The Pause Before You Lead
Leadership today asks a lot of people.
Leaders make decisions with incomplete information, navigate competing priorities, support others through change, and respond to challenges that rarely have simple answers.
In the midst of all that, it's easy to keep moving without creating space to think.
Hosted by Heather Haigh and Alicia Saint, The Pause Before You Lead is a podcast for leaders navigating growth, complexity, and uncertainty. Each week, Heather and Alicia explore the conversations, assumptions, patterns, and tensions that influence how leaders think, decide, communicate, and lead.
Drawing on decades of leadership experience and more than ten years coaching, consulting, and partnering with leaders and teams, they bring thoughtful dialogue, practical wisdom, and powerful questions to the real challenges leaders face every day.
Whether you're leading a team, an organization, or your own next chapter, these conversations will invite you to pause, reflect, and see something you may not have noticed before.
New episodes released weekly.
The Pause Before You Lead
Latest Episodes
Why Is It So Hard for Leaders to Let Go?
Why is it so hard for leaders to let go?It’s often not for a lack of desire. You want to let go. You intend to let go.And yet, somehow you keep holding on.What makes letting go so difficult when you genuinely want to do it?...
Why Do I Keep Stepping Back In?
You delegate. You build a capable team. You genuinely want others to take ownership. So why do you keep stepping back in?In this solo episode of The Pause Before You Lead, Heather explores a pattern she noticed in he...
Why Do I Feel Like I Have to Carry It All?
Leadership can sometimes feel lonely.But is loneliness simply part of leadership, or could it be connected to the stories we carry about what leadership requires? In this first solo episode of The Pause Before You Lead,
Why Do My People Avoid Hard Conversations?
Many leaders work hard to create psychologically safe teams. But when safety becomes the goal without the emotional maturity to navigate disagreement, teams can unintentionally avoid the very conversations that lead to better decisions, stronge...
Why Does Everything Feel So Urgent?
When every request feels urgent, leaders can find themselves trapped in a cycle of constant reaction. Strategic work gets postponed, boundaries disappear, and teams begin believing that everything is a priority.In this episode of The...