How Do You Manage Your Energy as a Leader?
The leaders most at risk of burnout are not the ones who hate their work. They are the ones who love it too much to stop. Here is what Self-Care actually looks like as a leadership presence practice.
A few years ago, I led one of the most exciting projects of my career. When I close my eyes and think of that period, I remember feeling fully alive in the work, designing curriculum, building a new business model, managing vendors and internal stakeholders all at once. It was a full transformation project, and it was exactly the kind of work I love.
That is, in retrospect, the part I had not fully accounted for.
When work feels like play, stopping feels wrong. I woke up and went straight to the computer. I worked through evenings. I told myself I was not grinding. I was in flow. For a full quarter, I was mostly working. The gym disappeared first. Then the quality of what I was eating. Then the time with friends. I convinced myself these were temporary sacrifices. The project mattered. I would recover later.
Eventually, burnout arrived. I was more impatient with project delays. I had less creative energy for troubleshooting. I would sit at the computer staring at the screen, not quite sure what to do next. My cup was running low, and it showed in how I showed up for the work and the people around it.
The project was ultimately successful. But it came at a real cost to my physical and emotional state. And it taught me something I carry into every project since: the leaders most at risk of burning out are not the ones grinding reluctantly. They are the ones who care so deeply about their work that stopping feels like a betrayal of it.
The story we tell ourselves
We tend to work hard because we care. About the project, the outcome, the people involved. That caring is genuine and it is one of the most valuable things we bring to our work. But it might also create a specific vulnerability. When you love your work, the internal pressure to keep going does not necessarily come from a deadline or a manager. Many times, it comes from you.
In a study conducted by Matt Plummer and published in Harvard Business Review, high performers are particularly susceptible to burnout precisely because of their commitment. They tend to say yes to the projects they care most about, take on more than others might, and find it genuinely difficult to disengage. I recognized myself in that description immediately.
The story we tell ourselves is this: that one more hour of work will meaningfully move the project forward. That skipping the gym today is a reasonable trade-off. That we will recover later, when things slow down. Things rarely slow down.
I now ask myself a specific question when I am tempted to keep working past the point where it is actually useful. If I do not work on this in the next few hours, will I miss the project deadline? Will I miss a goal? What is the actual cost of stopping right now?
More often than not, the answer is nothing. The work will be here tomorrow. If I have a solid project plan and update it as things change, I will have time to adjust. Two more hours tonight will not change that. But having more energy tomorrow will.
I also call myself out on the excuse in the other direction. I might tell myself I do not have an hour to go to the gym because I am too busy with the project. So I ask: what exactly will I accomplish in that one hour? If my answer is not clear, that is not a reason to skip the gym. That is an excuse dressed up as a reason. And I have learned to tell the difference.
What burnout costs the people around you
The personal cost of burnout is visible enough. Less energy. Less motivation. Physical discomfort. The gut feeling of not being quite right.
The cost to your stakeholders is less talked about, and in my view more significant for a leader.
When you are burned out, you become more impatient with project delays and the inevitable surprises that come with any complex initiative. That impatience shows up in how you delegate, how you check in, and how much space you give the people around you to bring you problems.
You tend to become less creative. The troubleshooting and lateral thinking that leadership requires, the ability to see a new path when the expected one is blocked, depends on having a rested, resourced mind. Burnout can take that from you.
And here is the most ironic cost: people start to avoid you. Not because they are judging you. Because they care about you. They see you are running on empty and they do not want to pile on. They try to give you space, to protect you from more stress.
But a leader is supposed to be approached. Your job is to be available for questions, ideas, and troubleshooting. When stakeholders stop bringing you their real challenges, you are no longer leading. You are being managed around.
Why Self-Care is a leadership presence behavior
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In the Warmth style of executive presence, Self-Care is one of three core capabilities. It is the practice of proactively managing your personal energy so you can sustain your performance and pay full attention to others. It is also one of the behaviors that separates leaders who are seen as trusted advisors from those who are simply seen as hard workers.
The word self-care tends to bring to mind vacations, meditation apps, and weekend retreats. There is more to it than that. In our leadership development training programs, Self-Care consistently surfaces as the capability leaders underestimate most.
Self-Care as a leadership presence behavior is about the daily, unglamorous choices that keep your cup full enough to hold space for others. One hour at the gym in a ten-hour workday. A real meal instead of whatever is fastest. A walk. Time with a friend. These are not indulgences. They are what allow you to show up with presence, patience, and creativity for the stakeholders who need you.
I would rather work harder during nine focused hours than spend ten hours half-present and depleted. The output is better. The relationships are better. And I get to the end of the day with something left in the tank.
This matters most during high-volume periods, not after them. It is easy to tell yourself you will recover once the project is done. But that is when the work is hardest and the people around you need you most. That is exactly when Self-Care is not optional.
If you want to explore the full Warmth style, including how Gratitude and Compassion work alongside Self-Care, we put together a guide that covers all three capabilities with practical exercises. Download the Warmth guide here.
Three books that develop this capability
These are the three books I return to most when thinking about how to develop the Self-Care behaviors that sustain leadership presence. Each one addresses a different part of energy management.
Chopra and Tanzi make a case that most people find counterintuitive: the body has a remarkable capacity to heal and restore itself, but only if we give it the conditions to do so. The book is rooted in neuroscience and integrative medicine, and it argues that sleep, movement, nutrition, and stress management are not wellness choices — they are biological necessities for sustained high performance.
For leaders, the most practical takeaway is this: the behaviors we often deprioritize first when we are busy — sleep, exercise, real food — are precisely the ones that most directly affect our cognitive performance, emotional regulation, and capacity to be present with others. Cutting them is not a trade-off. It is a debt that compounds.
The book gives you the science behind why Self-Care is not a soft concept. It is a hard requirement for anyone whose job depends on their mind.
Bradberry and Greaves built one of the most widely used emotional intelligence frameworks in leadership development. Their core argument is that emotional intelligence — specifically the ability to recognize, understand, and manage your own emotional state — is a stronger predictor of leadership effectiveness than IQ or technical skill.
For Self-Care, the most relevant section is on self-management: the daily practices that keep your emotional state regulated under pressure. The book is honest about the fact that this is not natural for most high performers. When stakes are high, the instinct is to push harder, not to pause and check in with yourself. But leaders who cannot regulate their own emotional state when depleted are the ones who become impatient, reactive, and difficult to approach, exactly what burnout looks like from the outside.
The book includes practical assessments and strategies, making it one of the more immediately actionable reads on this list.
This book addresses something I touched on earlier: the system. Not every burnout is self-inflicted. Some organizations create conditions that make it structurally difficult to protect your energy — unrealistic workloads, always-on cultures, leadership that models exhaustion as dedication.
Chapman, White, and Myra offer a framework for navigating these environments without losing yourself in them. The most useful idea for leaders is the distinction between what you can control and what you cannot. You may not be able to change the pace of the organization. But you can make deliberate choices about how you spend the energy you have — and what you refuse to sacrifice even when the system pushes you to.
The book is practical, grounded, and honest about the reality that Self-Care sometimes requires pushing back against the culture around you, not just managing your personal habits.
The question worth asking tonight
If you are reading this after a long day and you are considering whether to keep working or step away, try this: ask yourself what specific goal you will accomplish in the next hour that cannot wait until tomorrow. If you cannot answer that clearly, that is your answer.
Your energy is not separate from your leadership. It is the foundation of it. The version of you that shows up rested, fed, and connected is a better leader than the version that logged two more hours.
If you want to understand where your Self-Care behaviors stand as part of your overall leadership presence, the EPI Assessment measures all 27 behaviors across Focus, Warmth, and Power and gives you a personalized report you can act on immediately.
Aquiles Damirón-Alcántara is an executive presence coach at CoachVikram & Company. He designs the curriculum and learning experience behind our programs, ensuring every session drives real transformation in how leaders influence high-stakes moments. Reach him at aquiles@coachvikram.com
