With so many senior executives leaving their posts due to exhaustion and burnout, developing ‘energy intelligence’ is becoming a business-critical leadership skill.

In almost every conversation I have with executives or senior HR leaders, I hear the same concern: we’re facing a capacity crisis. Not in people and systems, but in energy and resilience. 

It’s time to elevate energy management from a ‘wellbeing’ initiative and start seeing it as a critical business strategy. 

Executives are stepping down in record numbers, and those who stay are lasting shorter stints. Top talent is trading power and privilege for peace and privacy – a confronting reality with serious consequences for business growth and innovation. 

The statistics paint a complex picture of burden and burnout. In 2024, Russell Reynolds Associates found that 202 global CEOs left their posts – well above the six-year average of 186 – including 27 from the ASX 200. According to insights from LifeWorks and Deloitte, 96 per cent of senior leaders have reported a decline in mental health, and 94 per cent said compliance complexity was eroding their focus. 

These aren’t mid-level managers struggling with change fatigue. They’re executives from large organisations charged with making decisions that shape organisational futures. 

Witnessing the burnout of their bosses, high performers are quietly redefining success and, as a result, choosing to step off the traditional leadership ladder.

As one recently resigned executive said to me, “It’s a great job, but it’s not worth a heart attack. At 50, I’d rather live well than lead well.” He now manages a thriving start-up with three staff and a daily morning surf. 

Another dynamic 49-year-old female CEO, once hospitalised for burnout, just handed over her $20 million business to spend more time with her 14-year-old son.

As HR leaders, you’re seeing this shift up close. We’re losing more leaders after a single term, and those who are next in line are walking away faster than ever. 

Leaders have never carried so much. Restructures are larger and more frequent, and now come with an added culture mandate: show up consistently, stay visible, be empathetic and project calm to maintain market confidence.

Sustaining that level of high performance – mentally, physically, emotionally – year after year takes more than resilience. It takes energy intelligence. 

Understanding energy intelligence

Energy intelligence is the ability to systematically manage and replenish mental, emotional and physical energy for sustained performance. Modern challenges have elevated it to essential infrastructure for organisational resilience.

Virgin Australia’s recent IPO exemplifies what sustained leadership capacity can achieve. 

Recently departed CEO Jayne Hrdlicka’s four-year post-bankruptcy transformation required more than strategic brilliance. It demanded the energy intelligence to maintain high-performance decision-making through years of uncertainty, stakeholder pressure and operational complexity. 

Understanding the nuance of energy meant she could supercharge the comeback and inspire those around her. 

“It’s time to elevate energy management from a ‘wellbeing’ initiative and start seeing it as a critical business strategy.”

The consequences of depleted leaders are profound. When leaders are operating with diminished mental clarity and focus, the impact on decision quality and competitive advantage overrides the best strategic endeavours. 

Neuroscience helps explain why cognitive depletion creates business risk. Our brains unconsciously process about 11 million pieces of information per second, but can consciously handle only 40 to 50 bits. After checking emails, consuming news and managing family logistics, significant capacity has been used up before we enter the office.

Here are three key business impacts I see when leaders are running on empty:

1. Strategic drift: Exhausted leaders default to safe, reactive choices rather than bold moves. Research from the (US) National Library of Medicine Library finds the average adult makes over 35,000 daily decisions. These can be impacted by reduced strategic capacity and increased reliance on precedents as fatigue compounds daily from a reduced base.
2. Cultural contagion: Teams unconsciously mirror their leader’s energy state and take their behavioural cues from the top; if a leader is flat, chaotic or checked out, it ripples through. A 2022 Gallup study attributed 70 per cent of team engagement variability directly to managers, and it’s widely cited as a key factor in voluntary employee turnover.
3. Innovation paralysis: Depleted leaders have diminished capacity for vision, creativity and foresight, and focus on risk-averse operational maintenance rather than transformation and opportunity.

3 habits of energy-intelligent leaders

The best leaders treat energy as strategically as they treat capital. 

Andrew May, founder of Performance Intelligence and consultant to the Australian Wallabies and Manly Sea Eagles, believes leaders should treat their energy profile like an operating system.

“Peak performance isn’t about going hard 24/7. It’s about managing micro-moments of strategic recovery so you can stay mentally sharp when it counts,” says May.

He advises executives to manage their physical, emotional and psychological energy like a tennis champion. When a player bounces the ball three times before serving, they’re recalibrating. It’s a micro-recovery pause that down-regulates the nervous system and primes the next move.

The same principle applies in the workplace: leaders who build in deliberate resets make faster, cleaner decisions. 

I see three practices consistently distinguishing energy-intelligent leaders:

1. Recovery habits: Deliberately integrating micro-recoveries, such as taking three deep breaths before a meeting, a short walk between calls or having a phone-free meal, resets cognitive capacity throughout the day. Performance is cyclical, not linear.
2. Time and decision architecture: Energy-intelligent leaders protect peak hours for strategic work and reduce decision fatigue with systems. One ASX 100 CEO uses a decision hierarchy – clear rules for what warrants his attention versus delegation. Another batches ‘decision sprints’ into focused windows to limit context switching.
3. Energy rituals and boundaries: From surf breaks to family dinners, these rituals are treated with the same seriousness as board presentations. They also manage others’ energy demands by setting clear communication protocols, preventing fragmentation of their own focus.

Building ‘surge reserves’ to reduce pressure

Performance experts also work with organisations to build ‘surge capacity’ – reserve energy that can be accessed when normal effort isn’t enough. Like an emergency power source, it sharpens focus, boosts tolerance for discomfort and keeps you functional under pressure.  

May helps people develop surge capacity through deliberate practices such as short bursts of high-intensity exercise combined with steady Zone two cardio to expand both endurance and peak output; hot-cold exposure therapy to teach the nervous system to reset quickly; and mental skills training that builds clarity under pressure. 

These small, disciplined shifts deliver disproportionate returns, helping leaders drive transformation today while building reserves for tomorrow.

Addressing the leadership capacity challenge

As change cycles get longer and the pressure to deliver intensifies, the real barrier to effective leadership isn’t capability. It’s capacity. We’re building entire change agendas around process, productivity and performance, ignoring the most critical driver: the personal energy it takes to show up and deliver every day in untested scenarios.

Embedding energy intelligence presents a significant opportunity to improve outcomes, executive retention and succession planning. 

Imagine if every major change began not just with a budget and timeline, but with a deliberate plan that includes energy management. It might mean fewer 8am meetings, more walk-and-talks or recovery windows after milestones.

Energy-intelligent infrastructure must be in place consistently when organisational survival depends on decision quality and cultural leadership.

The crucial first step is to recognise energy as a strategic asset, then build the systems and tactics to support it – for more resilient cultures and better decisions under pressure, and to maintain competitive advantage during extended periods of transformation.

Andrea Clarke is an author, speaker and work futurist who coaches leaders and teams to make sense of change and build future-ready mindsets.

A version of this article was originally published in the October/November 2025 edition of HRM Magazine.

Develop the skills to design and execute a sustainable wellbeing strategy for leaders and teams with AHRI’s Implementing Wellbeing Initiatives short course.