Jason Richmond, Founder and Chief Culture Officer of Ideal Outcomes, Inc. Author of Culture Ignited: 5 Disciplines for Adaptive Leadership.
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Here’s a scene I’ve witnessed all too often. A man, obviously a business executive, sits beneath a swaying palm tree on a white sand beach. There’s a gentle breeze. Turquoise water is lapping at his feet. He’s sipping one of those exotic drinks complete with fresh pineapple and a tiny paper umbrella. His family is walking down the beach looking for shells.
But he’s barely looking up to enjoy his surroundings.
Instead, he’s focused on the laptop balanced on his knees, answering emails, hopping on a Teams call, approving a proposal and refreshing the sales dashboard.
He tells himself he’s “just keeping an eye on things.” In my view, it’s a huge mistake.
The purpose of your vacation is not to work. The purpose of your vacation is to recharge and avoid future burnout. If your mind is constantly back at the office, you’re not taking a break and you’re not taking care of yourself.
Investing In Rest
This is not just my opinion. The research is pretty clear.
A recent meta-analysis of 32 studies published in the Journal of Applied Psychology concluded that vacations significantly improve employee well-being, with one factor standing above the rest. The researchers wrote that “psychological detachment and physical activities during vacation may be the most beneficial for improving employee well-being.”
One study at UNC Charlotte “found that taking vacation time has a prolonged impact, improving employee well-being and performance for an average of 43 days” after returning to work.
In other words, stepping away isn’t an indulgence. It’s an investment. I’ve discovered another benefit researchers don’t always measure. Some of my best “aha” moments have arrived when I stopped thinking about work altogether. Experiencing different cultures, meeting new people or simply allowing your brain to slow down often creates the mental space when breakthrough ideas emerge.
A Leader’s Real Responsibility
So why do so many executives find it difficult to disconnect? For many leaders, staying constantly connected feels responsible. In reality, it often reveals something else.
At our company, I’m confident the business won’t grind to a halt while I’m away. My team doesn’t simply wait for instructions. They solve problems, bring ideas forward, make informed decisions and keep moving the company forward. I return to find that issues have been resolved without me. There’s no backlog of work for me to handle.
If your business is in danger of falling apart when you’re absent for a week, the problem isn’t the vacation. It’s exposing a leadership problem. Leadership isn’t measured by how indispensable you are but by how well things run when you’re not there.
Constantly checking in when you’re supposed to be on vacation sends an entirely wrong message to your team. It signals that you don’t trust them to operate without your supervision and is demoralizing. You need to empower them to make decisions in your absence; otherwise, you become a bottleneck.
Here’s how you can plan most effectively for your vacation time:
Let people know your plans.
Inform key clients that you’re going to be out of pocket for the length of your vacation. State the exact dates in out-of-office messages and on group calls.
Give them a contact.
Don’t tell people you’re going to be on vacation but can get in touch with you if they need something. Too many people will take you up on that!
Instead, tell them something along the lines of “While I’m unavailable, Jane has full authority on operational decisions. She’ll only reach out to me if something meets our emergency criteria.”
That simple message protects your time off and shows the team you actually trust them.
Practice what you preach.
CEOs tend to tell their employees to enjoy their vacation time but set the wrong example by responding to emails from the beach, which only serves to teach a culture that true commitment means never switching off.
Your vacation shouldn’t prove you can run the business from a beach chair.
Clarify the exception that proves the rule.
What if there’s an emergency? Of course, there may be times when a crisis arises that absolutely requires your involvement. Make sure that your team knows the difference between a true emergency and something that can wait until you return.
Summing It Up
Technology may have given us the ability to work from a beach, on a cruise ship or while mountain climbing—virtually (pun intended) anywhere on Earth. Unfortunately, it has also made it increasingly difficult to stop working anywhere. But for many leaders, vacations have become little more than relocating the office to a more attractive backdrop. It’s not fair to you, your family or your employees.
The better skill is knowing when not to use technology to work on your vacation. There’s strength in proving that you’ve built a business that can run—at least for a little while—without you.
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