Those of us fortunate to be parents will undoubtedly have heard this phrase – “I’m sick of waiting” – or variants thereof, from the mouths of our children on countless occasions. And if not parents, we will have undoubtedly uttered, or at least contemplated, such thoughts ourselves.

Waiting is boring! Waiting is fruitless! Waiting is wasteful!

I must admit to sharing these thoughts over recent months as I have adapted to life in a new city without my own car and relying on the local “Uber” company which has elevated waiting to an art form. ”I’m sick of waiting” would be one of the more polite variants of my emotions.

Equating waiting with time wasted seems, prima facie, to be a reasonable assumption. And yet, at a deeper level, considerable evidence suggests otherwise. A deliberate engagement with waiting is essential to the cultivation of a reflective mindset. And the positive impact of a reflective mindset is, I would suggest, established beyond doubt in all spheres of human endeavour.

Of course, there are times when waiting time before action is not feasible– crisis moments may require quick actions and these rely on particular personal qualities – intellectual, experiential and emotional – to handle the crisis effectively. Airline pilots and surgeons, among many others, train rigorously to handle such situations.

But beyond the crisis scenario – and sometimes even within the crisis – a waiting period for reflection is anything but wasteful.

The sphere of leadership presents an interesting test case for this assertion. In the absence of foolproof instincts – and who among us dare lay claim to that attribute – hasty decision making can often lead us into the domain of unintended consequences. Quick decisioning can encourage tactical responses. Strategic leadership is borne from a deep engagement with context, with evidence, with connections, with knowledge. Such is the domain and task of reflection.

This is the context in which I use the term reflective practice.

There is a danger in using the term out of this context lest it be understandably conflated with ideas around journalling, meditation, mindfulness or other profound techniques leading to self-understanding. Such activities are not a natural fit for everyone. Therefore, to allow such a context to colour a conversation on reflective practice runs the risk of closing down the conversation for a wide group of people.

I spend much time in conversation about reflective practice with outstanding leaders from organisations of all types and sizes. In doing so, I always take care to elucidate this context and to make the connections with strategic leadership.

In these conversations, we often make reference to the simple, but immensely profound, model developed by Gary Rolfe as a tool to develop realistic, authentic and lasting approaches to reflective practice. Rolfe poses three simple questions to frame the reflective process:

• what?
• so what?
• now what?

How obvious. And yet how profound.

The so what represents the ‘wasteful’ waiting. The bit that gets squeezed between the attention grabbing what and the reactive now what. On the whole, we are pretty good at making that leap – the quick connection between noticing and doing. The being irritated by a colleague’s email and the keyboard-crunching instant reply.

Sometimes we get the response right. But oftentimes not. Herein lies the power of the so what – that opportunity to take time, to gather, to notice, to be even more curious with the whats, to examine connections, to postulate, to imagine, to think.

Rolfe’s model gives us a basis on which to wait – not a wasteful waiting, but a creative, resourceful, generative waiting. A basis which works. This is not paralysis by analysis but transformative decisioning.

This, in itself, gives powerful reason for a knowing, deliberate embracing of decisioning rooted in a waiting period. But there is a broader dimension I would like us to consider – a dimension which connects to our most recent blog.

I was introduced recently to the richness of the Spanish word “espera”. It carries a profound linguistic and emotional depth that transcends simple translation into English. Simultaneously embodying the concepts of “waiting” and “hoping,” this single word captures a rich emotional landscape that reveals much about Spanish-speaking cultures and their philosophical approach to time and expectation.

At its most literal level, “espera” describes the act of waiting — pausing, remaining in a state of anticipation. Yet it simultaneously suggests an emotional dimension of hope, implying that waiting is not merely a passive experience but an active state of potential and possibility. This dual meaning reflects a cultural perspective that sees waiting not as stagnation, but as a meaningful period of potential transformation.

In everyday conversations, “espera” can be used in mundane contexts like “espera un momento” (wait a moment), but it also carries deeper emotional resonance. When someone says “tengo esperanza” (I have hope), they’re invoking the same linguistic root, suggesting that waiting and hoping are intimately connected psychological experiences.

Philosophically, this linguistic nuance suggests that waiting is not necessarily about idle passivity, but also about maintaining faith in future possibilities. It implies that patience itself is a form of optimism—that the act of waiting contains within it the seeds of potential realisation.

Linguistically, “espera” embodies a worldview where time is not just a linear progression, but a space of potential, where waiting is not empty, but charged with anticipation and promise.​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​

Our exploration of the practice of reflective waiting as a strategic tool gives powerful enough reason to embrace it as will be testified by the myriads of outstanding leaders who benefit from it. But this broader dimension is also worthy of our consideration.

Waiting. Not a wasteful, empty nothingness. But a creative space of potential; a hopeful anticipation where future realities are examined and explored, and the seeds of realisation nurtured.

Of this type of waiting, we should never grow sick.