Why the world’s best performers treat recovery as part of their preparation—not a reward for working hard.
Two Worlds. One Fundamental Difference.
Imagine Roger Federer preparing for a Wimbledon final.
Every detail matters. His training, nutrition, mental preparation and recovery are carefully considered. Nothing is left entirely to chance.
Now imagine a CEO preparing for a critical board meeting.
Weeks have been spent reviewing financial projections, analysing risks and refining the strategy. The presentation is polished. Every important number has been scrutinised.
But the CEO has slept poorly for several nights, juggling late-night emails, urgent decisions and an overloaded schedule.
The preparation may be excellent.
But is the person making the decisions equally prepared?
This is where elite athletes may have something important to teach business leaders.
Elite Athletes Understand That Recovery Is Part of Performance
At the highest levels of sport, athletes recognise that training alone does not determine results.
Training provides the stimulus. Recovery supports the adaptations that help athletes perform.
Without adequate recovery, simply increasing the training load can become counterproductive.
Consider a study by Mah and colleagues (2011) involving Stanford University basketball players.
When players extended their sleep opportunities over several weeks, researchers observed improvements in sprint performance, shooting accuracy and aspects of wellbeing.
The study was relatively small and did not establish that every athlete would experience the same improvements. Nevertheless, it offers an important insight.
Performance optimisation is not always about doing more. Sometimes, it is about recovering better.
Elite athletes understand this principle because their results are visible.
A fraction of a second can determine the winner of a race. A momentary lapse in concentration can change the outcome of a match.
For business leaders, the consequences of compromised performance may be less immediately obvious—but potentially just as consequential.
The CEO Is Also a Performance Athlete
A CEO may not need to run 100 metres in under ten seconds or compete in a Grand Slam final.
But the demands of executive leadership are substantial.
Every day, leaders must interpret complex information, evaluate uncertainty, manage emotions, make difficult decisions and influence others.
These activities depend on cognitive and emotional functioning.
And both can be affected by insufficient sleep.
Research by Van Dongen and colleagues (2003) demonstrated that repeated sleep restriction can produce accumulating deficits in attention and cognitive performance.
More concerning, people may not fully appreciate how much their performance has deteriorated.
This creates a particular challenge for senior executives.
Experience and confidence may remain intact even when the capacity to apply them effectively is compromised.
An executive may still feel capable of making an important decision.
But feeling capable and performing optimally are not necessarily the same thing.
Capability Is Not the Same as Capacity
Organisations invest heavily in leadership capability.
They recruit experienced executives, provide advanced training and develop strategic thinking, communication and decision-making skills.
These investments are important.
But capability alone does not guarantee consistent performance.
To illustrate this distinction, I propose a simple conceptual framework:
Effective Leadership Performance ≈ Capability × Available Capacity
Capability represents what a leader knows and can do.
Capacity represents the cognitive, emotional and biological resources available to apply those capabilities.
This is a conceptual framework, not a scientifically validated mathematical equation.
Its practical implication is straightforward.
A highly capable leader who is chronically fatigued may struggle to exercise the same quality of judgment, attention and emotional control as when adequately recovered.
Capability creates potential. Capacity helps turn that potential into performance.
Elite athletes understand the importance of arriving at competition ready to perform.
Business leaders should consider the same principle when preparing for their most consequential decisions.
Three Lessons CEOs Can Learn from Elite Athletes
1. Recovery must be planned, not left to chance.
Athletes do not normally wait until they are completely exhausted before thinking about recovery.
They incorporate it into their preparation.
For CEOs, this could mean protecting adequate sleep before important meetings, reviewing the timing of late-night commitments and creating realistic opportunities to recover after particularly demanding periods.
2. More effort is not always better performance.
Working longer may sometimes produce more output in the short term.
But when additional working hours repeatedly displace sleep, the resulting fatigue can undermine attention, judgment and effectiveness.
The relevant question is not simply how many hours a leader works.
It is how effectively those hours are used.
3. Peak performance requires managing both load and recovery.
Athletes adjust their training demands around important competitions.
Executives can apply a similar principle to major business events.
A critical negotiation, investment decision or strategic review deserves more than excellent documents and thorough analysis.
It also deserves a decision-maker who is cognitively and emotionally prepared.
This does not mean executives can always avoid pressure or control their schedules completely.
It means treating recovery as a legitimate part of performance preparation rather than an optional luxury.
The Leadership Lesson
Elite athletes are judged by what they deliver when it matters most.
So are CEOs.
Yet the two groups often approach preparation differently.
Athletes devote considerable attention to the physical and mental conditions required to perform.
Executives tend to concentrate on information, strategy, meetings and execution—sometimes overlooking their own readiness.
The opportunity is not to turn CEOs into professional athletes.
It is to recognise that high performance depends on more than capability and effort.
Sleep and recovery do not replace leadership experience, strategic thinking or sound business judgment.
They help support the human capacity required to apply those qualities effectively.
Perhaps the next time a CEO prepares for a critical board meeting, the final question should not simply be:
Have I reviewed everything?
But also:
Am I sufficiently recovered to perform at my best when it matters most?
Because the best performers understand something that is easily forgotten in the boardroom:
Recovery is not time away from performance. It is part of preparing for it.
References
- Mah, C. D., Mah, K. E., Kezirian, E. J., & Dement, W. C. (2011). The effects of sleep extension on the athletic performance of collegiate basketball players. Sleep, 34(7), 943–950. https://doi.org/10.5665/SLEEP.1132
- Van Dongen, H. P. A., Maislin, G., Mullington, J. M., & Dinges, D. F. (2003). The cumulative cost of additional wakefulness: Dose-response effects on neurobehavioral functions and sleep physiology from chronic sleep restriction and total sleep deprivation. Sleep, 26(2), 117–126. https://doi.org/10.1093/sleep/26.2.117
- Fullagar, H. H. K., et al. (2015). Sleep and athletic performance: The effects of sleep loss on exercise performance, and physiological and cognitive responses to exercise. Sports Medicine, 45, 161–186. https://doi.org/10.1007/s40279-014-0260-0