Leading at Full Capacity

Swedish Lessons in high performance

What happens to our leadership when “it’s just busy right now” becomes all the time?

In 2017, before my daughter started school, I took three months off. Not a working-from-somewhere-nice version of time off, but a genuine shutdown. No client calls, no emails, no keeping my finger in, no working around the clock. At the time, it felt audacious and a bit scary. I'm indispensable aren't I? Looking back, it was one of the most important professional decisions I have ever made and took some planning and setting up for sure.

After those 3 months I came back with a renewed sense of perspective and purpose so clear it surprised me. I made some of the biggest decisions of my career from that stillness. I was able to create boundaries that were clear to me and committed to myself to hold to to them even when it felt hard, and only bending them when it was genuinely urgent. I took some learnings around boundaries; the importance of contracting and aligning with all key stakeholders and of course not being too rigid, but being clear on the criteria for 'bending the boundaries' not being reactive around it.

About a year after this sabbatical I made a decision to 'go it alone' and became self-employed and, for years, built a rhythm that included proper periods of rest, including the school holidays.

I learnt something in my own body before I had particularly good language for it:

A genuinely revitalised leader leads better.

I am sharing this because we are all, right now reflecting on a summer in a year that has felt busier than ever, and the summer has not presented that shutdown for many I work with and myself. My boundaries have been bendier than normal, within my criteria I hasten to add ;-).

Nonetheless, summer didn't bring the same shutdown and I found myself working during time I'd normally protect. Despite knowing all of what I take to the world and integrating it most of the time, I noticed the difference in myself; in my presence, my patience, my ability to be properly present at work and at home. I've heard from many leaders during early September that they had a great break but was half in emails and the holiday itself feels like a lifetime ago now.

Which has got me thinking again about something I see and hear constantly in my work...

“It’s just busy right now”

I hear this phrase all the time and I've said it myself but right now increasingly seems to mean... all the time.

More change. More complexity. More ambiguity. More information. More meetings. More decisions. More things requiring our attention.

And highly capable leaders are remarkably good at continuing to perform through all of it.

That's almost the problem.

The first signs of depleted capacity aren't necessarily that we stop performing. They can be much subtler and I've talked about this in my previous blog on psych safety. Our patience shortens, our thinking narrows, we become more solution hungry, we rush, we fill silence, we listen less generously, we have less tolerance for someone who needs a little longer to get to their point.

I've watched stretched leaders railroad colleagues because they're not getting there quickly enough. Not maliciously or consciously and often quite subtly and their intent is normally positive, they're trying to keep things moving, but in that small moment, something happens.

The other person gets less thinking space, a perspective may never quite make it into the room, someone who processes internally rather than quickly out loud contributes less, the leader inadvertently takes back ownership from the very people they're trying to empower.

Psychological safety doesn't only get damaged by the big dramatic leadership moment, it can be eroded in tiny interactions throughout an ordinary Tuesday.

Liz Wiseman describes the idea of the “accidental diminisher”: leaders who, with the best intentions, inadvertently reduce the contribution of the people around them.

It's a concept I come back to often because it names something that's particularly difficult to see in ourselves when we're stretched.

No one sets out to diminish their team.

But our capacity affects other people's capacity too.

What Sweden made me think about

I've been interested in Sweden's approach to summer leave for exactly this reason.

Swedish law gives employees the right to four consecutive weeks of holiday during June to August, unless otherwise agreed. Rest isn't left entirely to individual willpower; there is structural support around it. That interests me far more than whether we should all copy Sweden, because it raises a different question:

Whose responsibility is capacity?

We talk a lot about resilience, wellbeing and managing ourselves but if an organisation continually operates at the edge, individual resilience can only do so much.

Through the lens I've increasingly been using in my work - Context, Capacity and Connection - it becomes interesting.

Context: What do our organisational norms, workload, expectations and leaders' behaviour tell people about whether it's genuinely acceptable to stop?

Capacity: Do people have enough headroom not simply to cope, but to think clearly, make considered decisions and lead other humans well?

Connection: What happens to trust, relationships, inclusion and psychological safety when everybody is running too close to empty?

Capacity isn't just an individual wellbeing issue.

It's a leadership and organisational performance issue.

Sweden is actually protecting the 3C's!

When I look at the Swedish model through this lens I see the three things being protected simultaneously...

Context. In Sweden, the context around rest is unambiguous. Everyone knows the rules. The law protects everyone equally, and leaders model it rather than exempt themselves from it. Context shapes behaviour more powerfully than individual willpower ever will. When leaders create explicit, shared context - policies, norms, visible permission - people actually take their rest. Without that context, individuals fill the gap with their own judgment, and in a culture that quietly rewards availability, they almost always err on the side of staying connected.

Capacity. Sweden treats collective capacity as a systemic resource to be protected, not an individual problem to manage quietly. This is the reframe that most UK organisations have not yet made. The question for a leader is not 'can I cope?', but whether the organisation is actually designing for sustainable capacity, or simply assuming that individuals will find a way to keep going. Capacity is not just about energy. It is about having enough headroom to think clearly, to make considered decisions, and to be genuinely present with your team.

Connection. Fika - Sweden's twice-daily pause for coffee and conversation - builds human connection into the working day as a structural feature, not a social nicety. I've seen this happen in practice when I've worked there and it's magic! Also, when whole teams disconnect together in summer something else happens: the psychological safety of the collective deepens. No one is on email. No one feels behind. When recovery is shared, it reinforces trust.

Leading from the edge

So if it's busy all the time not just 'right now' lets be honest about what that can and does mean for humans who have finite capacity. I've mentioned above some of the hidden costs

This summer has been a real reminder. I have had a full week off in Greece where I shutdown, then straight back to it as there was just too much to be able to be able to put down until September. I also found myself in the middle of a another two week break but where I had been working and juggling parenting and life, it was a useful reminder: it does impact the quality of my attention at home, and the quality of my attention to my work. A defined and protected switch off is more beneficial for everyone. I know that. And yet the pull of the inbox, the sense that something might need me - is remarkably hard to override when the surrounding context does not give you permission to step back.

The hidden cost of leading at the edge is the quality of thinking, the inclusion and true empowerment of the team - because people aren't allowing sufficient space for people to do their best thinking.

So what do we actually do?

This is where I have to resist making this another list of things already overloaded leaders should add to their list. Perhaps that's partly the point. Often, restoring capacity involves less, not more.

• One of the simplest changes I encourage is ending the tyranny of the back-to-back diary. Fifty-minute meetings instead of sixty. Twenty-five instead of thirty. A few minutes to process one conversation before carrying its emotional and cognitive residue straight into another.

• Protecting reflection time matters too. Not because staring thoughtfully out of a window is inherently virtuous, but because leaders need somewhere to make sense of what they're noticing.

• We need to (re)build the muscle of reflective practice: What's really going on here? What am I missing? What part am I playing? What needs my attention now?

• Much more honest prioritisation. If everything remains important, capacity will always be the thing quietly sacrificed.

• Perhaps we need to build teams that don't require one permanently available heroic leader. Distributed leadership, genuine empowerment and trust aren't things to suddenly create the week before somebody goes on holiday. They're built in all those ordinary moments when a leader chooses not to jump in, gives someone space to think, allows another person to lead, or accepts that something may be done differently from how they would do it themselves.

So, How are you, really?

It's a question I ask a lot in coaching. Usually the first answer is fine, good or busy.

These words dont tell us very much. So perhaps a better question is:

How much genuine capacity do you have available right now?

Most capable leaders can keep going but do you have enough headroom to be curious? To listen properly? To tolerate ambiguity? To make thoughtful decisions? To notice the quieter person in the room? To allow someone else enough space to find their answer rather than giving them yours? What are people experiencing from you when that headroom disappears?

I know my own answer hasn't always been the one I'd have liked in some moments this year. That's useful data, not something to beat myself up with.

I don't think the goal is a permanently full tank. Leadership and life don't work like that but I do think we need to notice when “it's just busy right now” has quietly become our permanent operating model.

Let's perhaps ask:

What would it mean to lead with a little more in reserve?

Leadership reflective practice is going to be the superpower of leaders of today and tomorrow. It is a muscle we need to build.

So reflective practice might be something we have to start to carve out in the diary. It might feel uncomfortable at first. You might overwrite it for the first few weeks. But once you get into the rhythm and notice the benefit - to your thinking, to your team, to the quality of your decisions - it will become non-negotiable. That's what I've heard from the many leaders I've coached.

Build your distributed leadership deliberately and continuously, not just before a holiday. If the only person who can hold the fort when you step back is one named individual, you have created a bottleneck. Real team empowerment is built through the consistent, daily choice to create space for people to think, to lead, and to be trusted.

The question for us

I do not think we can legislate Sweden's approach into the UK but we can ask a different question about what we are enabling - in our organisations and in ourselves.

What context are you creating for your team about rest and recovery - and what does your own behaviour signal? What would it mean to lead with a little more in your reserves?

So for now, take a moment. Step outside, wherever you find your version of stillness. Be present to that question. Then come back to the work.

Does any of this resonate with you? Let’s connect and explore what’s possible to unlock your potential as a leader who helps to create 3C's for your team and system.