How Constant Availability Weakens Leadership

There was a season where I wore responsiveness like a badge of honour. Quick replies, late-night emails, and immediate voice notes. I fixed things before I was even asked twice. I genuinely believed that high accessibility for my clients and community members meant I was a strong leader. It didn't.

If you can relate, then you’ll benefit from seeing how constant availability weakens leadership.

I want to reframe this idea that fast response equals high value:

• You don't have to always respond quickly
  
• Busyness doesn't equal importance
  
• Always reachable doesn't equal supportive
  

I'm going to share how I failed at this miserably, how I changed, and how you can too.

How Constant Availability Weakens Leadership

1. It Trains Urgency

People feel like they can reach out to you and make things urgent to you.

For example, I had a member of my Dynamic Women community message me on Facebook (which I consider more of a personal platform) and ask about the upcoming date for our event.

This is something that goes out in the emails. It's on the website. There are many places where she could find this. Rather than giving her the quick answer ("It's on this date for your area," which also meant I needed to check which area she was in), I reminded her of where she could find that information.

While I could have done it quickly, it would still have taken time and energy from me. I didn't want it to be that me giving her the information, which she felt was urgent, but was really non-urgent, and she could have figured it out herself.

When we respond, we're training people to message us about non-urgent matters because we'll reply quickly.

This happens probably in your family as well. Have you ever had someone in the kitchen saying, "Hey, do we have sandwich meat? Do we have enough milk for the week?" They could easily open the fridge door and look. "Do we have any apples?" They could easily look in the fruit bowl.

But when we respond (because if you're anything like me, you have a mental note of everything in your fridge, how many you have, when it expires, and how many more you need), it doesn't mean you have to be the only one carrying that mental load.

It's training others that they can expect a same-hour turnaround of answering a question. Maybe a team member would stop problem-solving because they know you'll answer their question for them.

People will rise or shrink based on the level of access you provide them. When you respond instantly, you train others not to think first. We want to train people not only how to help themselves but also how to treat our time.

2. It Erodes Boundaries

When I have my phone out during family time, dinner, at the park, whatever it may be, it means I'm not mentally present. If others can text or call me during family time or maybe outside of work hours, then it means I'm not necessarily fully at work or fully with my family. I'm split between the two, and frankly, not doing well at either one.

It's eroding those boundaries of when it's your time and others' time.

If my family is messaging me during the day with trivial matters when I'm at work, that pulls me away from my focus. That means I'm distracted, and I lose that momentum.

Now, while at work and with my family, my phone is always on silent.

3. It Encourages Dependency (Erodes Independence)

Remember the story of the woman who asked me when the date was? Another time she messaged me and said, "Well, can you just sign me up?"

While that could have taken me a couple of minutes, I probably had 300-400 people coming to eight events each month. Imagine if I did that for even 10%, that would be three hours of my time. So I politely responded that she knows where the sign-up is and can do it herself. She said, "Oh, I know I can do it. I just thought it would be faster for you to do it."

It made me laugh, and I joked with her about it later, but I realized I had to take responsibility for it. How I treated it at the beginning, with just one location rather than eight, was that I could give that level of service and sign people up. But she continued to want me to do them, so she definitely became dependent on me to do it for her.

It's just like having a team member or a virtual assistant who might be waiting for your answer on small decisions rather than just figuring them out themselves, or a client asking you questions they could easily figure out themselves.

If you are the fastest solution in the room or in someone's mind, then they’re not going to build their decision-making muscle.

I've done it with my business, but with my family, it’s definitely something I'm striving to do now. If you can do this as a strong leader, you will start building a smart, skilled team.

A reminder: Being available doesn't mean you're providing good leadership.

4. It Brings and Attracts Chaos

People with urgent personalities and who are dependent on others will be drawn to you and attach to you because you're a very accessible leader. These disorganized people will start relying heavily on you because you're a responsive, responsible leader. 

I realized that because I was taking messages on Facebook, email, text, everywhere, I was unintentionally building a culture of urgency, chaos, and dependency.

Now, by delaying how quickly I respond, moving it from one platform to another, reminding them that they know, or giving them the power to do it themselves, I have started to regain that space and build a team and clients who are more independent.

Intentional Unavailability

I recently wrote about intentional subtraction in another blog post. This new one is intentional unavailability, being intentionally unavailable to others.

What It Doesn't Look Like:

• It is not coldness
  
• It is not selfishness
  
• It is not ghosting
  

It is structure.

I can remember my marketing and graphic designer telling me, after some time of being available at any time and available last minute: "I am going to be available to work on things between Monday to Thursday 9-5pm, and Thursday at 12 PM will be the last time I'm accepting any kind of design work."

That gave her Friday to finish off. She was very clear about that. She would not respond after hours. She would not work after hours. She wouldn't work on the weekend. If I needed something done, I had deadlines. If I get it done sooner, give it to her sooner, then she could get it done sooner. There would be no chaos or urgency, and it would give her time and freedom during her time off.

What This Looks Like in Practice for You

1. Delay Responses, Even When You Could Respond Immediately

You might see a message come in, but if you're in the middle of something (and even if you're not), it's okay to delay response. Obviously, if something's urgent, you can reply right away.

2. No Same-Day Access Unless It's Scheduled

If a client reaches out with a question and that's not part of their package for urgent or emergency calls, you answer whenever it fits you. You can have blocks of time in your schedule when you go and answer emails.

3. Protect Your Thinking Blocks

Your deep work blocks, like your writing blocks, are protected with no calls, no texts, and no emails, so you can get your stuff done. (When I edit these blogs, I have to go into focus mode.)

4. Real Vacations Where You're Actually Offline

This is something I do my very best to do. When I was in Kenya, I was definitely offline because we had no guarantee of Wi-Fi access or data, and I didn't bring my computer with me.

The way I do it now is that everyone knows they can email me or WhatsApp me for quick things. You may say, "Well, WhatsApp gives people immediate access to you," and I'm okay with that because when I get into email, I'm doing more professional, longer-form responses. WhatsApp, I can either do a quick voicemail or keep things really casual, which has worked for me.

When I am away, I’m only doing last-minute approvals from my team, and I like to keep the WhatsApp or email line open in case clients need me, because things can arise. My Virtual Assistant Made Easy clients may need something more urgently, and I want to be available for my team of VAs. At this point, I'm okay with that. It didn't wreck my two-week vacation in Mexico or my time in Vegas at a mastermind. Until I have someone in that higher-level management role, that's the way it's going to be.

5. Just Say When You'll Respond

"Thank you for your message. I'll respond tomorrow" or "I'll respond Friday," without over-explaining. You don't have to say why. You don't have to apologize. This could even be an automatic reply that says all emails received during the day will be answered between 9 - 10 am, or 4 - 5 pm, or whatever it may be.

6. Don't Take Messages on Personal Platforms

If you get someone who messages you on Facebook or on a platform you don't want to be messaging on, then move it over to email and say, "Hey, I am replying here. Let's keep it to email."

It's really hard when you just want to go and play on Facebook, and you have work messages in there. It's also really hard if you have things coming in from everywhere like on your project management platform (ex. Slack, Asana, Trello), your social platforms (ex. Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn) then WhatsApp, and your email.

What Happens When You Set Boundaries

There have been times when I haven't replied right away, and it’s worked out well. For example, a client who asked about a template we had previously shared ended up looking for it herself. Or with questions I've already answered, they went and found the information in a previous email. By the time I got around to answering it, they had already figured it out. It wasn't an issue anymore.

By having this boundary of moving that Facebook message to email or not replying after hours means that they will respect you more. 

The times I have done this, and the time that the graphic designer did that, I repied telling her I was happy for her setting boundaries on her work time. I've had many people comment to me as well:

• "Oh, I needed to hear how you did that."
  
• "Yeah, I want to set office hours too."
  
• "I have to stop replying quickly or in long form."
  

What This Creates in Others

When you make yourself less available:

1. Self-leadership: They're going to start leading themselves.
2. Increased respect: Between you and them.
3. More intentional conversations: Rather than things they can figure out themselves.
4. More sustainable long term: If you're constantly in that urgency, chaos, replying quickly, being available on all the platforms, being split between work and life all the time, that's just not sustainable.

I figured that when I stopped taking work calls at night, making myself available, and replying quickly, nothing would burn down. If anything, my leadership just strengthened.

The Power of Being Unavailable

I remember meeting a CEO and asking him how he managed to be at the 3-day event while running such a big company. He said it's because of their SOP (Standard Operating Procedure).

Typically, someone would ask him, someone higher-up or someone else at work, which now means two- three people are involved in answering. The SOP he created was:

Step 1: If you don't know something, go into the database and look at all the SOPs to see if there is an answer, and/or check the frequently asked questions.

Step 2: If there is no answer, ask a colleague or co-worker, and check for an SOP/FAQ for it that you just can't find (maybe it was labelled something different).

Step 3: If that's the case, if they can't find anything, the third step is to walk into the boss's office give him your phone, and ask the question. The boss is recording you on your phone while they give the answer. Now it's your responsibility to create that as either an SOP or a frequently asked question (FAQ).

That's how he was able to be away. He taught people the right way to find information.

I’m going to share with you five benefits of this approach:

1. SOP for Answers: This creates a Standard Operating Procedure for finding answers. 

2. Helps people find information themselves: Since they are not coming to you or somebody else on the team, it saves money and time because everyone is focusing on their own work and not answering questions.

3. Changes their state and your state as well: It puts them into more of a calm state because rather than "I need to know this information," they're going to go and figure it out themselves.

4. Creates independence: They become independent thinkers and are independent in figuring things out, which also boosts confidence.

5. Empowers them: Builds their confidence to do their role and self-efficacy, so they can figure things out themselves and be resilient. 

I hope those are some reasons why you'd probably want to start making yourself less available to others. Those are things that will strengthen your leadership rather than weaken it.

What Are You Modelling?

I want you to think about, what you are modelling for other women.

• Are younger women watching you, just making themselves available all the time, answering quickly and keeping up with the chaos? 
  
• What are your daughters or nieces seeing you do that might make them start doing it themselves?
  
• What are you normalizing for your clients? Often, your clients will copy what you do and model it, thinking it's normal. ​
  

If you're modelling burnout, hyper-responsiveness, overextending yourself or constantly proving yourself and dropping your boundaries, they are going to see that as normal, and we don't want that.

If you're modelling the boundaries, the calmness, the spaciousness, that more regulated leadership, that independence, you're going to start to shift the culture to be able to go into that space too.

Your boundaries and balance teach more than your strategy or your expertise ever will.

Final Thoughts

Leadership doesn't require immediate responses or immediate performance (well, unless you're the head of a fire team, a police officer, or an ER doctor). But no matter what, it requires some strategic presence.

You model it first, and those who work for you, with you, or your clients will start to model it themselves.

If you have any ideas or questions you'd like me to cover, please reach out to me at [email protected].

Until next time, stay dynamic!