You Can’t Lead Well If You Never Step Away

I’ve written before about Creative Absence, which is a rhythm I built into my business because I know I need space to think, pray, listen, and pay attention to what I may be missing in the normal pace of work.

This year, I didn’t take Creative Absence in July like I normally would. My focus was on family, and that was the right choice for that season. But it also reminded me why this practice matters so much.

Because sometimes you really do need to get away to show up healthy for yourself, your people, and your business.

Creative Absence is not the same as vacation

I don’t think of Creative Absence as vacation or time off. Those are good and needed too, but Creative Absence has a different purpose. It’s intentional time away from the normal rhythm of the business so I can step out of the day-to-day long enough to ask better questions.

What am I noticing? What am I avoiding? What needs my attention? What has gotten louder because I haven’t slowed down enough to hear it?

And if you lead a business, you know how hard that can be.

Most business owners aren’t sitting around with wide open calendars wondering what to do with all their free time. They’re moving from one decision to the next. They’re checking in on the team, responding to clients, solving problems, thinking about payroll, trying to hit goals, and still being a whole person outside of work.

So when someone says, “You need to step away,” it can sound nice in theory and almost impossible in real life.

You may agree with it and still think, “I don’t have that option.”

I understand that.

But if stepping away feels impossible, it may be worth asking why.

When managing crowds out leading

Last week, I came across a short clip from Andy Stanley on Instagram that I haven’t stopped thinking about. He was talking about the difference between leading and managing, and what happens when a leader’s calendar gets so full that there’s no margin left to lead.

That caught my attention because you can spend an entire day doing important work. You can answer questions, solve problems, make decisions, help your team, serve clients, and still end the day without creating any space to think about where the business is going.

Management deals with what needs attention now. Leadership has to make room for what’s next.

Where are we going? What am I seeing that we need to prepare for? What needs to change? What are we building? What does this business need from me that only I can give it? And what might I be missing because I’m too busy managing what’s right in front of me?

Stanley has another leadership principle I love: “Only do what only you can do.”

I don’t think that means you’re above the other work. And I don’t think any leader gets that perfectly right all the time. But there is work in your business that really does require you. If your calendar is filled with work someone else could own, eventually there isn’t enough room left for the leadership work that needs your attention.

That helped me put language around another reason Creative Absence matters to me.

Creative Absence creates margin on purpose. It gets me out of responding long enough to notice what’s been hard to see. It gives me room to step out of managing for a bit so I can come back and lead with more clarity.

And for a lot of business owners, that’s where the tension is. They know they need space, but stepping away doesn’t feel simple.

What makes it so hard to step away?

Is it because the team still needs you to clarify too many decisions? Is it because the next step lives mostly in your head? Is it because clients expect you to be the one who responds? Is it because the business runs well when you’re pushing it forward, but starts to wobble when you’re not right in the middle of it?

Those questions can feel uncomfortable, but they’re also helpful.

Because needing space doesn’t mean you’re weak. And having a business that can’t yet give you that space doesn’t mean you’ve failed. It may mean the business needs to be built in a healthier way.

A lot of leaders are tired because they’ve built something that still depends too much on them. They may have good people on the team. They may have strong goals. They may have real opportunity in front of them. But the business keeps pulling them back into the middle because there isn’t enough structure, ownership, or clarity underneath it yet.

So they keep going.

They tell themselves they’ll step away later. They’ll think about the bigger questions later. They’ll work on the business later, when things slow down.

But later has a way of becoming another full week, another full month, and sometimes another year of the same patterns.

The better question to ask

That’s why intentional time away matters. It gives you room to notice what the normal pace keeps covering up. It helps you see what needs attention in you and in the business. Sometimes the most responsible thing you can do as a leader is step away long enough to come back with a clearer head and a healthier perspective.

But I also think we need to be honest about something. If you don’t currently have the option to step away, the answer is probably not to force it and hope everything works out.

The better question is: what would need to change so you could?

What would need to be clearer on your team? What decisions would need to stop running through you? What systems would need to be strengthened? What would need to move out of your head and into the way the business works? What would need to be owned by someone else?

Those are the kinds of questions that help a business owner move from feeling stuck to seeing options.

You can build toward more options

This is slow and steady work. You don’t turn a growing business like a speedboat. There are people involved, clients involved, systems involved, and decisions that have to be made with care. But you can start building in a healthier direction.

That’s part of why I created The Build.

The Build is a 1.5-day, in-person leadership experience happening November 5–6 in Birmingham, Alabama. We’ll look at what keeps the engine of your business running, where the work keeps getting stuck, and what needs to change so the business can grow in a healthier way. We’ll use Jim Collin’s Flywheel Framework and Working Genius, and we’ll work toward a clearer picture of what next year needs to look like.

More details are coming next week, but if this already sounds like the kind of work you need to do, reach out. I’d be glad to talk with you about whether The Build is the right fit.

Because you can’t lead well if you never step away.

And if stepping away feels impossible right now, it may be time to start building a business that gives you more options.