Leadership for Real Productivity:

Culture, Not Burnout

By Bryan Kaus

Everyone wants a “productive” team, but too often, organizations chase productivity in counterproductive ways. True productivity isn’t about driving people to exhaustion or packing every minute with work – it’s about increasing impact, creating more value in smarter ways. Recent studies confirm what many leaders sense: busyness does not equal productivity. In fact, extreme busyness can signal “toxic productivity,” an unhealthy compulsion to work incessantly that ultimately reduces genuine productivity and well-being. In a Harvard Business Review article, workplace expert Jennifer Moss describes toxic productivity as the mindset that “work comes before everything else – before your personal life, before your health”. When employees feel pressured to respond to emails at midnight and forego rest, they may seem busy but are likely not operating at their best. Burned-out, sleep-deprived teams make more mistakes, miss creative solutions, and eventually hit a wall. As Moss warns, constantly glorifying overwork (making heroes of those who skip vacations and stay late) sets a dangerous norm. Leaders must instead foster a culture of sustainable productivity – where outputs and outcomes matter more than hours, and where recovery and focus are valued over perpetual hustle.Resilient Cultures Outperform: Research increasingly shows that healthy, engaged teams are more productive than stressed, fearful ones. A new Slack survey of over 10,000 workers revealed a striking driver of performance: trust. Employees who feel trusted by their employers report 2× higher productivity and significantly better focus and morale. On the flip side, more than 1 in 4 workers do not feel trusted, and these workers have far poorer performance. The takeaway for leaders is clear: micromanagement and mistrust are productivity killers. If employees feel their every move is being tracked or second-guessed, they will disengage, doing the minimum or getting stuck awaiting sign-off. By empowering teams – giving them autonomy and showing you trust them to get the job done – you unlock initiative and discretionary effort. People go the extra mile when they believe it’s their race to run and that leadership has their back. Building a resilient, high-trust culture also means encouraging work-life balance and well-being. Counterintuitively, the most productive workers are not the ones chained to their desks 24/7. For example, Slack’s survey found half of workers take zero breaks on a typical day, and those people are actually less productive. The employees who do take breaks score 13% higher on productivity and 62% higher on work–life balance on average. Short respites – a walk, a lunch break, a quick unplug – act as performance enhancers, recharging focus and creativity. Leaders should model and normalize this: if the boss never takes a break or routinely shoots off 2 A.M. emails, employees will feel compelled to follow, to everyone’s detriment. Instead, emphasize outcomes (“What did we achieve this week?”) over hours logged. When people manage their energy well, they accomplish more in less time.

Battling Meeting Bloat and Distraction: A very tangible way leaders can boost team productivity is by ruthlessly curbing wasteful meetings and distractions. Studies confirm what many gripe about: excessive meetings are the enemy of deep work. New research from Atlassian found that 80% of people feel they’d be more productive with fewer meetings on their calendar. Far too often, we call meetings out of habit or to cover routine updates that could be handled asynchronously. And the truth is, many meetings just don’t work: according to the Atlassian study, meetings fail to accomplish their goals a shocking 72% of the time. Think about that – three out of four meetings are effectively run without clear outcomes or decisions, amounting to wasted collective hours. Even worse, 77% of people reported that meetings often just spawn more meetings (ending with “let’s schedule a follow-up”), creating a vicious cycle of busyness. Leaders can intervene by setting a higher bar for meetings: insist on agendas and objectives, limit invites to those who truly need to be there, and empower people to decline or leave meetings that aren’t a good use of time. In fact, some companies have experimented with meeting “budget cuts.” One study cited by HBR found that when organizations reduced meeting time by 40%, employee productivity jumped 71%. That is a staggering improvement, gained not by pushing people harder, but by freeing people up to do real work. Junior and mid-level managers often feel they must fill their schedule with meetings to appear busy or important – research shows new managers hold about 29% more meetings than experienced ones – so senior leaders should coach them that effective leadership is not about running more meetings, it’s about achieving outcomes. Sometimes that means canceling a standing meeting to give the team two hours back for focused work.

Beyond meetings, distraction is another silent killer of productivity. In the modern workplace, the pings and dings of constant communication can fragment anyone’s day. Here again, trust plays a role: if workers feel trusted to manage their time, they can switch off notifications and concentrate; if not, they feel obligated to respond to every ping within minutes. Leaders should encourage norms like “quiet hours” for deep work or use tools that indicate when someone is focusing. Training teams on effective async communication can also help – for instance, instead of 10 people hopping on a call (and interrupting 10 workflows), perhaps a well-thought-out Slack update or email thread could suffice, which people can respond to on their own schedule. In short, create a culture where efficiency is valued over theatrics. As the saying goes, “Work smarter, not harder.” A practical step is asking, for every routine process, “Is there a simpler way?” Could a checklist prevent a status meeting? Could delegating decision authority reduce approval chains? Leaders who continuously simplify workflows often see productivity soar, because employees spend more time on high-value activities and less on bureaucratic overhead.

Agility in Decision-Making: Speed and agility in decision-making are also hallmarks of productive teams. This doesn’t mean rushing big decisions, but rather empowering the right people to decide at the right level so that progress isn’t bottlenecked. Many large companies struggle with a culture of over-escalation – every minor decision requires layers of approval. This slows the business to a crawl. By the time a decision is made, conditions may have changed. A principle-based leader will push decision-making down to front-line and middle managers when possible, setting clear guidelines (principles) within which they can act. If people know the objectives and values, they can make on-the-spot decisions aligned with them, without always asking permission. This not only saves time, it increases ownership. Team members who have agency feel more responsible for outcomes, which boosts engagement – a nice virtuous circle. As an example, tech companies often give teams autonomy to deploy code or resolve customer issues within certain guardrails, which allows for rapid iteration and problem-solving. The organization benefits from quicker cycle times and often more innovative solutions, as those closest to the problem can act on their insights.

The Human Element – Motivation and Purpose: Real productivity gains come from motivated employees who understand the purpose of their work. Gallup data and others have long shown that engaged employees are far more productive and profitable for their companies than disengaged ones. So how can leaders keep people motivated, especially in high-pressure environments? One key is connecting the daily tasks to a larger mission. People put in extra effort when they believe their work matters. A private equity leader, for instance, might remind an overworked deal team that the why behind grinding through due diligence is that they are helping transform a company, creating jobs and value – not just pushing paper for a fee. Recognizing contributions and showing genuine appreciation also fuels motivation. A simple thank-you or public credit for a job well done can go a long way. By contrast, if employees feel like cogs in a machine, they’ll give cog-like effort. Servant leadership – the philosophy that the leader’s role is to serve their team by removing obstacles and providing resources – can be incredibly effective here. When employees see leaders doing what it takes to help them succeed (whether covering for them so they can take a much-needed break, or personally ensuring interdepartmental blockers get cleared), it builds loyalty and inspires people to reciprocate with their best work.

Ultimately, leaders can “extract” real productivity not by squeezing people dry, but by creating the conditions for people to thrive. This means a culture of trust, clarity, and focus: trust people with autonomy and support; provide clarity on goals and priorities (so efforts align with value); and enable focus by eliminating unnecessary work and burnout culture. Companies that embrace this – that treat employees not as an expense to be minimized but as assets to be maximized – consistently see better results. The data and anecdotes align on this point: the highest-performing teams are those that feel valued, have a clear mission, and have the freedom and support to do their best work.