasingly drawing on AI-generated summaries and fast-moving data, the ability to pause and interrogate what you’re being told has become an essential governance and management discipline.

The ethical dimension is equally important and rarely discussed. Research from the University of Notre Dame found that feeling rushed can trigger the temptation to act dishonestly. Given time to reflect, honesty increases. Pace shapes values in action, not just outcomes.

I worked recently with a leadership team preparing a major investment decision under significant time pressure from their board. The instinct was to move. What we did instead was build in a structured 48-hour pause to pressure-test the core assumptions. Two critical gaps surfaced that would have been costly to unwind. That pause paid for itself many times over.

By building deliberate pauses into decision-making, leaders can safeguard governance, protect team capacity and make choices that drive sustainable performance, not just immediate action.

The commercial cost of unmanaged speed

The pressure to grow quickly is often framed as ambition. In reality, unmanaged speed carries a commercial cost, and we rarely see the financial consequences of unmanaged growth discussed openly.

Burnout alone is estimated by Deloitte and UNSW BusinessThink to cost Australia approximately US$9.6 billion annually in direct absenteeism costs, rising to around US$26.7 billion when lost productivity and turnover are included. In 2024, the average Australian employee took 13.8 sick days per year at a direct cost of US$2,758 per employee. While these figures are Australian, leadership fatigue and turnover are global phenomena. These are not soft issues, they are capital allocation issues.

McKinsey research also suggests that up to 40 percent of leadership time can be misdirected due to unclear priorities and fragmented focus. When everything is urgent, waste becomes invisible. Slowing down allows leaders to see where effort is being misdirected and where systems are creating drag.

When pace exceeds organizational capacity, companies experience rework, talent attrition, strategic drift and margin pressure. Growth achieved at unsustainable speed often requires correction later, at a higher cost. Measured growth protects organizational capability. It ensures transformation strengthens the system rather than exhausting it.

Why structured pauses improve execution

Some of the most safety-critical industries have understood this for decades. Aviation relies on structured checklists and healthcare integrates surgical time-outs. These pauses exist for a reason, as they reduce error and sharpen execution. Corporate environments can benefit from building in the same discipline.

One simple principle leaders can remember is this: speed applied after alignment is efficient, whereas speed applied before alignment is expensive.

Alignment reduces rework, and intentional sequencing prevents wasted effort.

I’ve seen the results of this firsthand when working with a global sales team. After months of stalled progress, they deliberately slowed to review customer feedback and consider the ROI on their current efforts. This allowed them to recognize that their sales process lacked focus on deep dialogue and problem-solution alignment. Within two months, they had made significant progress on every priority. As the CEO reflected: What little time you lose in decision-making, you gain in execution.

When teams invest time upfront to align on purpose, strategy and priorities, execution accelerates later. Alignment reduces rework and intentional sequencing prevents wasted effort.

The ‘hurry up slowly’ mindset embeds structured reflection into leadership rhythm. Not to delay progress, but to sharpen it.

Think of it as a checkpoint or a moment to assess direction, pressure-test assumptions and ensure the organization is accelerating toward the right outcome, not simply moving faster for its own sake.

Applying ‘hurry up slowly’ in practice

Disciplined pacing with decision-making does not slow organizations down. Instead, it calibrates effort.

Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos has spoken about making many decisions with approximately 70 percent of available information, reserving deeper analysis for high-consequence decisions. The distinction between reversible and irreversible choices creates both agility and control.

This is a practical example of pace management. Not every decision deserves the same tempo.

In executive practice, leaders and boards can apply this principle by:

• Structuring decision checkpoints for high-impact initiatives

• Creating alignment sessions before major execution phases

• Protecting strategic thinking time in leadership calendars

• Stress-testing assumptions before scaling

• Regularly assessing whether operational tempo matches organizational capability

These actions strengthen execution rather than delay it, ultimately protecting leadership capacity and improving judgment.

Leadership for the next phase of growth

Looking ahead to the next phase of growth, we are entering a sustained period of volatility. Markets will continue to fluctuate and recalibrate in response to geopolitical shifts. AI, automation and global capital flows will compress timelines further. Despite this, stakeholders will still expect responsiveness, transparency and performance, often simultaneously.

In this environment, the organizations that endure will be the ones that manage pace deliberately.

This is because measured, resilient growth strengthens governance, protects leadership wellbeing and improves strategic accuracy. It supports performance without eroding trust or culture. The organizations that manage pace effectively will be the ones that sustain momentum, retain talent and turn strategic intent into lasting impact.

What’s important to remember is that ‘hurry up slowly’ is not about reducing ambition, it sharpens ambition through judgment.

There is also a generational dimension worth mentioning. The next wave of leaders is approaching this differently. They seek context and collaboration before acting. They are more likely to put strategy and wellbeing in the same conversation and to ask questions that expose assumptions before committing to action. This leadership style is one built for complexity.

What’s important to remember is that ‘hurry up slowly’ is not about reducing ambition, it sharpens ambition through judgment.

It invites leaders to pause long enough to ensure that what they are building can endure.

A final reflection

Before the next significant decision, leaders might ask three simple questions:

• What is the real consequence of getting this wrong?

• Does this require speed, or does it require clarity?

• Have we created sufficient space to think?

Pace is a leadership choice and when managed deliberately, it becomes a competitive advantage.

Hurry up slowly. Move decisively, but never faster than your thinking.

Written by: Tara James, an award-winning CEO, strategist, and founder of Small and Mighty Group, for CEO Magazine.