Rest as Resistance: The Wellness Imperative for Leaders

We're in the midst of a quiet crisis in leadership: burnout. Executives are working weekends. Founders are sleeping four hours a night. Board members are juggling multiple roles with no boundaries. Teams are running lean with no slack. The default assumption is that intensity, availability, and sacrifice are synonymous with dedication and success. This is wrong. It's also unsustainable and dangerous.

Burnout doesn't just affect individuals. It damages organizations. Burned-out leaders make worse decisions, miss risks, alienate teams, and destroy the very cultures and capabilities they're trying to build. The problem is so widespread that it's become invisible—normalized as 'the cost of leadership.' It's time to name this clearly: burnout is a governance failure. And rest is not a luxury. It's essential infrastructure for sustainable leadership.

The Burnout Trap: Why Intensity Is Not Leadership

There's a persistent myth in leadership culture: the harder you work, the more committed you are. The longer the hours, the more dedicated you must be. This myth is reinforced by startups glorifying the hustle, by investor expectations of founder availability, by board cultures that equate presence with competence.

The evidence says something different. Chronic sleep deprivation impairs cognitive function as much as intoxication. Decision-making quality deteriorates under sustained stress. Attention narrows under pressure, causing leaders to miss peripheral threats. Emotional regulation suffers, damaging relationships and cultures. Creativity and strategic thinking—the high-value work leaders should do—require rest.

Burned-out leaders don't just make bad decisions. They set the tone for entire organizations. Teams take cues from leadership. If executives are always available, working weekends, answering emails at midnight, teams internalize the message: your own rest doesn't matter, availability is the measure of commitment, boundaries are weakness.

The result is organizations where burnout is normalized, where people are exhausted, where good people leave because the culture is unsustainable. And paradoxically, the organization becomes less capable: burned-out teams make worse decisions, miss risks, and have reduced capacity for governance, strategic thinking, and innovation.

The Business Case for Rest

Beyond the moral imperative to care for people, there's a clear business case for rest. Well-rested leaders have higher quality decision-making. Studies on sleep deprivation show that after 17 hours without sleep, cognitive performance deteriorates to the level of someone with a blood alcohol content of 0.05 percent. After 24 hours without sleep, the impairment is roughly equivalent to 0.10 percent BAC. Running an organization on this level of impairment is inexplicable.

Rested leaders also have better emotional regulation and judgment. They listen better. They think more strategically. They spot risks that fatigued eyes miss. And they model the culture they want: if leaders honor boundaries around rest, teams see that sustainable work is possible.

Organizations with strong cultures around rest also have lower turnover. People stay longer. Institutional knowledge compounds. Team stability improves decision-making and execution.

Rest as a Governance Issue

This is where the connection to disability and accessibility becomes important. Disability accommodation isn't just about accommodating disabled individuals. It's about building organizational infrastructure that works for everyone.

Flexible work arrangements originally designed for disabled employees benefit all employees: parents managing childcare, people dealing with chronic illness, people managing grief, people in different time zones. Asynchronous communication structures—documented decisions, written communication, recorded meetings—were built for deaf employees and people using screen readers. Now they benefit neurodivergent employees, people managing ADHD, and people across time zones.

The same applies to rest. Structured breaks, limited meeting hours, clear boundaries around evenings and weekends—these were designed to help people manage their energy and mental health. They benefit everyone. They're governance infrastructure.

What Rest-Supportive Governance Looks Like

Organizations that treat rest as a governance issue make specific structural changes:

Clear boundaries around work hours: Meetings don't happen before 10 AM or after 6 PM. No meetings on Fridays. Leaders don't send messages on weekends. This isn't HR theater—it's policy enforced by leadership. If the CEO is in meetings at 7 PM, the message is clear: boundaries aren't real.

Vacation is mandatory: Leaders take actual time off. Vacation days are required, not optional. Organizations with 'unlimited PTO' without accountability often see people taking less time off. Mandatory minimums—three weeks minimum, fully off, not checking email—create accountability and model the behavior organizations want.

Asynchronous-first communication: Default to written documentation, recorded meetings, and asynchronous updates. Real-time synchronous communication—especially urgent synchronous meetings—is the exception, not the rule. This reduces the pressure to be always available and online.

Structured sabbaticals for leadership: For executives and board members, regular sabbaticals—month-long breaks every few years—create space for reflection, perspective, and rejuvenation. This also builds institutional resilience by ensuring others can step into roles.

Disability accommodation as standard: Flexible work arrangements, the ability to work from home, flexible meeting times, the option to turn off camera—these are available to everyone, not special accommodations for certain people. This normalizes them and makes them available to anyone who needs them.

Rest as Resistance to Exploitative Norms

The phrase 'rest as resistance' deserves unpacking. In the context of work culture, rest is a form of resistance against exploitative norms that demand endless availability and sacrifice.

When you set boundaries around work hours, you're resisting the cultural message that your worth is measured by how much you're willing to give. When you take actual vacation, you're refusing the idea that your value is your constant availability. When you prioritize sleep, you're rejecting the glorification of hustle and sleep deprivation.

This is especially important for leaders from marginalized communities. Women, people of color, LGBTQ+ leaders, and other underrepresented groups often feel pressure to work harder, sacrifice more, and prove themselves more thoroughly. The cultural message is: 'You have to do twice as much to get half as far.' Accepting this is accepting a losing game.

Resisting exploitative work norms through rest is not selfish. It's strategic. It's saying: my health and wellbeing matter. My decision-making capacity matters. Sustainable work matters more than burnout. And organizations that understand this will outperform those that don't.

Creating Rest-Supportive Organizations

Questions for Yourself and Your Leadership Team

The Bottom Line

Burnout in leadership is a widespread crisis. It damages individuals, teams, and organizations. It impairs decision-making, increases risk, and destroys the very cultures leaders are trying to build. Yet the solution is often overlooked: rest.

Rest isn't a luxury or weakness. It's essential infrastructure for sustainable leadership. It's a governance issue. It's tied to decision quality, risk management, and organizational resilience. Leaders who understand this and build rest into their organizations will have better decision-making, stronger cultures, and lower turnover.

The invitation is clear: stop glorifying burnout. Stop treating availability as a proxy for commitment. Instead, build organizations where rest is valued, boundaries are respected, and sustainable work is possible. Your organization's future depends on it.