Leaders Who Honor “In-Between” Periods Heighten Their Insight and Power

LEADERS are under tremendous pressure to stay ahead of the curve while increasing output and notching wins. The tendency is to rush from project to project, overcome hurdle after hurdle, and never stop for a breath. But truly successful leadership requires taking time for reflection between one project and the next. Rather than diminishing leaders’ effectiveness, pausing in between heightens their insight and power.

In Tibetan Buddhism, in-between periods are known as “bardos.” In these intervals, the teachings tell us, “the intellect becometh ninefold more lucid.” Bardos offer us a rich opportunity to step outside our usual ways of seeing and discover fresh perspectives.

Our busy-ness can make us feel we’re on track, when the reality is that we’re drifting like a boat that’s steadily and unnoticeably veering off course. Striving to meet today’s glorified standards of productivity, we think we’re taking care of what matters most when, in fact, we’re putting it off.

Tomorrow you’ll analyze what went wrong and what went right with the latest project. Next week you’ll acknowledge your team’s efforts. Later in the month you’ll take time to better understand how the processes you’re overseeing work. Next year you’ll strategize for succession planning.

Now, as the new year gets underway, make a commitment to honor intermediary periods. Resolve to set aside time between projects for conscious attention to your relationships, your principles, and your purpose. By turning your attention to this kind of reflection on a regular basis, you can reset your compass, course correct and enhance your leadership skills.

Here are some questions to ask yourself when you take a pause:

1. Is there something I keep doing even though it isn’t working?

According to the Buddhist law of karma, or cause and effect, every result has an origin. “Karma” means “act,” and it’s about how we determine what happens with our actions.

Karma as action (rather than fate) is a concept with huge power. What’s occurring today is a consequence of your actions last year, last week, yesterday, and this morning. All of that, plus what you do now, will lead to results in the future.

If you don’t want what usually happens to happen, do something different. In other words, stop doing things that aren’t working. You might start by identifying a behavior that isn’t getting the results you want. Perhaps you have too many meetings to prepare for other meetings. Or you micromanage instead of setting standards. Or you request reports and metrics that no one acts on. Once you pinpoint the action, you can change it.

2. Am I living in alignment with my values?

Often, we behave in ways that aren’t aligned with our values. You care about developing talent but don’t devote time to mentoring. You believe in open discussion but quash dissent in meetings. You advocate work-life balance but expect employees to be available at night and on weekends.

Recognizing these points of disjunction allows you to transform behavior patterns you weren’t aware of. As your values and behavior come into alignment, you experience increased personal and professional satisfaction.

3. If I only have one more year in this role, what do I want to prioritize?

Impermanence is the central concept of the bardo teachings. However immortal we may feel, we — and everything and everyone we know — will end. What’s more, this can happen at any moment.

Bardo in-between periods give us the opportunity to reflect on impermanence. This may feel dark and unnecessary (why spend the time that you’re engaged in your work thinking about it coming to an end?), but it helps us make the most of our days as we see that sooner or later things will change.

Best-selling author Gish Jen became acutely aware of death when she attended a funeral for the first time. She realized, “‘Oh, my god! We’re all going to die!’” The consciousness of her own mortality that struck Jen at the funeral has never left her. She says, “For every book, I ask myself, ‘If it’s only [possible] to write one more book, would this be it?’”

Ask yourself: If I only have one more year to… If there’s only one more chance to…

By honoring in-between periods, we undergo a profound shift in our experience of leadership and indeed, of life. Instead of feeling like we’re rushing from hour to hour, day to day — our attention fractured as we try in vain to catch up with all that we want to do and must do — we become more centered and effective. We grow confident in the knowledge that we’re doing today, not later, what’s most important and aligned for us.

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Ann Tashi Slater has written for The New Yorker, The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Paris Review, and many others. Her work has been featured in Lit Hub and included in The Best American Essays. In her Darjeeling Journal column for Catapult, she writes about her Tibetan family history and bardo, and she blogged for HuffPost on similar topics. She presents and teaches workshops at Princeton, Columbia, Oxford, Asia Society, and The American University of Paris, among others. Her new book, Traveling in Bardo: The Art of Living in an Impermanent World (Balance, Sept. 9, 2025), has been named a Next Big Idea Club “Must Read.” Learn more at anntashislater.com.

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Posted by Michael McKinney at 01:18 PM
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