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Busyness at a senior level is rarely a workload problem. It is an identity decision, and most leaders do not recognise it until the cost starts compounding.
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At a certain level of seniority, being busy is a choice. Not a conscious one in most cases, and that is precisely the point. In fact, when a senior leader is chronically over scheduled, what is rarely true is that the workload is non negotiable. What is more often true is that you have been making a set of identity level decisions implicitly, habitually, without examination. Decisions that protect the Success Persona from the one thing it cannot survive. Stillness. Because of this, staying busy becomes a shield.
What the Busyness Is ProtectingSome of those decisions are about worth. For example, a belief that you have to earn rest, that the full calendar is evidence of value, that being needed is the same as being significant. Some are about control. If I am in the important conversations, I stay across what matters. If I hold the threads, the quality stays where it needs to be. But some are about avoidance. As long as the days are full, there is no space for the question that keeps appearing at the edges. Is this still what I want, and is this still who I am. Staying busy keeps that question at a distance.
The Compounding CostYet this is not a flaw. Rather, it is a human response to the pressures of operating at a high level for a long time. However, the busyness has a compounding cost that shows up over time. In decision quality, in relationships, and in the kind of flatness that sleep does not touch.
The Question Worth Sitting WithSo the question worth sitting with is not how to manage the time better. Because time management treats the calendar as the problem. The calendar is the evidence. Instead, the decisions underneath it are what need attention. The question is: what am I not allowing myself to face by staying this busy? And is the busyness serving me, or protecting me from something I would be better off meeting directly? In other words, that is a different conversation. And yet, it is the one that frees up the calendar.
If the busyness is protecting something you have not yet faced, that is where the shift begins. Book a 45-minute Strategy Call and explore what is underneath the full calendar.
To your brilliance, Tanya Cross Industry Leader Coach & The Coaches’ Coach BAppSoSc (Counselling) |
