A leader blocks time to think but cancels it for meetings, then feels guilty anyway. Ben Morton argues leaders are conditioned to see value only in visible activity, not reflection, even though they claim to want strategic thinking.
There was a leader in the group who was sharing with me and her colleagues how she really does try to utilize the focus time that Microsoft Outlook gives you. But she went on to say that despite her very best intentions, one of two things tends to happen. Either the time gets taken up with another meeting that someone books in with her, somebody diary crashes her, Or if she does manage to protect the time, then she feels guilty about using it, almost as though she should be doing something more tangible with the time than merely pausing to reflect and think about the broader context of what she's doing. And I think that's something that most of us can relate to, right? Because as leaders, throughout our career, we've been conditioned to value doing overthinking, whether that's meetings, emails, or any other sort of output.
