The Vital Leadership Skill We Forget During the Holidays: Rest
If you’ve ever lifted weights or trained for a race, you know an inconvenient truth about progress: it doesn’t actually happen during the workout.
The magic happens after.
Muscles grow during rest. Strength increases during recovery. Those microscopic tears from lifting heavy or logging miles don’t turn into power unless you give your body time to rest, repair, and rebuild.
The same principle applies to learning. You can grind nonstop, stack meetings back-to-back, and power through on caffeine and grit—but eventually, you stop getting stronger. You just get tired. Or cranky. Or both.
Rest isn’t laziness. It’s where growth actually sticks.
When we pause, our brains do something similar to muscles. They lay down new pathways. They integrate what we’ve learned. They connect dots we didn’t even realize were related. Sometimes they just need to say “aaah” and soak in a bubble-filled bath after a long week.
Even God rested on the seventh day. And if anyone had a solid to-do list, it was Him.
Here’s where leaders often get tripped up: They assume rest is for the weak so they don’t take any, or they think it should look the same for everyone. It doesn’t.
I don’t need a ton of sleep. Extra rest for me might be the bare minimum for someone else—and that’s okay. I also find movement restful. If I sit on the couch too long, my hips protest like I’ve waged war on them.
Rest, for me, doesn’t mean binging another show. It looks like a gentle walk, a yoga class, or hopping on my Peloton. For someone else, rest might mean a nap, quiet time, or doing absolutely nothing—and loving every minute of it.
The key isn’t how you rest. The key is knowing what restores you and building it into your life on purpose—not just during vacations or holidays, but as part of how you lead yourself.
Strong leaders understand this balance intuitively. They know when it’s time to sprint—and when it’s time to recover. Rest isn’t a reward you earn after burnout. It’s fuel for sustainable performance.
If you want to lead by example, consider this:
Unplug and recharge daily. Build small, intentional breaks into your day—step away from screens, take a walk, breathe, reset. Daily recovery prevents the kind of exhaustion that no vacation can fix.
Model healthy boundaries. Don’t email at midnight and then talk about work-life balance. People notice what you do, not what you say.
Plan recovery. Just like training plans include rest days, your calendar should include space for reflection and renewal.
Rest isn’t stepping away from leadership. It’s how you lead well—for the long run.