Sustainable Senior Leadership

Be a peak performer, without the negative side effects.

The Problem

In a world that rewards hustle, leaders often push themselves to the point of exhaustion in pursuit of excellence.

But sustainable high performance is not about working more. It is about working better.

The Insight

Some leaders stay at the top of their game for decades, energised by the exertion rather than exhausted by it. They have mastered the toggle between exertion and recovery. This is not a wellbeing session. It is a high performance session.

The Program

This session challenges the myth that more hours equal more impact. Through research-backed strategies, participants learn to balance exertion and recovery, reset their boundaries and adopt habits that unlock long-term, high-value contributions. The result: more innovative energy use, better decisions and a renewed sense of control and clarity.

Watch
Michelle on maximising performance, sustainably.
What is Sustainable Success?

Research in both elite sport and business shows that sustained, intense exertion does not automatically lead to exhaustion, burnout and declining performance. The difference is what leaders do between the efforts.

Sustainable Success comes down to two capacities working together. Exertion, the deliberate investment of effort and energy to maximise performance. And Recovery, the deliberate restoration of the energy needed to sustain it.

Why exertion and recovery?

Those who reach peak performance often find they can only sustain it for so long. Every step up in effort brings higher expectations, more demanding people and heavier workloads. Push harder without replenishing and they burn out. Replenish without pushing and they drift into underperformance.

The leaders who sustain peak performance over the long term have mastered the toggle between Exertion and Recovery: working on the right things with maximum energy, then reliably restoring that energy.

The goal is the top right: full exertion matched with full recovery. That is Sustainable Success, and it is a set of habits any leader can build.

Key Outcomes

What your leaders walk away with

01
Know what great looks like
Leaders understand what sustainable success really is, the toggle between Exertion and Recovery, and what peak performance without burnout looks like.
02
See where they stand today
The Sustainable Success Diagnostic gives each leader an honest read on how they manage the toggle between exertion and recovery, across how they think, what they do and what they build in.
03
Strategies they can use immediately
Practical tools to invest energy where it counts (prioritise, triage, delegate, Boundary Time and Balcony Time) and to reliably recover (switch, slow, stop, breaks and sleep).
04
A toolkit and an action plan
Each participant receives a Takeaway Toolkit, plus their action plan built in the session for themselves and their team.
05
Nudges that reinforce over time
Behavioural nudges remind and reinforce each leader's new rituals over time, so sustainable habits actually stick.
Session Flow

How the session unfolds

Timings and emphasis are tailored to your group and the time available.

1
Exertion and Recovery
Leaders rate how effectively they exert (working on the right things, at the right time, with the right intensity) and how well they recover, and see why the pattern behind sustained greatness is the power of pulsing.
2
Boundary Time
Leaders set the start and stop times they can sustain. Sufficient recovery keeps them mentally fresh, and limiting hours forces focus and hard decisions.
3
Balcony Time
Leaders protect at least an hour a week for reflection, planning, strategic thinking and creative problem solving, and learn how to guard it through time blocking, shielding and front loading.
4
What to do in Balcony Time
Leaders work through the key questions that drive proactive, cross-functional and strategic thinking, above the day-to-day.
5
Triage
Leaders adopt a clear triage process for demands as they flood in: Drop Everything, Direct, Delegate or Delay, just like a hospital emergency department.
6
Boss of Busy
The one mindset shift, from a To-Do List to a Buffet Mindset, and the one behaviour shift, from more hard work to Hard Thinking then Hard Conversations.
7
Wind down and switch off
Leaders learn to Switch, Slow and Stop to recover fully, and why analogue recovery beats digital.
8
Make it real
Each leader commits to the specific rituals and routines they will refine to perform at their best, sustainably.
Format & Delivery

Shaped around your context

Duration
90 minutes to half day
Delivery
In person or virtual
Audience
Senior leaders and leadership cohorts
Two ways to work with us

People of Influence is the consultancy through which Michelle Rushton and Shaun Kenny deliver leadership programs, team offsites and impactful conferences.

Contact People of Influence →

Leadership Engine is our proprietary platform for diagnostics, dashboards and roadmaps.

Visit Leadership Engine →