When I work with leadership teams, different messages resonate with different people.

Frankie leads a large team responsible for $550m of high-profile infrastructure projects. She’s a great people leader, stimulated by growth opportunities, and she loves her work. And yet by the time she reaches Friday, she’s exhausted—both mentally and physically.

Fearless Leaders reach Friday night just as energised as they were on Monday because what they do and the way they do it gives them energy. Frankie found this message confronting because this was far from her current experience.

After my work with her team, Frankie took on a new challenge. She would rearrange her work life so she had energy left to enjoy the weekend with her family. This required her to think about:

• where she was losing energy now
• the key focus areas taking up her time
• the priority of each of those focus areas.

Frankie was surprised to realise that she was investing most of her time and energy into the lower priority things and ignoring the more strategic things that would make the biggest difference for her team, clients, and key stakeholders.

As well as that, the way Frankie was working was draining her energy. She was fighting fires, ‘protecting’ her people rather than empowering them to own activity and situations, and not allowing her EA to manage her diary.

Time for some tough decisions, and then following through. Frankie is in a high-profile role, and yet she is now carving out time to be strategic. She is not yet energised on a Friday night, but she is getting closer.

How energised are you by the end of the week? What decisions could you make about what you do and how you do it, so you can reclaim Friday night?