Your Phone Buzzes at 9pm and You Immediately Respond - This Isn't the Good Leadership You Think It Is

Why Constant Availability Keeps Leaders Overwhelmed and How to Make the Change

Your phone buzzes at 9pm and you immediately respond. You said you wouldn't- you said you were done for the day and it could all wait for tomorrow - and then here you are again!

This is what good leaders do, right?

Be available. Be responsive. Be the person everyone can count on.

Except it's not good leadership. It's what's keeping you overwhelmed. It is also making you inefficient and ineffective as a leader.

If you can't disconnect, you're not in control.

Your team is in control. They control when you respond. They control when you work. They control when you're available.

And if you've created this dependency, it's you that's keeping yourself trapped.

The Common Illusion of Control - What Really Makes Good Leadership

There's a common belief that being constantly available is what makes you a good leader.

I hear it from clients all the time.

The opposite is true.

What control actually looks like:

• Your team being able to operate without you being in the room

• Systems working when you're not there

• Boundaries that protect your time and your team's capability

  
  

Lack of control looks like:

• You can't be in a meeting without checking your phone

• A member of staff comes in to talk to you, something really important to them, asking for 5 minutes of your time, and your computer is pinging, the IMs are pinging, your phone is pinging, and your focus is on everything else but them.

• You can't have dinner without thinking about work tomorrow

• You can't go a weekend without logging on because you're logging on Saturday morning to catch up and Sunday evening to try and get ahead of the week

  
  

This is not what control looks like. This is not intentional leadership.

Leading from the Front vs. Leading from the Centre

Are you leading from the front or leading from the centre?

Leading from the centre: You're in the middle of everything. Every decision needs to come through you. You're the centre of the hub and everything that happens.

If you're finding that you can't disconnect, there's a strong possibility you're leading from the centre, and that's what's trapping you where you are right now. That's what's creating the overwhelm.

Leading from the front: You're setting the direction. You're clearing the obstacles. You're developing the capability and the ability of your team.

You have a smooth operating system, which means everybody knows what they need to do. Everybody is showing up for what they need to do and inter-team communication is excellent. You have a high-performing team that is accountable, responsible, efficient and effective at a high level.

Why Constant Availability Keeps Leaders Trapped

Your promotions, all your success to date, has been as a result of you being helpful, being available, being the go-to person.

It's hard to leave that behind because your brain has registered that this is what has made you successful. This is what good looks like.

The evidence base that these behaviours are successful is strong.

You jump in to solve the problems because you can.

You jump in and make the decisions because you can.

The reason why you can is because you're good at what you do.

If you start to change that, you begin to question whether you're still providing value, whether you're still showing your worth, whether you are still good at what you do.

It feels helpful, it feels responsive, it feels valuable.

Every time you reach in to rescue because it's easy, because the solutions come to you, you're rescuing and you're building dependency rather than building capability of those that are on your team.

It's that dependency that means you need to keep being available. You need to keep being responsive. You need to keep being reactive in your leadership.

You can't disconnect because ultimately you've trained them to need you.

You have a team that can't function without you, and you feel very valuable because you're needed, but you're not valuable for what matters, and you're not needed for the things that matter most.

The Journey from Reactive to Intentional Leadership

I've worked with clients who have felt like this. They've felt the overwhelm. They've been fighting to keep control of everything that's going on, and they haven't been in control at all.

It's very real, common and frustrating when you're stuck in it.

You can make that shift it just won't necessarily happen overnight.

Someone I'm working with at the moment still took the laptop on holiday, but the win, and the progress, was that they only did the one bit of essential work that needed to be done. The rest of the time they didn't log on.

We talked about the laptop being a security blanket because they are so used to taking the laptop on holiday with them. It felt scary leaving it behind. Taking it with them helped to feel in control - controlling the 'just in case'.

In reality, they were very close to taking the 'Big Week Off'. They did the task that needed to be done, and then put their laptop away for the rest of the week so they could enjoy the time with their family.

It's a journey to change the habits and behaviours to change from reactive leadership to intentional leadership.

It doesn't happen overnight because the habits and behaviours that have put you where you are now didn't happen overnight.

It's going to take a little while to change, but it is absolutely possible to change them. - I've seen it happen time and time again.

'The Performance Flow Framework': For Leaders Stuck in the Fast Lane

The challenge for a lot of people who are stuck with this is that they're caught in the fast lane.

Introducing 'The Performance Flow Framework'

Leaders in reactive mode are in the accelerate lane, because it's reactive, it's fast-paced. It's at the centre of everything that's going on.

When we have control, when we're more intentional in our leadership, we're moving into the sustain and maintain lanes. Slower pace, manageable, sustainable, and we're more effective.

We can't sustain constant availability, and eventually something breaks. Often it is us.

In the same way, we can't drive to a destination in that third lane the entire way; we can't lead from constant availability.

It's not safe. It's not sustainable. We need to move between those lanes.

The accelerate lane has its purpose. It helps us to advance. It helps us to make that progress. But we can't stay there.

We want to be available. We want to be accessible. We want to support and guide our teams. However, we can't do it all the time because we have a whole list of things that we need to be focusing on. We have the work that we need to do, the work that we are accountable and responsible for.

We have to create a structure that means we're still available and accessible, but in a way that doesn't compromise the things that we need to do, too.

Structure: The Systems That Work Without You

As part of the PIIPS Framework, we have a pillar on structure because whilst it is important to have a good plan we must have a structure that enables all of that plan to happen.

A plan without a structure to enable it means that we struggle and things fall through the gaps.

That structure pillar is where you create your routines, your boundaries, and your systems. It's all of the things that you need to have in place to enable all of your plan to happen. It protects what matters most.

A strong structure will mean that you don't need to be constantly available. The system works without you.

When we have a really good system:

• We've got very clear expectations

• Our team knows what decisions they can make

• They're very clear on what the priorities are to enable them to make those decisions

• They know what good looks like

• They know what they need to deliver on because that's all of the information that they need to enable them to make those decisions

  
  

It also means we have good, clear boundaries around when we're available and when we're not. We have systems and processes and people that can work without us being available to them 24/7.

This helps our team to increase their capability to solve the problems themselves. When we're not available, they have to find alternative ways. They have to talk to each other. They have to support each other. They have to go elsewhere to try and find the answers.

We can get in front of that by making sure they have all of the information that they need to be able to do that. We can also create a safe space for them to learn, for them to grow, and build their confidence to be able to do this without needing to come to us.

Your Calendar Is Controlling You and How You Lead

We've just started the most recent cohort of the 'Elevate Your Efficiency' Leadership programme. We're working on module 1 where we're looking at the time audit, looking at where people are spending their time.

We're already having conversations about where time is going, where it's being invested, and where it's wasted.

One of the participants this week was talking about how they knew they felt overwhelmed by their calendar, and they thought it was a 'them' problem. They thought it was their capability.

Having done the audit, they realised: back-to-back meetings, no buffer time, no time that is visible in their calendar to work on any priority tasks.

Their calendar is controlling them. They are not controlling their calendar.

They're already starting to make some changes to release some time back and to protect the time that is really important. And that's just in the first module of the programme.

'The Big Week Off': Your Leadership Efficiency Test

The ultimate test of control is whether or not you can step away from your work for a week, having full confidence in the ability and capability of your staff.

'The Big Week Off' proves that you are effective, efficient, and in control as a leader.

It proves:

• You've got people who are confident in your absence, capable in your absence

• You've got systems that work without you

• You're building a team of problem solvers, not people who are dependent on coming to you with every question and every decision that needs to be made

• You are leading from the front and not from the centre

  
  

That should be the standard. Being able to take a week off without having to work. Zero work, zero stress, zero guilt.

If you can't hit that standard, your structure isn't strong enough yet.

That's a goal to work towards. It's the metric that tells the truth about whether or not you're in control.

It's the metric that tells you whether you're efficient, whether you're effective, and whether you have created a team that is capable and confident, that you've got strong systems, and you've got problem solvers that are ready to hold the fort in your absence.

That's what shows good leadership. You are bringing your team up to their full potential. You are enabling your team to be high performers. You are creating an environment where they can succeed.

And then success feels as good as it looks.

You go home on time and you don't need to worry. It's exciting when your team are empowered and they're taking those decisions, and they are moving things forward.

If you can disconnect at the end of the day, you can go home, not just on time, when you said you would, but you can actually go home and be present.

You don't need to check your phone in the evening. You don't need to log back on to 'just check' to see if anybody's needed you. You're not taking phone calls late at night.

You are going to be so much more efficient and effective because we know we need rest. We know we need sleep. We know we need downtime.

That is the level of control that feels like peace, and calm.- It is intentional.

How to Start Building Real Control in Your Leadership

If you're currently in that space where you're working all hours, working weekends, taking your laptop on holiday and checking in and working every day, how do you start to build that real control?

1. Audit Your Time with the AAA Framework

Use the AAA Time Framework to get very clear on where your time is going.

Three categories of time:

• Ascend time: Your high value strategic actions that create the momentum

• Anchor time: Your supportive tasks that help keep things moving forward

• Avoid time: The reactive time, the draining behaviors, anything that is costing you where you don't get a return on that investment of your time, your energy, and your attention

  
  

Constant availability? That's most definitely avoid time.

It can feel like it's helpful. It can feel like it's you being a good leader, but ultimately, it doesn't help the whole team. It doesn't drive the team forward. It's not you, horizon scanning and removing things that are coming your way. You're constantly firefighting.

Whilst it may feel important because you're responding, it's draining because it's reactive

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Real control is where you're protecting your ascend time and you are teaching your team to handle the anchor time and reduce the avoid time.

Not just for you, for everybody.

2. The Power of The Pause

When you're looking at a change of behaviour, and you're looking at a change of habits. We have to create that pause so we don't react automatically.

The pause, that moment between something happening and you responding, is the difference between reacting and responding.

The difference between reactive leadership and intentional leadership is that gap in that pause.

Pause. Then you can prioritise:

• Is this urgent?

• Is it immediate?

• Does this need me?

• Does it need me right now?

• Or can we have a coaching conversation and for that person to go away and come up with the answer, work through it themselves or ask somebody else?

  
  

We want to proceed with purpose. to respond intentionally and not react and most definitely not firefight.

We need that pause to break the automatic pattern of doing what we've always done. If we want to shift from reactive to intentional, we have to have the pause.

If we want to break the patterns of behaviour, the pause is key.

You need to force that pause. You need to ask yourself what is needed not just for this moment, but for the bigger picture as well.

Answering the question, making the decision, resolving it in the moment, it solves the problem in the moment, but it creates a bigger problem further down the line. It forces and reinforces dependency. It doesn't build capability.

As leaders we don't learn anything from answering questions that we already know the answer to and they don't learn anything either. It's a lose-lose situation.

The more we can take a coaching approach to guide and support and help people to work things through, the less they need to come to us the next time.

3. Make Your Calendar Communicate Your Boundaries

Your calendar and what your calendar looks like is really important.

You'll want to have your meetings in there, but you also want to make sure that you are blocking out your priority time slots. The time slots where you get that priority work done.

The times where you are available and the times where you are unavailable because you are working on something important.

Empty slots, the white space in your calendar, can suggest that you are available, that you are accessible.

Make your calendar visible so people can see when you are working on the strategic work, on the plans, on the work that is the deep work.

Your calendar will communicate your boundaries so that everybody can see it.

It's important that you verbally communicate your boundaries. Your calendar needs to communicate those boundaries, too.

When are you available?

When are you at home?

When are you contactable?

When are you offline?

You might have some boundaries within your structure like your meal break, the time that you need to finish and be away, the fact that you're not available at certain times in the day or even on weekends.

Your calendar should give the same message as what you verbally share with your team.

Surface Level Change + Identity Level Change

These are simply some practical ways to change the way that you work to help you to take back control of your time and your energy.

For you to really make this shift, there are two elements to tackle:

1. The structure and the way that you work

2. The mindset

   
   

What do you believe is true?

• What do you believe good leadership looks like?

• What do you believe control looks like?

  
  

When you start to shift from feeling that control is being available, that a good leader that provides value and worth is being accessible, when you step away from that and you start to believe that a good leader is somebody who helps develop the capability of their staff, they help their teams to reach their full potential, they create an environment where teams can work at that high performing level, when you start to make that shift, it will show up through your habits and through your behaviours.

Creating some structural changes, some surface-level changes will help start to shift that mindset. That's where the big change happens.

We want surface-level changes and we want identity and belief-level changes as well.

'The Big Week Off'? That's your test. That's your proof of intentional leadership.

That's the evidence that you are creating a team of high performers. That you've got capable, confident, resilient people within your team that are developing, growing, and evolving.

That is the test.

Plus, you get to have a great holiday at the same time.

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Ready to transform from reactive to intentional leadership?

I'm Zoe Thompson, and I help overwhelmed leaders transform from reactive to intentional leadership in 8 weeks, so you finish work on time, take The Big Week Off with zero work and zero guilt, and create success that feels as good as it looks.

The Elevate Your Efficiency Leadership Programme addresses the root cause – the habits, behaviours and identity keeping you stuck – not just the symptoms.

The Leadership Community helps you keep the momentum of progress going.

Free Training: www.zoethompson.uk/quick-links

YouTube Channel: Intentional Leadership with Zoë Thompson

Podcast: The Lightbulb: Weekly Insights for Intentional Leaders