Master Your Yes and Lead by Design

When Sarah, a newly promoted chief operating officer, glanced at her calendar one Monday morning, she could hardly remember the last time she’d seen a blank hour.

Between back-to-back leadership meetings, vendor check-ins, and late-night stakeholder emails, every minute of her week was claimed by someone else. “I feel like I’m running just to stay in place,” she confessed, exhaustion cracking her voice. But as we mapped her commitments, something surprising emerged: it wasn’t the volume of work wearing her down—it was the mix. Sarah wasn’t overwhelmed; she was overcommitted to activities that didn’t move the needle on her real priorities.

At first, that insight felt counterintuitive. After all, Sarah was delivering results—her division’s efficiency metrics were on target, and colleagues praised her responsiveness.

Yet strategically important tasks—time for deep analysis, coaching her direct reports, shaping future vision—rarely made it onto her calendar. She was the default responder, the go-to fixer, the “yes” leader. Reactivity had become her operating mode, and every instant spent extinguishing someone else’s fire drained her capacity for the fires she needed to light.

We began with a simple pause exercise. Before accepting any new meeting invite or project request, Sarah committed to waiting two breaths. In that space, she asked herself: “Is this mine to carry?” and “Does this align with what I value most?” At first, the discipline felt awkward—she feared disappointing others. Yet when she began to say “I need to check my priorities and will get back to you,” she discovered something unexpected: people respected her more for it. Saying no wasn’t rejection; it was clarity.

Jim, a sales director I’d coached earlier, had followed a similar path with startling results. Jim used to pack his days with pipeline reviews, customer site visits, and weekly revenue calls—even though he knew that his real strength lay in strategic account planning and mentoring junior reps. By pausing before every yes, he freed up two afternoons a week.

Instead of firefighting daily quotas, he led focused workshops on deal-mapping and personal development. In three months, his region’s win rate climbed by 18%, and his team cited his renewed presence as the catalyst. Jim wasn’t working less; he was working on the right things.

Back in our sessions, Sarah and I audited her week by value rather than by tasks. We categorized commitments into “Strategic Leadership,” “Urgent But Non-Strategic,” and “Low-Value Obligations.” That exercise revealed that nearly 40% of her meetings fell into the second two categories—status updates she could delegate, check-ins that required only a one-line email response, or adherence tasks that no longer needed her direct involvement. Recognizing that those boxes didn’t deserve her most energetic self was empowering. She began to reassign, consolidate, or eliminate meetings, carving out protected blocks for “Strategic Leadership” alone.

But reclaiming time wasn’t enough; Sarah also needed rituals to sustain the shift. She instituted a weekly “energy review” on Friday afternoons: a fifteen-minute slot where she reflected on where her time had gone, celebrated the tasks that moved her vision forward, and marked one or two activities she would deliberately drop next week. That ritual became her compass—if she found herself slipping back into reactive mode, the review reminded her of the payoff she’d already experienced: deeper thinking sessions, richer coaching conversations, and the sheer relief of autonomy.

The final transformation came when Sarah modeled intentional leadership for her team. In their next division meeting, she opened with, “I’ve realized I was spending too much time on routine updates. Going forward, I’ll send a brief summary via our dashboard, and we’ll use this meeting for real-time problem solving and strategy.” The shift scrambled expectations—and then reshaped behavior. Her direct reports began to prepare higher-impact questions instead of passive updates. Peer leaders stopped copying her reactive rhythms and instead carved time for their own strategic priorities. In that cultural ripple,

Sarah’s own calendar became less of a survival log and more of a canvas for creativity.

Intentional leadership isn’t about slowing down; it’s about choosing what to speed up for. Sarah’s story illustrates that overwhelm is often a sign that our commitments have wandered from our core priorities. When we practice the pause, audit our true value, and embed simple reflection rituals, we reclaim the space to lead with clarity and purpose.

• This week, ask yourself: what have you said “yes” to that deserved a “no”?

• Where could a two-breath pause redirect your energy to higher-leverage work?

• What one ritual will you introduce to keep your calendar in service of your vision, not someone else’s urgency?

You’re not overwhelmed—you’re overcommitted to what doesn’t matter. The power to choose is already in your hands. Make this the moment you claim it.