There are morning people.
And then there are people like me.
Some people are Carpe Diem.
I am more Carpe Sleep-In.
Given the choice, I would much rather work late into the evening than leap enthusiastically out of bed at 5am ready to conquer the world.
Admittedly, this has its drawbacks when you have kids who need to be out the door by 7:30 for school, soccer, or whatever else the day has planned.
It also doesn't help when one of them seems to believe that 5am is the perfect time to light the house up like a Christmas tree, sit in front of the heater with an iPad, and begin their day with considerably more enthusiasm than I have ever possessed at that hour.
For years, I heard that successful people get up early.
Apparently, if I wasn't exercising, journalling, reading a book and building an empire before sunrise, I simply wasn't trying hard enough.
But over the years, I have learned to question sweeping statements from self-help gurus.
Not because there isn't wisdom in some of them.
There is.
But because life isn't quite that simple.
Find Your Rhythm
I've come to realise that life has rhythms and seasons.
Ebbs and flows.
Times when you can push hard and times when you need to pull back.
And some of the things we present as universal truths are actually just things that worked particularly well for somebody else.
I've heard this.
Read that.
Followed a fad or two over the years.
But there are a few things I've learned that I think survive the passing trends.
I've learned to work with the rhythms that work for me.
To recognise my most productive times and make the most of them.
I've learned that stopping can sometimes be just as productive as going.
And I've learned that there really is a season for everything.
One of my favourite leadership seasons taught me exactly that.
Leading From Another Country
I was running a call centre in an entirely different country.
Australia had just emerged from lockdown for the second time, and like many people, I was enjoying the simple freedoms we'd previously taken for granted.
Going somewhere.
Seeing people.
Sitting in a café.
Leaving the house without wondering whether you were technically allowed to.
But my new colleagues in Manila weren't experiencing quite the same freedom.
Their world was different.
Their restrictions were different.
Their homes were different.
And their experience of work was certainly different.
During that period, I had an opportunity to focus heavily on culture.
My own leadership culture.
The culture of the management team.
And ultimately the culture experienced by a group of people who, strangely enough, I have still never met in person.
That made leadership interesting.
Because I couldn't walk the floor.
I couldn't pull up a chair beside someone.
I couldn't rely on those casual conversations that happen when you share an office.
Everything had to be more deliberate.
And from a distance, I began noticing two quite different approaches to leadership emerging.
Chickens, Internet Dropouts and Being "On Time"
On one side were managers trying desperately to preserve the standards of the office.
Attendance mattered.
Start times mattered.
Background noise mattered.
Professional presentation mattered.
Focus mattered.
And in ordinary circumstances, none of that sounds unreasonable.
But these weren't ordinary circumstances.
People were trying to work from homes that had never been designed to become offices.
Children were home.
Partners were home.
Extended families were home.
Internet connections dropped out.
Power wasn't always reliable.
And occasionally, somewhere in the background of a customer call, a chicken would make its presence known.
For some leaders, the instinct was:
The standard is the standard.
If someone started late, they were late.
If there was noise, that was a problem.
If their internet dropped out, productivity suffered.
If home life interrupted work, home life needed to be managed better.
Then there were other managers who looked at exactly the same situation and saw something different.
They still cared about performance.
They still cared about customers.
They still expected people to do their jobs.
But they also recognised the season everyone was living through.
They understood that somebody might be doing their absolute best while sitting at a dining-room table surrounded by circumstances completely outside their control.
Same workforce.
Same customers.
Same business.
Different lens.
Standards or Grace?
Leadership often gets framed as a choice between holding people accountable and being compassionate.
I don't think it is.
Good leadership requires both.
The challenge is knowing which one the moment requires.
There are times when someone needs to be challenged.
There are times when expectations need to be reinforced.
There are times when the standard really does need to be the standard.
But there are also times when a leader needs to understand that the circumstances have changed.
That doesn't mean abandoning accountability.
It means applying judgement.
If someone is five minutes late because they couldn't be bothered getting out of bed, that is one conversation.
If someone is five minutes late because their neighbourhood has lost power again and they are desperately trying to reconnect using their phone, that is a very different conversation.
Same outcome.
Different context.
Leadership lives in understanding the difference.
Don't Confuse Your Rhythm With the Right Rhythm
I think we do this to ourselves as well.
We see the person who rises at 4:30am and assume discipline must look like 4:30am.
We see the executive who works twelve-hour days and assume commitment must look like twelve-hour days.
We see the entrepreneur who never seems to stop and assume success must require never stopping.
We take somebody else's rhythm and turn it into our standard.
Then we wonder why we're exhausted trying to live a life that doesn't fit us.
There is wisdom in discipline.
There is wisdom in routine.
There is wisdom in pushing yourself beyond what feels comfortable.
But there is also wisdom in understanding how you work best.
For me, some of my clearest thinking happens late.
For somebody else, it might be at 5am.
Neither makes one of us more committed than the other.
It simply means we're different.
And when we lead other people, remembering that difference matters even more.
Different Doesn't Mean Wrong
One of the easiest mistakes a leader can make is assuming:
"The way I do it is the way it should be done."
I like structure, therefore everyone needs structure.
I like autonomy, therefore everyone should want autonomy.
I process things quickly, therefore everyone should respond quickly.
I work best in silence, therefore the team needs silence.
I start early, therefore early starters must be the most committed.
The longer I have led people, the less convinced I have become that leadership is about getting everyone to operate like me.
It's about creating the conditions in which different people can perform well while still meeting the standards that genuinely matter.
Some things are non-negotiable.
Integrity.
Respect.
Accountability.
The promises we make to customers and one another.
But many of the things leaders fight over aren't actually standards.
They're preferences.
And knowing the difference can completely change a culture.
There Is a Season
That season in Manila eventually passed.
Restrictions changed.
People adapted.
The business changed.
The challenges changed.
That's what seasons do.
And perhaps that's the lesson I've carried most strongly with me.
Not everything needs to be permanent.
Not every routine needs to become an identity.
Not every difficult season needs an immediate escape plan.
And not everything that worked brilliantly in one chapter of your life will work brilliantly in the next.
There are seasons for pushing.
Seasons for resting.
Seasons for structure.
Seasons for flexibility.
Seasons when getting up early might be exactly what you need.
And, thankfully for me, perhaps even the occasional season for sleeping in.
The challenge is knowing what season you're in.
So before adopting somebody else's latest formula for success — or expecting everyone you lead to operate according to yours — perhaps ask:
What rhythm does this season actually require?