The Case for Executive Sabbaticals: When, Why, and How to Make It Work

The Health and Safety Executive reports that in Great Britain, 875,000 workers suffered from work-related stress, depression or anxiety in 2022/23, with the highest prevalence in managerial and professional occupations. The 17.1 million working days lost do not capture the decision degradation, the relationship damage, or the quiet erosion of judgement that happens when a senior leader has been running too hot for too long.

Every executive I speak with knows this data. They acknowledge the logic. They would never let someone on their team operate indefinitely without proper rest. And then they exempt themselves from the same reasoning.

[PERSONAL EXPERIENCE] I have sat across from senior leaders in mining, banking, digital infrastructure, and research who are visibly depleted — and who tell me, in complete sincerity, that they cannot take a break because the organisation would not cope. In some cases that is true, and it indicts the succession planning, not the leader. In most cases it is a story the leader is telling themselves to avoid confronting how exhausted they actually are.

The case for executive sabbaticals needs to be made on governance grounds, not wellbeing grounds. Boards respond to risk. The risk of a key leader burning out mid-crisis, making a catastrophic decision under cognitive fatigue, or simply departing without notice because they have nothing left — that risk is orders of magnitude larger than the operational disruption of a planned three-month absence.

Deloitte's research on human capital trends has consistently emphasised the importance of leadership sustainability and the cost of executive churn. Yet most organisations treat executive leave as an indulgence rather than a risk management intervention.

When should an executive consider a sabbatical? The signals are usually visible to everyone except the person experiencing them. Irritability that is disproportionate to the trigger. Decision avoidance — the creeping tendency to defer difficult choices because the cognitive cost of making them feels too high. A narrowing of perspective where operational concerns crowd out strategic thinking. If you notice yourself checking email during family time and not caring that you are doing it, that is not dedication. That is depletion.

How to make it work practically: minimum three months, because the first month is decompression, the second is recovery, and the third is when strategic thinking begins to return. Have a named deputy with clear authority, not a vague arrangement where decisions pile up in your inbox. And most importantly — do not check in. If the organisation genuinely cannot function without you for twelve weeks, that is an organisational resilience problem that needs addressing, not a reason to cancel the sabbatical. Confidential counsel can help you plan the transition.