In this episode of The Leader’s Kitbag, leadership coach Ben Morton explains why a team’s performance while a leader is on holiday reveals the true strength of that leader’s influence. He opens with a personal story from his second deployment to Iraq, where his unit handled the busiest period of a six‑month tour during his ten‑day R&R, demonstrating that well‑developed teams can thrive without constant supervision. Morton argues that a smoothly running team in a leader’s absence is a sign of effective training, empowerment, and clear structures, whereas a collapse signals a dependency problem. He then offers a practical, step‑by‑step framework for managers preparing for vacation: (1) scan 3–4 weeks ahead to anticipate workload, (2) ruthlessly prioritize tasks that must be completed before leave, (3) delegate both pre‑holiday and during‑holiday responsibilities to free up the leader’s focus, and (4) explicitly define decision‑making authority and escalation paths for the period away. By following these habits, leaders can enjoy their holidays without anxiety and return to discover their teams have performed well, reinforcing strong leadership practices.
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Over the next few weeks, a lot of you will no doubt pack your work bag for the last time and head off on holiday. And I suspect if you're like many of my clients, somewhere in the back of your mind, there's a good chance you'll be carrying a quiet, nagging worry: What's going to happen while I'm away? And if that's you, then today's episode of The Leader's Kitbag is for you. Because how your team performs when you're away says more about your leadership capability than almost anything you do whilst you're actually with them. Let me take you back to my second deployment to Iraq. I was a young captain, and to this day, it absolutely is one of my proudest leadership moments. Typically, on a 6-month deployment, you would get 10 days R&R, or rest and relaxation, back in the UK. Now, before I knew I was deploying, my wife and I had already planned our wedding, which was towards the very end of that deployment. That being the case, I waited till the very end of that tour to take my leave. Now, here's the thing about R&R, or holiday in the Army: you don't stay in touch with work at all. There are no phone calls, there's no checking your email. You're sent home to rest, or in my case, to get married, and the team you leave behind simply cracks on without you. And as it turned out, those 10 days were the busiest, most volatile, most demanding of that entire deployment. I didn't know any of that while it was happening. I only found out when I got back 10 days later. And what I found when I did get back was that my team had performed brilliantly well without me there, without me hovering. In fact, they'd handled the busiest period of that 6-month deployment on their own. And that experience taught me something that I talk about all of the time in my work now. One of the real tests of our leadership isn't how things run when we're in the room. It's what happens when we're away. See, a lot of leaders get this wrong. When things tick along without them, they get a flicker of something uncomfortable. They start to ask themselves, "Am I even needed?" But that's exactly the wrong way to look at it. A team that performs well in your absence isn't a sign that you're surplus to requirements. It's a sign that you've trained, developed, and supported them well enough that they don't depend on you being in the room for their success. In fact, the opposite is the real warning sign. If everything grinds to a halt or starts to fall apart the moment you step away, then that's data that's worth paying attention to. Two things brought this back to me recently. The first is the time of the year. Here in the Northern Hemisphere, at least, we're heading into the summer holiday season. And a lot of us are thinking about getting away. And the second thing was on the final session of my Lead It and Me programme. One of the ladies on that course had just returned from holiday. Her day on the programme was her first day back in the office, and one of the things she shared with the group was how well everything had gone whilst she was away. And the key point is this: that doesn't happen by accident. A team that truly thrives in your absence is one that you have developed and empowered long before you head off on your 2-week holiday. So to finish up, here are a few simple things you can do to set your team up to succeed whilst you're away and allow you to enjoy your holiday. The first one is to build the habit of constantly scanning ahead. Instead of just looking at what's coming up tomorrow or next week, develop the habit of scanning 3 or 4 weeks ahead so we can be much more on the front foot. And when we do this, we realize that in 3 or 4 weeks we've got our holiday coming up, so we can start to build a plan early as opposed to it being that desperate rush to get everything finished, write our holiday handover notes before we head off. And what that scanning ahead or forward planning allows us to do is to ruthlessly prioritize. What are the things that I'm going to ditch or delay in the run-up to my holiday? What are the things I absolutely need to get done before I head off? And what are the priorities for the rest of the team whilst I'm away? And that leads nicely into the next thing, which is to delegate, right? What can we delegate in the run-up to holiday perhaps that we wouldn't normally delegate, that enables us to focus on these priorities that we really need to focus on before we head off? What are the key jobs we want our team to be working on whilst we're away? And then the final tip linked to this is to absolutely clarify expectations whilst you're away. Make it clear which team members are making decisions in which areas in your absence. And if your team do have challenges or problems, then who should they escalate those to whilst you're away instead of them having to send you an email when you're meant to be relaxing on holiday? Do those things and you'll be able to leave the office and head off on holiday without worrying about everything going wrong and falling apart in your absence. And you know what? You'll most likely come back and be surprised at how well your team did without you. So that's it for today's episode of The Leader's Kitbag. Look after yourself and those you've got the privilege and responsibility to lead. And until next time, lead on.
