{"id":2949,"date":"2021-01-13T15:14:00","date_gmt":"2021-01-13T14:14:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.grantalexander.com\/en\/?p=2949"},"modified":"2025-08-27T12:09:13","modified_gmt":"2025-08-27T10:09:13","slug":"time-rhythms-that-are-temporally-compatible","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.grantalexander.com\/en\/our-news\/time-rhythms-that-are-temporally-compatible\/","title":{"rendered":"Time Rhythms that are Temporally Compatible"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p><br><em>Excerpt from the collective work by the Cercle du Leadership, &#8220;Le temps dans tous ses \u00e9tats&#8221;<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><br><em>&#8220;The most costly expenditure is the loss of time.&#8221;<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><br>\u2014 Theophrastus<br>The pace of action, and with it the notion of time, has never been more relevant.<br>The recent coronavirus crisis brought many businesses, economies, and entire countries to a halt, and many leaders were suddenly reminded of this rare resource: time. That scarce commodity that always seems to slip away; that invisible limiter of actions and the pace at which they occur.<br>During this period of slowdown\u2014or even complete interruption of activity for some\u2014unexpected blocks of free time appeared. Many leaders were finally able to <strong>take or reclaim time<\/strong>, redefine their action rhythm, and sometimes \u201cdo nothing\u201d to better focus on reflection and strategy.<br>Conversely, some succumbed to what is called the <strong>\u201caction bias\u201d<\/strong>, doubling their efforts out of fear of inactivity or uncertainty about how to spend their time.<br><br>Time does not exist in itself<br>During a recent coaching session with <strong>St\u00e9phane<\/strong>, a business unit director at a consulting firm, I again observed how central and pressing the notion of time is for leaders.<br>At the final coaching session, which included St\u00e9phane, the company\u2019s CEO, and myself, St\u00e9phane was reminded by his CEO of the <strong>need to give time to his team<\/strong>\u2014time he was likely not offering enough but needed to \u201clet them steal\u201d in a sense. This raised the subtle distinction between <strong>presence<\/strong> and <strong>availability<\/strong>.<br>For his CEO, \u201ctime does not exist in itself\u201d; it is elastic. Even when perpetually short on time, as a leader and manager, one must find or create time\u2014for oneself and for the team\u2014regardless of constraints.<br>This reflection struck me profoundly, not only because of the awareness of time it conveys, but also because it embodies <strong>altruistic leadership<\/strong>\u2014sharing time to multiply it, for oneself and for the team.<br><br>Qualifying time<br>To know where time can be created, it must first be <strong>identified and qualified<\/strong>. Failing to understand the quality of passing time or how it is spent leads to a sense of scarcity, of always running after it, of being trapped. Conversely, understanding time and its different forms allows one to act, decide, and manage <strong>action time and rhythm<\/strong>, whether early, stable, or deadline-driven.<br>Time management and organization differ by individual personality.<br><br>Action rhythms and personality types<br>Going back to the 1920s, <strong>Carl Jung<\/strong>, founder of analytical psychology, observed three families of behavior (called \u201cdimensions\u201d) related to:<br><strong>Source and orientation of energy:<\/strong> Introversion (I) \u2013 Extraversion (E)<br><strong>Information gathering and processing:<\/strong> Sensing (S) \u2013 Intuition (N)<br><strong>Decision-making:<\/strong> Thinking (T) \u2013 Feeling (F)<br>Each is built on opposing psychological traits, with each polarity reflecting a natural preference. These traits are innate, highlighting one of Jung\u2019s major contributions: the distinction between <strong>innate and acquired<\/strong>.<br>Decades later, <strong>Isabel Briggs Myers<\/strong> and <strong>Katherine Cook Briggs<\/strong> expanded this typology, introducing a dimension relevant here: <strong>organization of time and space<\/strong>, with two preferences: <strong>Judging (J)<\/strong> and <strong>Perceiving (P)<\/strong>.<br><strong>Judging (J) individuals<\/strong> naturally prefer structured, planned, and sequenced environments. Their action rhythm is <strong>early<\/strong>; they structure their time before acting. Leaders with a J preference thrive in sectors with longer production or innovation cycles, like defense, aerospace, or energy.<br><strong>Perceiving (P) individuals<\/strong> prefer spontaneity and flexibility, leaving options open as long as reasonable. Their performance emerges under time pressure, fostering creativity. P-type leaders thrive in fast-paced, urgent environments, such as tech startups, where action is often deadline-driven.<br><br>Cultivating the opposite rhythm<br>In business, where speed is accelerating, P-types excel in immediate-action contexts, while J-types may feel discomforted or destabilized. This could affect their ability to act.<br>However, based on Jungian polarity, <strong>personal development<\/strong>\u2014especially for leaders\u2014is measured by the ability to occasionally adopt behaviors from the opposite preference when appropriate.<br>Continuous adoption of the opposite preference is <strong>energy-consuming<\/strong>, as it is unnatural and requires effort. Over time, forcing oneself into the opposite rhythm can lead to stress or burnout, particularly for rational profiles in highly changing environments. Similarly, P-types in slow environments may feel constrained, bored, and less effective.<br>Navigating between innate and opposite preferences, and calibrating the effort needed to adopt the appropriate action rhythm (<strong>stable<\/strong>) is not easy. It requires <strong>personal, emotional, and situational intelligence<\/strong>, self-awareness, humility, choosing the right environment, and surrounding oneself with temporally compatible people.<br><br>What makes a great leader<br>A truly great leader has achieved a level of personal development where, regardless of their innate preference, they can choose the <strong>most appropriate behavior<\/strong>\u2014the one that allows them to act with the right rhythm.<br><br><strong>References:<\/strong><br><strong>Action bias:<\/strong> Daniel Kahneman &amp; Amos Tversky, behavioral economics. A cognitive bias that favors action, sometimes counterproductive: \u201cEven if I don\u2019t know what to do, I must act.\u201d<br><strong>C.G. Jung, Psychological Types [1921], Georg Editeur, 1997<\/strong><br>Creators of <strong>MBTI\u00ae<\/strong>, the leading psychometric tool<br><em><a href=\"https:\/\/www.amazon.fr\/Temps-Dans-Tous-Ses-Etats\/dp\/2416001027\">\u201cLe temps dans tous ses \u00e9tats\u201d by Rapha\u00eblle Laubie, Editions Eyrolles.<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Excerpt from the collective work by the Cercle du Leadership, &#8220;Le temps dans tous ses \u00e9tats&#8221; &#8220;The most costly expenditure is the loss of time.&#8221; \u2014 TheophrastusThe pace of action, and with it the notion of time, has never been more relevant.The recent coronavirus crisis brought many businesses, economies, and entire countries to a halt, [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":8,"featured_media":2892,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"content-type":"","footnotes":""},"activity":[7],"topical-themes":[],"news-type":[38],"class_list":["post-2949","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v25.7 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Time Rhythms that are Temporally Compatible - Grant Alexander<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.grantalexander.com\/en\/our-news\/time-rhythms-that-are-temporally-compatible\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_GB\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Time Rhythms that are Temporally Compatible - Grant Alexander\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Excerpt from the collective work by the Cercle du Leadership, &#8220;Le temps dans tous ses \u00e9tats&#8221; 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