I’ve been thinking a lot lately about something that doesn’t get much airtime in business conversations: energy. 

Not motivation. Not mindset. Just basic, physical energy – and how much it shapes everything you do as a leader. 

I was reflecting on this recently after recognising that disrupted sleep had been quietly eroding my own effectiveness. The culprit? A toddler. The solution? Investing in a proper bed setup so that at least one of us gets genuinely restorative sleep each night. 

It sounds small. But the implications aren’t. 

“As the team grows, leadership energy becomes more critical. There’s a direct correlation: lower personal energy leads to even lower team output.” 

That observation hit home for me. When I’m operating at full capacity, the team performs well. When I’m flat, running on caffeine and broken sleep, there’s a ripple effect I can see playing out in real time. 

I think a lot of business owners underestimate this. We push through. We treat rest as a reward for when things slow down – which, if you’re building something, they never really do. 

But here’s what I’ve come to believe: protecting your energy isn’t a luxury. It’s a leadership responsibility. Your team picks up on it. Your clients pick up on it. The decisions you make when you’re exhausted are usually the ones you end up revisiting. 

“Others had noticed the tiredness, signalling a need for change – early intervention to manage burnout before business impact worsens.” 

If you’re running a business, it’s worth doing an honest audit of your energy. Not just sleep – although that’s a good place to start – but the meetings you take, the commitments you say yes to, and the habits that either fill you up or drain you. 

The best investment I’ve made recently wasn’t a piece of software or a new marketing strategy. It was a bed.

What’s yours?