The Most Dangerous Person in the Room is the Leader Who Hasn’t Slept
Don’t be that Leader
If you are reading this, you probably have a jaw that is clenched tight enough to crack a walnut.
We have arrived at the end of a week that felt like a month. If you are a leader, a manager, or a parent, you have likely spent the last five days absorbing shock. You have managed the anxieties of your team, navigated shifting news cycles, and tried to keep the lights on — all while pretending to be calmer than you actually are.
And now, the weekend is finally here.
The temptation for high-performers right now is to push harder. Your brain is telling you: “If I just work through Saturday, I can get ahead of this. If I just perfect this strategy, I can fix the uncertainty. If I just answer every email, I will feel safe.”
I am writing this to tell you to stop.
Not because “self-care” is nice. Not because you deserve a bubble bath or a spa day (although you probably do!). But because exhaustion is an operational liability.
The Physiology of Bad Decisions
We often treat sleep and rest as rewards for finishing the work. But in a crisis, the work is never finished. If you wait until the inbox is empty to rest, you will never rest.
When you are operating on high cortisol and low sleep, your prefrontal cortex (the part of the brain responsible for logic, emotional regulation, and strategic planning) goes offline. You revert to your amygdala, the lizard brain.
The “Lizard Brain” leader is dangerous. They are reactive. They snap at employees who are just looking for reassurance. They make short-term decisions that cause long-term damage because they can’t see past the immediate threat.
The most valuable asset your company has right now is not your hustle. It is your judgment. And you cannot have good judgment if you are running on fumes.
The Strategic Case for “B-minus” Work
So, how do we rest when the stakes feel this high? We have to ruthlessly lower the bar.
Perfectionism is a luxury for calm times. In a crisis, perfectionism is a trap. It keeps you tweaking a slide deck at 11:00 PM when you should be sleeping. It keeps you obsessing over the perfect wording of an email instead of sending a “good enough” draft and moving on.
I am giving you official permission to do B-minus work this weekend.
“B-minus work” does not mean being sloppy. It means recognizing the law of diminishing returns. The difference between an A+ strategy and a B- strategy often takes 10 hours of work, but the outcome is usually the same.
Right now, we need volume and velocity, not polish. We need you to make a decision and move, not agonize over making the perfect decision.
The Framework: Glass Balls vs. Rubber Balls
If you are struggling to figure out what to drop, use the classic metaphor from Brian Dyson (former CEO of Coca-Cola).
Imagine life is a game of juggling five balls. You are juggling them in the air: work, family, health, friends, and spirit.
You will soon understand that work is a rubber ball. If you drop it, it will bounce back. The project will be delayed, the client might be annoyed, but the business will likely survive.
But the other four balls (family, health, friends, and spirit) are made of glass. If you drop one of these, they will be irrevocably scuffed, marked, nicked, damaged, or even shattered. They will never be the same.
This weekend, look at your to-do list.
The Rubber Balls: The email that can wait until Monday. The laundry that isn’t folded. The LinkedIn post you didn’t write. Let them drop. They will bounce.
The Glass Balls: Your sleep. Your patience with your children. Your connection with your partner. Your own sanity. Catch these. Each time they drop, they crack.
Your Weekend Assignment
Your only job this weekend is to protect the glass balls.
Disconnect from the news. Close the laptop. Do not try to “get ahead” for next week, because next week will bring its own challenges regardless of how many emails you answer on Sunday.
You cannot lead a resilient team if you are brittle.
Rest is not the absence of work; it is the fuel for it. Go recharge your battery, because the world needs you fully charged on Monday morning.
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