Leadership Recovery Requires More Than Leaving the Office

Sustainable leaders need protected spaces where the role cannot follow them.

Source: Jeff Frey / Used with permission

In one of my research interviews with a leader, he described running as one of the few parts of the day that truly belonged to him.

“First of all, it’s my time,” he said. “It’s the hour, hour and a half in the day that’s mine.”

One day, rain pushed him into his organization’s fitness center instead of outside at home before work. He was on the treadmill early in the morning when someone next to him began asking work questions. He understood why. He was the leader. He was visible. He was right there.

But it was 5 a.m.

He was not at his desk, not in a meeting, and technically in his "off" hours. He wasn’t “in the office,” exactly. But because he was working out inside the building, he said, “I’m on.”

The problem was not that anyone did anything wrong. It was that the role had followed him into one of the few spaces he counted on for recovery.

Sustainable leaders do not just need time away from work. They need protected spaces where the role cannot follow them.

Recovery Is More Than Absence

Many leaders assume that if they are not officially working, they are recovering.

But recovery is not only about being absent from the office. It is about what happens inside the mind and body when work no longer has immediate access to your attention.

Research on recovery from work identifies psychological detachment as one of the key recovery experiences, along with relaxation, mastery, and control (Sonnentag & Fritz, 2007). People do not fully recover simply because they stop performing tasks. They recover when they can mentally disconnect long enough for energy, attention, and judgment to return.

Though a leader can leave the building, close the laptop, say goodbye to coworkers, or walk into the gym, that same leader can still be mentally replaying the scenarios of the day. Work still sits just beneath a thin surface of recovery. One question, text, decision, or interruption can pull the leader right back up into the role.

Just like a plant that receives only a little water at a time develops shallow roots, a leader with only surface-level recovery can be uprooted quickly. But leaders, like plants, need a deeper soak to develop deeper roots.

The Role Can Follow You

For many leaders, the role is now highly portable. Text, email, messaging platforms, and flexible work tools are great because they allow leaders to respond from anywhere and stay connected when needed.

These connections, however, also create what researchers call the autonomy paradox. Mazmanian, Orlikowski, and Yates found that mobile devices appear to give professionals more control over when and where they work, but in actuality, these devices increase the expectations of constant connection (Mazmanian, Orlikowski, & Yates, 2013). That sounds like less control.

Another leader in my research described the difference it made when he separated his personal phone from his work phone. The work phone could stay on the desk. He could turn it off. On vacation, no one could reach him for two weeks. “If something truly serious happens,” he said, “I would hear about it on the news.”

He came back with energy, ideas, and a stronger desire to lead.

Protected Spaces Are Built

Most leaders already know they need space from work. The harder question is whether they believe they are allowed to protect it.

Work-nonwork boundary management research points to the importance of perceived boundary control (Kossek, Ruderman, Braddy, & Hannum, 2012). A leader may truly want more separation but still feel unable to enforce it because of organizational expectations, staffing gaps, client needs, board pressure, or the leader’s own internal sense of responsibility. They let the role follow them.

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That is why telling a leader to “set better boundaries” doesn’t always work.

If that story about a leader being unreachable for a couple of weeks bothered you, you may be one of these “responsible” leaders. Here’s where to start to improve your work recovery time. Ask yourself:

1. Where does the role keep following me when I am trying to recover?
2. What situations reach me only because we have never made a different plan?
3. Who needs to be trained and trusted so the role has somewhere else to go besides me?

Those questions turn recovery from a wish into a leadership design problem that you and your staff can solve.

Kreiner, Hollensbe, and Sheep studied how people negotiate the work-home interface through boundary work tactics, including physical, temporal, behavioral, and communicative practices (Kreiner, Hollensbe, & Sheep, 2009). What does this look like in real life? I personally have a physical boundary that I do not stay in the event hotel of a conference or corporate event where I am a keynote or a prominent figure. Why? Because the hallways, elevators, and yes, the gym, inevitably become spaces where I am accessible even when I am no longer on stage.

A temporal boundary might mean protecting dinner time. A behavioral boundary might mean making a habit out of leaving the office at the same time each day. A communicative boundary might mean changing “I’m away but checking email” to “I’m away. For this issue, contact this person. For that issue, contact that person.”

That is not neglect. That is intentional leadership structure.

Protected spaces are not places where nothing important exists. They are places where the role has been given somewhere else to go until you choose to let it back in.

Protect the Spaces That Restore You

Sustainable leadership does not mean relinquishing responsibility.

Sustainable leadership means recognizing that leaders need intentional, frequent, and repeated deep recovery spaces. That could be running, meals, phone-free blocks of time, or an auto-reply that routes responsibility instead of pretending to be away while remaining available.

Those real, protected spaces help leaders recover attention, renew judgment, reconnect with people outside the office, and return with more capacity for the work that matters.

Protecting those spaces does not mean you care less about the mission. You are protecting them because you care enough to put yourself in the best position possible to lead.

To lead sustainably, protect the spaces where the role cannot follow you, so you can recover, refocus, and return ready to lead.