Why Leaders Must Rest, and Let Their Teams Rest, Too

By Amanda Sullivan | BrightBow Learning

The Culture of Constant Motion

Leadership has long been tied to motion: constant meetings, constant emails, constant output. Yet, the greatest threat to modern leadership isn’t incompetence or inexperience. It’s chronic exhaustion.

In a survey highlighted by Dr. R. Wallace at Regent University, leaders averaged only 6.2 hours of sleep per night and took only roughly eight vacation days per year. The study found that these patterns of overextension lead to “diminished creativity, emotional regulation, and long-term vision” (Wallace). In other words, the more leaders push, the less clearly they see.

A culture of exhaustion doesn’t just wear leaders down, it infects entire teams. Fatigue becomes a shared rhythm, and the organization learns to equate exhaustion with excellence.

Why Rest Is a Leadership Responsibility

Rest is often treated as a reward for good work. In reality, it’s a requirement for good leadership. The Center for Creative Leadership’s white paper Tired at Work: A Roadblock to Effective Leadership describes how sleep deprivation erodes executive functioning, emotional intelligence, and creativity, which are core competencies for effective leadership (Center for Creative Leadership). More importantly, fatigue “spreads culturally across teams,” as tired leaders unknowingly model burnout as the norm.

This ripple effect isn’t theoretical. When leaders are exhausted, empathy declines, short-term problem-solving replaces long-term strategy, and team members begin to mirror that depleted behavior. Conversely, when leaders model restoration—by taking time off, setting boundaries, or openly prioritizing well-being—they create psychological permission for others to do the same. Rest becomes not just self-care, but a strategic act of modeling.

Well-Being as a System, Not a Slogan

The RAND Corporation’s Restoring Teacher and Principal Well-Being report underscores that well-being isn’t a surface-level perk, it’s a structural issue. RAND researchers found that “positive staff relationships and psychological safety reduce stress more than surface-level perks” (“Restoring Teacher and Principal Well-Being”).

The study further revealed that organizational structures such as meeting loads, unrealistic timelines, and lack of autonomy are stronger predictors of burnout than individual resilience. When leaders redesign conditions for recovery, rather than simply preaching self-care, the culture begins to change from the inside out. For school and district administrators, this means moving from policy to practice—building rhythms that encourage downtime, reflection, and shared recovery rituals.

Leading from Rest

Leaders who rest don’t just feel better—they lead better. Reflection and intentional rest restore clarity and relational patience, both of which directly impact decision quality and team morale (Wallace). A “restful leader” is not disengaged. They are fully engaged on purpose, knowing that their energy sets the pace for the people who follow. They practice what BrightBow calls rhythmic leadership—alternating between action and restoration, performance and pause.

When leaders treat rest as rhythm rather than reward, teams learn to breathe again. The cycle of exhaustion breaks, creativity returns, and a new kind of excellence emerges—one that sparkles sustainably.

Reflections

  • How might your next pause be the most powerful action you take this week?

  • When was the last time you modeled rest for your team, and how did they respond?

  • If your leadership pace became your team’s norm, what kind of culture would it create?

  • What’s one small structure: a meeting pause, reflection minute, or “no email after 6 p.m.” rule that could restore energy in your organization?

  • How do you personally define “enough”?

Works Cited

  1. Center for Creative Leadership. Tired at Work: A Roadblock to Effective Leadership. CCL Innovation, 2020, https://cclinnovation.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/03/tired-at-work-roadblock-to-effective-leadership-white-paper.pdf.

  2. “Restoring Teacher and Principal Well-Being.” RAND Corporation, 2022, https://www.rand.org/pubs/research_reports/RRA1108-4.html.

  3. Wallace, R. “Leadership Gap: Too Little Rest and Renewal.” Leadership Advance Online, Regent University, vol. 13, 2008, https://www.regent.edu/acad/global/publications/lao/issue_13/wallace.pdf.