Sleep underpins presence, precision, and high performance in leadership. Chronic fragmented sleep reduces health, dulls decisions, and erodes confidence. A period of intense work with fractured sleep produced fog, depletion, and a collapse that ended with an 11-hour recovery sleep. That recovery restored clarity, strategic thinking, and energy. Rest, rather than hustle, rekindled strong leadership and performance. Cultural myths that valorize minimal sleep foster shame and unsustainable behaviors. Treating sleep as integral to leadership can improve resilience, sharpen judgement, and sustain team productivity.
We celebrate presence, precision, and high performance in leadership. But we ignore the very foundation that powers all three: sleep. Why do we still treat sleep and leadership as separate conversations when it may be our greatest advantage? I didn't fully understand that until one of the busiest seasons of my career left me foggy, depleted, and quietly unraveling. We were rolling out a job leveling system and new applicant tracking system, restructuring a global division, and shifting to hybrid work, all during a pandemic.
When I woke up, I didn't just feel rested; I felt clear, strategic, and human again. A colleague later told me, "You're on fire." And she was right. But what lit that fire wasn't hustle; it was rest. If we want stronger performance and more resilient teams, it's time to treat sleep and leadership as inseparable. Sleep Productivity Myths Missing a week of good sleep is like showing up to work slightly drunk every day and expecting brilliance.
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