Does Leadership Exhaust You?

I took five years of Latin.

Yes, five. Talk about exhausting!

While my friends were learning languages they might actually use in conversation, I was declining nouns and conjugating verbs in a language others often reminded me was dead.

Ambulo, ambulas, ambulat, ambulamus, ambulatis, ambulant. (IYKYK)

I loved words and planned to attend law school, so Latin made sense at the time - torturous though it sometimes was.

Truth be told, I probably couldn’t translate a passage from Virgil’s Aeneid today.

But what has stayed with me is a fascination with the origins of words - and the ideas hidden inside them.

Take the word sustainable.

It comes from the Latin sustinere: to hold up, support, or endure.

We all want lives and relationships that are sustainable. Yet it isn’t always easy to recognize which habits and patterns make that possible.

Leadership is no different.

Is the way you lead truly sustainable?

Does it hold up under pressure, allowing you to remain aligned with your values and goals?

Does your leadership support the people around you?

Can the way you lead endure without sacrificing performance, purpose, your people - or yourself?

These questions are at the heart of Sustainable Leadership. 

When Exhaustion Becomes the Expectation

Leadership has always required energy. There will be difficult decisions, demanding seasons, and days when everyone seems to need something from you all at once.

A key employee resigns. A deadline gets moved up. Senior leadership changes direction. Your calendar is full, your inbox is multiplying, and several people are waiting for decisions only you can make.

In those moments, leadership can feel less like influencing others and more like carrying everyone and everything on your back.

Somewhere along the way, we began treating that exhaustion as a required part of leadership.

And our workplace culture often rewards this. The leader who answers every message (even after hours), solves every problem, absorbs every frustration, and keeps pushing - regardless of the personal cost - is often praised for being committed.

Until that leader burns out.

Or becomes impatient and disconnected (a sign of burnout, by the way).

Or creates a team so dependent on them that no one can move forward without their involvement.

Exhaustion is not a leadership strategy. And leadership that consistently depletes the leader - or the people being led - cannot be considered successful over the long term.

It may produce results for a quarter. It may get everyone across the finish line. It may even earn recognition and rewards.

But - at what cost?

If that approach cannot hold up, support others, or endure, can we really call it successful? 

Leadership That Lasts

Sustainable Leadership is the overarching philosophy and intended outcome of my work: leadership that honors your values, protects your energy, and leaves a lasting impact.

It does not mean lowering expectations, avoiding hard decisions, or moving at a leisurely pace.

Organizations need results. Leaders need to make difficult calls. And there will always be seasons when more is required of us.

But there is a difference between rising to meet a demanding season and creating a culture in which depletion is the permanent operating model.

When the pace is nonstop fast and furious, or disconnected from the needs of the humans doing the work, everything begins to suffer. Leaders lose perspective. Employees become resentful and disengaged. Trust erodes. Talented people leave. What looks like short-term productivity eventually creates long-term instability.

Sustainable Leadership offers another way.

It is a practical organizational framework built around five interconnected pillars - and five important shifts.

Principles: From Stated Values to Lived Convictions

Most organizations can point to a list of values. They appear on websites, walls, and presentation slides.

The real question is whether those values continue to guide decisions when the pressure is on.

A value is easy to claim when it costs us nothing. It becomes a conviction when we are willing to uphold it even when doing so is difficult or inconvenient.

Sustainable leaders close the distance between what they say matters and what their people actually experience.

People: From Getting Work Out of People to Bringing Out the Best in People

People are not simply resources from which leaders extract results.

Strong leadership certainly includes accountability, clear expectations, and performance. But it also creates the conditions in which people can contribute their strengths, develop their capabilities, and do work they are proud of.

There is a fundamental difference between asking, “How can I get more from this person?” and asking, “How can I help bring out the best in this person?”

When leaders bring out the best in people, strong performance becomes more sustainable - and talented employees are far more likely to stay.

Productivity: From Maximizing Output to Sustaining Energy and Performance

More is not always better, especially when “more” comes at the expense of quality, judgment, creativity, or well-being.

Human energy is not an unlimited resource.

Sustainable productivity asks us to think beyond how much can be accomplished today. It considers what will allow people to continue performing well tomorrow, next month, and next year.

The goal is not to choose between performance and well-being. It is to recognize that, over time, they depend on one another.

Purpose: From One Grand Purpose to Meaningful Everyday Contribution

Purpose does not have to be one lofty mission or an inspirational statement mounted on the wall.

People experience purpose when they understand how their work matters, who benefits from it, and how their everyday contributions connect to something larger.

Leaders help people discover meaning in seemingly ordinary tasks: solving a customer’s problem, supporting a colleague, improving a process, or making someone’s day a little easier.

Sustainable leaders do not reserve conversations about purpose for annual meetings. They connect people to meaning through everyday decisions, priorities, and interactions.

Personal Growth: From Occasional Development to Continual Evolution

Leadership development is often treated as an event: a workshop, a conference, a book, or a coaching engagement.

Those experiences matter. I will always advocate for organizations to keep investing in their people.

But development becomes sustainable when learning is not something we occasionally make time for. It becomes part of how we live and lead.

The workplace is changing too quickly for leaders to rely indefinitely on the mindsets, habits, and skills that brought them this far. Sustainable leaders remain willing to examine themselves, challenge old patterns, and continue becoming.

How the Five Pillars Work Together

These five pillars - Principles, People, Productivity, Purpose, and Personal Growth - strengthen one another.

And as artificial intelligence transforms how we work, these pillars strengthen the distinctly human qualities technology cannot replace: judgment, character, trust, self-awareness, and meaningful connection. 

When principles are lived, trust grows. When people are developed, performance improves. When energy is protected, productivity can endure. When everyday work feels meaningful, engagement deepens. And when leaders continue growing, they are better equipped to guide others through change.

The future will not simply need leaders who can produce more. It will need leaders who can achieve meaningful results without steadily diminishing themselves or everyone around them.

So perhaps the question is not only, “Am I succeeding as a leader?”

Perhaps it is:

Can the way I am leading hold up, support others, and endure?

Because leadership that lasts does more than deliver results.

It leaves people - and the organization - stronger.