Sleep is chic and podcasts are rife with successful people who brag about protecting theirs. But I find leaders' actual behavior often conflicts with protecting sleep for their teams! Many of us can summon a "successful" person who seems to run on just a few hours of sleep per night. Maybe it's a glamorous startup founder who boasts about their sleepless hustle and sends 3 AM emails. A politician who claims to only need 4 hours. The message is clear - sacrificing sleep is the price of success.

But according to sleep expert Christopher Barnes, this is a dangerous myth that is killing our productivity, health, ethics, and sanity. Barnes, Professor at the University of Washington's Foster School of Business, says the research clearly shows that lack of sleep makes us worse at our jobs, not better.

"There is an inherent assumption that the number of hours you work is where the value comes from, but there is also a quantity-quality trade-off," Barnes explains. "You could perhaps work 20 hours a day, maybe, if you really push it...but are those 20 hours going to be your best 20 hours of work? The answer is very clearly no. If you work fewer hours and get more sleep, the work you do in those fewer hours is going to be less rife with mistakes, more creative, and you'll get more done per hour."

Sleep deprivation doesn't just tank productivity - it makes us less ethical too. Barnes' research finds that when people are sleep-deprived, they're more likely to behave unethically, which can lead to major scandals and lawsuits. We're also more anxious, depressed, and generally unpleasant to be around. It's a vicious cycle because anxiety then further disrupts sleep.

When we're chronically sleep deprived, even minor stressors feel overwhelming. "When you're sleep-deprived, molehills are more likely to turn into mountains," says Barnes. "You have a bigger negative emotional response, and it's harder to tamp down that response, so it turns into stress."

So if the research is so clear, why does the cult of sleeplessness persist in many industries? Barnes says it comes from the top. In what he calls "sleep de-valuing leadership," managers send signals that sleep should be sacrificed for work:

"If your leader sends an email at three in the morning, and you respond at 3:30, that leader might praise you the next day for being so responsive. They are sending a clear message - continue sacrificing your sleep so you can work more. Or on the negative side, if you don't respond until 9 AM, they might say something passive aggressive about your response time.

These pressures can feel impossible to resist, especially early in your career. Barnes tells the MBA students he teaches:

"I understand you are not going to start as the CEO. There are going to be people above you that put pressures on you that are really hard to live up to. It's going to be really hard to change the behavior of your boss or your boss's boss. Rather than focusing on changing your boss's behavior, focus on changing your behavior, and the context of the work group that you lead."

As you rise up, your sphere of influence grows, and you can be the boss who values sleep. Explicit pro-sleep leadership is key. Barnes recommends:

1) Don't brag about how little you sleep. It sends the wrong message.

2) Be actively Pro-Sleep. If you send emails late at night or super early because you like it, hide that behavior! Explicitly encourage your team to rest. Say "I want you to be at your best, and sleep is how you get there. I don't want to see you in the office too late or emailing at 3 AM. You’ll be more skillful and creative if you sleep.”

4) Allow flexible schedules so people can match work to their natural circadian rhythms. Night owls shouldn't be punished with a stereotype that they are less dedicated. There's a powerful stereotype in Western culture: "Early to bed, early to rise makes a person healthy, wealthy, and wise." Barnes' research found that bosses were more likely to hold and implement this stereotype in their evaluations when the boss was a lark. “We don't see the same bias with owls. What this tells me is that flextime can be a very powerful solution for helping match work schedules to circadian rhythms, but if we punish people for doing that, we're really undermining the value of this tool of flextime. People are just not going to implement it in a way that matches their own circadian process if they are owls with a lark boss. We're destroying so much value by having a stereotype about different circadian rhythms.”

Ask yourself - how could improving my sleep improve everything else - my health, work, relationships? The research is clear, Barnes says: "Almost no matter what the outcome is, it gets better if you sleep better."

Morra

PS: I've been hosting weekly sessions in May with amazing experts from the Thinkers50 and Silicon Guild communities. Catch replays here: https://thinkers50.com/blog/mind-matters-mental-wellbeing-leadership-and-work/

And if you feel like you're addicted to your phone and constantly trying to stave off burnout, yesterday's session is for you! Watch No More Burnout: How to Fight Back, Find Time, and Stop Letting Tech Win: https://lnkd.in/e8f9CJFi