This is the fifth and final installment in our November series, “November Notes: Reflect. Recalibrate. Restore.” As we approach the holiday break, it’s time to reframe rest not as something we squeeze in when everything else is done, but as a strategic leadership practice essential to our effectiveness.
Throughout November, we’ve explored gratitude, reflection, strategic resource alignment, and authentic admissions practices. Each of these topics has asked something of you as a leader. Now, as we close this series, I want to talk about what might be the most countercultural leadership practice of all: the deliberate choice to rest.
I’m writing this on the Monday after Thanksgiving, watching my inbox fill back up and feeling that familiar pull toward productivity. There’s so much to do before winter break. Budget projections. Admissions follow-ups. Faculty evaluations. Strategic planning for the spring term. The list is endless, and the temptation to work through the upcoming holiday is real.
But here’s what I’ve learned throug experience: working through breaks doesn’t make me a better leader. It makes me a depleted one.
The Burnout Crisis We Can’t Ignore
Let’s start with what the research tells us. According to a Gallup study on K-12 worker burnout, more than 44% of educators report feeling burned out at work always or very often. That’s higher than any other industry in the United States, outpacing healthcare workers, law enforcement, and every other profession tracked. School leaders face particular vulnerability, with recent research showing that the complexity of the principalship has increased dramatically, adding responsibilities around managing diverse student needs, navigating bureaucratic systems, and maintaining community relationships during crisis after crisis.
The data is sobering, but what concerns me more is how we’ve normalized this exhaustion. We wear our busyness as a badge of honor. We compete over who answered the most emails during Thanksgiving dinner. We pride ourselves on being available 24/7 to our school communities.
This isn’t dedication. It’s unsustainable.
Research from Communities of Practice addressing school leader burnout identifies several key dimensions of burnout: emotional exhaustion, feelings of inefficacy, and depersonalization. When we push through without genuine rest, we don’t just feel tired. We lose our capacity for empathy, creativity, and the relational leadership that makes school communities thrive.
Reframing Rest as Strategy
The problem isn’t that we don’t value rest intellectually. Most school leaders would agree that rest is important. The problem is that we treat it as a luxury to be earned after everything else is done, rather than as a strategic necessity for doing our work well.
Research on strategic leadership and holiday renewal makes a compelling case: rest isn’t time away from leadership. It’s essential to effective leadership. When leaders prioritize genuine disconnection, they return with enhanced decision-making abilities, greater creativity in problem-solving, and renewed energy for relationship-building, all critical components of school leadership.
Think about it this way. We would never run a school building on backup generators indefinitely. We understand that systems need proper power sources to function optimally. Yet we somehow expect ourselves as leaders to function indefinitely on our emotional and cognitive backup systems, running on fumes while telling ourselves we’ll rest “when things settle down.”
Things never settle down. There will always be another crisis, another deadline, another urgent need. Waiting for the perfect time to rest guarantees we never will.
Strategic rest means treating renewal as non-negotiable infrastructure for leadership, not as a reward we grant ourselves after proving our worthiness through exhaustion.
What Genuine Rest Actually Requires
Here’s where most well-intentioned attempts at rest fall apart. We say we’re taking time off, but we check email “just once” each morning. We promise to disconnect, but we keep our phones nearby “in case of emergencies.” We physically leave school, but mentally we never stop working.
According to research on leadership renewal and intentional rest, genuine rest requires deliberate boundary-setting and actual disconnection from work. This isn’t about being irresponsible. It’s about recognizing that true renewal can’t happen when part of our attention remains tethered to work demands.
Practically, this means several things. First, we need to communicate our intentions clearly. Send out-of-office messages that don’t include caveats about checking email periodically. Designate a trusted colleague to handle genuine emergencies and actually trust them to do so. Make it clear to your school community that you won’t be available, and that this unavailability is part of how you maintain the capacity to lead well.
Second, we need to prepare our teams. Research from Edutopia on supporting teachers after winter break emphasizes that effective school leaders create systems that don’t require their constant presence. Before the break, delegate clearly. Ensure your leadership team knows how to handle routine decisions. Trust the structures you’ve built to hold things together while you step away.
Third, we need to actually engage in restorative activities rather than just collapsing. Research shows that quality sleep, reflection time, and activities that bring genuine joy are essential to cognitive function and emotional well-being. This might mean reading books unrelated to education, spending unstructured time with family, pursuing hobbies, or simply allowing yourself extended periods of doing nothing in particular.
Rest as Modeling for Your School Community
One of the most powerful aspects of leadership rest is what it communicates to your school community. According to research on school leadership and mental health, leaders who prioritize supportive and inclusive school cultures, which includes modeling healthy boundaries, create environments where teachers feel valued and supported, directly reducing staff stress and burnout.
When you work through your holiday break, you send several implicit messages to your faculty. You communicate that rest is something to feel guilty about. You model that being available 24/7 is the standard. You reinforce the idea that personal boundaries are unprofessional. You suggest that sustainable practices are for other people, not for serious educators.
Conversely, when you genuinely disconnect and return renewed, you model something transformative. You demonstrate that boundaries aren’t signs of weakness but of wisdom. You show your faculty that renewal is essential to effectiveness. You give permission for the whole community to embrace sustainable practices.
Research from Edutopia on slow leadership emphasizes that leaders who normalize rest by taking vacations, protecting evenings, and encouraging their teams to do the same reframe downtime not as lost productivity but as strategic investment in long-term leadership health. When leaders choose a slower pace during breaks, they don’t just protect themselves from burnout—they create schools where people want to stay.
Addressing the “But What If” Concerns
I can anticipate the objections because I’ve had them all myself. What if there’s an emergency? What if a family needs me? What if something falls apart while I’m away? What if my taking time off creates more work for others?
These are legitimate concerns, but they often mask deeper anxieties about our identity and worth. Many of us tie our value as leaders to our constant availability. The thought of being unreachable feels like abandoning our responsibilities rather than fulfilling them sustainably.
Research suggests several strategies for addressing these concerns without sacrificing genuine rest. First, define what actually constitutes an emergency worthy of interrupting your time off. True emergencies requiring your specific input are far rarer than we imagine. Most situations can either wait or be handled by others if we’ve prepared our teams properly.
Second, create clear protocols. Who handles what in your absence? What decisions can they make independently? What requires waiting for your return? Having these systems explicitly defined before you leave reduces both your anxiety and your team’s uncertainty.
Third, consider the counterfactual. What happens if you don’t rest? Research from Unmind on sustainable high performance shows that prolonged stress without adequate recovery leads to diminished decision-making, reduced creativity, and increased health risks. The cost of not resting is higher than the cost of temporary unavailability.
Finally, recognize that your need for rest isn’t unique. If you can’t sustainably lead your school while taking genuine breaks, that’s a systems problem, not a personal failing. Sustainable leadership requires building structures that don’t depend on any single person’s constant availability.
Restorative Practices for Leader Renewal
As someone who advocates for restorative practices in schools, I’ve been thinking about how these principles apply to our own renewal as leaders. Research on restorative practices and reflection emphasizes that restorative approaches promote reflection, emotional awareness, and the ability to take responsibility for one’s well-being.
What if we applied restorative principles to how we approach rest? This might mean using reflective questions to guide our break time. What do I need to feel restored? What harm have I been experiencing that needs healing? How can I repair my relationship with rest and renewal? What structures would support my sustainable leadership?
It might mean recognizing that rest isn’t just personal—it’s communal. Just as restorative practices in schools involve the whole community, sustainable leadership requires collective commitment to rest and boundaries. Have conversations with your leadership team about how you’ll all support each other’s renewal. Create shared agreements about communication expectations during breaks. Build in regular check-ins about whether your pace is sustainable.
It might also mean embracing the reflection that naturally comes during downtime. Research on educator renewal and recovery suggests that intentional reflection practices during breaks, whether through journaling, meditation, or simply unstructured thinking time, help leaders process the emotional weight of their work and return with renewed clarity about priorities and values.
Practical Steps for This Holiday Break
As you move into the holiday season, consider these concrete practices for genuine renewal:
Before the Break:
- Send clear communication about your unavailability, including dates and who to contact for various issues
- Delegate specific responsibilities to your leadership team with explicit decision-making authority
- Complete a brief “brain dump” of concerns so you can mentally release them
- Set up out-of-office messages that don’t promise to check email periodically
During the Break:
- Actually disconnect from work email and platforms (yes, completely)
- Engage in activities that bring genuine joy or restoration, not just collapse
- Allow yourself unstructured time without productivity goals
- Practice saying no to work-related thoughts when they arise
- Sleep as much as your body wants
- Spend time with people who restore you rather than deplete you
Returning from Break:
- Build in transition time rather than jumping immediately into full intensity
- Review what worked and didn’t work about your rest practices
- Have conversations with your leadership team about sustainable pace going forward
- Make adjustments to systems that made disconnection difficult
The Long View on Sustainable Leadership
Here’s what I’ve come to believe: school leadership is not a sprint. It’s not even a marathon. It’s a lifelong practice of showing up for communities that depend on us while maintaining the capacity to do so effectively and humanely.
This requires fundamentally rethinking how we approach rest. Not as something we earn through exhaustion. Not as a luxury available only to leaders in less demanding positions. Not as a sign of weakness or lack of commitment.
Rest is strategic. Rest is essential. Rest is what allows us to bring our best selves to the complex, emotionally demanding work of educational leadership.
As we close out November and move into the holiday season, I invite you to consider what genuine rest would look like for you. Not performative rest where you’re physically away but mentally at work. Not partial rest where you check email “just once a day.” But actual, complete, restorative rest that allows you to return to your school community renewed.
Your staff needs you rested more than they need you constantly available. Your students benefit more from your restored capacity for patience and creativity than from your exhausted martyrdom. Your school thrives when its leader models sustainable practices rather than glorified burnout.
This holiday season, give yourself and your school community the gift of your genuine renewal. Trust your systems. Trust your team. Trust that taking care of yourself is not selfish—it’s the foundation of everything else you do.
The work will be there when you return. And you’ll be better equipped to do it well.
Looking Ahead: Thank you for journeying through this November series with me. As we move into December, I’ll be exploring themes of forward-looking planning and strategic priorities for 2025. But for now, I hope you’ll join me in embracing rest as the strategic leadership practice it truly is.
