Leaders model work-life balance through what their team sees them do after hours, and people treat that behavior as the real rule. A study of more than 23,000 employees found that leaders' weekend emails create an unspoken expectation to stay available, which raises exhaustion across the organization.
An executive I worked for kept telling me he’d send emails on the weekend and that he didn’t expect a reply. I believed him.
Then the emails came. I answered every one.
Every leadership structure I knew had taught me the same thing: being responsive means replying to your boss.
That went on for years, and I promised myself I would never do it to my team. In my last leadership role at that company, I was traveling about 70% of the time, drafting emails on planes and sending them over the weekend.
I told my team exactly what he had told me: respect your weekend, and don't reply.
I was telling them one thing and modeling another.
I don’t fault him. I learned a lot from that leader.
We both said, “Don’t follow what I say.” We both knew, deep down, that people would.
Your team is doing the same math you did.
Why Your Team Reads Your Calendar Instead of Your Values
You probably value balance. You’ve said so. You’ve told people to go home and rest.
But your team gets two messages: what you say and what you do. When the two clash, people follow what you do because it’s safer.
Researchers at the University of St. Gallen studied exactly this, using data from more than 23,000 employees and leaders across 142 organizations. They found that employees watch how their leaders behave outside working hours, such as sending emails or answering messages, and treat that behavior as an unspoken expectation to stay available. That expectation builds a climate of constant connectivity, which weakens recovery and is linked to higher exhaustion across the organization, and the effect disappeared in highly formalized organizations with clear rules, which suggests that a leader's example fills the space when nothing else does.
Your team sees the skipped lunch and the call taken from the car. They see the 10 pm message answered in four minutes.
They don't read that as commitment. They read it as the standard: always available.
What Your Calendar Teaches Them
A week like that teaches, without a word:
Rest is earned after everything else is done.
Being reachable at all hours is what responsive looks like.
A real break gets noticed, and not kindly.
The people who get ahead are always on.
You can't announce your way out of this. A policy that says "unplug on weekends" loses to a leader who answers on Saturday.
Researchers at Lehigh University, Virginia Tech, and Colorado State University surveyed working professionals, with the largest groups in finance, technology, and healthcare, and found that organizational expectations to answer email after hours are linked to emotional exhaustion, which in turn undermines work-family balance. The authors suggest that clear policies, such as email-free days or rotating after-hours schedules, can reduce that strain and signal that the organization cares.
Why It Costs More Than You Think
Your best people copy what you do. They answer fast. Say yes to everything. Never admit they’re stretched. And they wait for you to go first.
Then one of two things happens: they burn out, or they leave. You won’t see it in a report until it’s already costing you.
A team that cannot rest, led by someone who cannot either, is a team where nobody speaks up about workload.
Your Capacity Is Part of How You Lead
If you’re the one everyone relies on, you probably say “I’m fine” when asked. You tell yourself you can fit in one more thing while you worry about your limits.
You absorbed the strain so no one else had to, and it is likely how you got here.
At your level, it stops being private. Your team sees it. You’re the go-to person. The problem solver. The default solution.
How you handle your own capacity is the clearest instruction your team gets. The goal is to make your choices visible and let them see what is allowed.
One Signal to Change This Month
Choose one signal your team can see, and keep it to one:
Block a real lunch and keep it.
Pick a cut-off hour for messages. Or schedule them for the morning.
Leave at a set time one day a week, and say so.
Then tell your team. One sentence is enough: “I’m offline at 5:30 on Thursdays. If it can wait, it will wait.”
Say it out loud. If you don't, they will guess.
Try This: Read Your Last Two Weeks
This takes only a few minutes, and it shows you what your team already sees.
Open your calendar and your sent folder for the last two weeks. Look at them the way a new hire would, with no history and no context for why anything happened.
Imagine you are new on your team. Ask what you would conclude is expected here, about hours, response times, and breaks.
Write down the top three, and circle the one you would not want anyone to copy. That circled item is your starting point. If more than one thing on your list gives you pause, that is a pattern, and patterns can change. The Leadership Vault is the first place I’d look.
You Don’t Have to Figure This Out Alone
Most women in your seat already know this. The hard part is changing it while the work keeps coming and your name is still on it.
The Leadership Vault is free, and it’s built for leaders who are tired of carrying everything. Download it at jenrwilson.com/100-leaders.
Your team isn't waiting for permission to rest. They're waiting to see you take it.
Download The Leadership Vault.
#leadership #worklifebalance #leadershipdevelopment #womeninleadership