Why directors at firms with high managerial capability should reconceptualize executive discretion as a potential source of value rather than a risk to be constrained
The post Governing CEOs Amid Disruption appeared first on Ivey Business Journal.
Why directors at firms with high managerial capability should reconceptualize executive discretion as a potential source of value rather than a risk to be constrained
The post Governing CEOs Amid Disruption appeared first on Ivey Business Journal.
The other day, a friend confessed her new nightly routine: hiding in the bathroom for 10 minutes after putting her kids to bed. The reason wasn’t to scroll TikTok, but to breathe. “It’s either that or cry into the mac and cheese,” she laughed. It struck me: parenting in 2025 often looks like quietly triaging our own stress while juggling work deadlines, permission slips, Slack pings, and dinner prep.
Headlines scream about the youth mental health crisis, but what rarely makes the front page is the state of the people raising those kids. Working parents are running on fumes. And here’s the part we can’t gloss over: our kids’ emotional health is directly tied to ours.
As psychiatrist and neuroscientist Dr. Raghu Appasani explained to me, emotional regulation is contagious. “Both the calm and the chaos are felt by children. When parents experience chronic stress or burnout, it doesn’t just live in their nervous system. It shapes the family’s emotional climate,” he said. Even babies, before they can speak, sense our tension. Over time, parental stress can erode a children’s sense of safety, making the world feel less predictable than it is. Neuroscience backs it up. A child’s developing brain learns to self-regulate by co-regulating with their parent’s nervous system. In other words, if we’re running on fumes, so are they.
The good news is, there are practical ways to flip the script, and we don’t need a three-day meditation retreat to do it. A few ideas:
Micro-pauses matter. Before you rush from Zoom call to carpool, take 60 seconds in the driveway to breathe. Literally. These moments act like emotional shock absorbers, resetting your nervous system so you show up calmer and more present.
Leverage digital tools as check-ins, not crutches. Dr. Raghu, chief medical officer for the child-centered wellness app Ginko, recommends InsightTimer and Calm to help adults regulate stress through guided mindfulness. Other platforms, like Wysa, provide exercises to track mood and offer coping strategies. He’s also a fan of journaling tools like Daylio or Stoic, which offer quick “check-ins” that can help you notice when you are sliding into burnout.
Pair parenting with prevention. If therapy apps like BetterHelp make it easier to fit sessions into a packed schedule, think of it as mental fitness, not just as a crisis hotline.
The reality is that self-care isn’t indulgence. It’s infrastructure. Just like we maintain the Wi-Fi so homework can get done, we need to maintain our mental bandwidth so our kids can feel steady. Shielding them from every stressor isn’t possible. But modeling how to downshift, recover, and stay connected? That’s a parenting lesson with lifelong returns.
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When announcing her new album, The Life of a Showgirl, on the New Heights podcast, Taylor Swift said, “You should think of your energy as if it’s expensive. . . . Not everyone can afford it.” She was encouraging people to have a healthy relationship with social media and not get sucked into online drama and endless scrolling.
As a working mom with three kids, this hit me deeply—about much more than social media. I have spent a good portion of my adult life talking about productivity, apps, and tools to save time. But Swift used a different word: energy. I can do dozens of things to save time in my day, but if I don’t have any energy left, what have I really gained?
If you want to treat your energy as if it’s expensive, you should think about how you’re spending your time and what things drain too much of your finite energy resources. Here’s how to get started.
Audit how you spend your time
Think of a block of time in your day—maybe for a meeting or picking your kids up from school. What drains your energy far beyond the amount of time on the clock?
Years ago, I was part of a book club that I really enjoyed. But then the group started fighting about everything from the books we chose to the members we accepted. As much as I loved the people I met through the group, it was draining too much of my energy. So I left.
A good way to audit your time is to ask yourself: What is taking up too much space in my brain? If you get sucked into work drama, you’ll probably find yourself upset or stewing hours later. A 30-minute meeting ends up absorbing much more of your time and energy.
Things that take up too much of your energy leave you feeling drained, defeated, or exhausted later. Identifying these is the first step to setting boundaries.
Reframe your priorities
Next, you’ll look at the demands on your time and energy. Figure out what is required and how you can cut back on things that are too “expensive.”
A meeting with your boss might require a lot of your energy, but you have to do it because it’s part of your job. Volunteering for a local organization might require a lot of your time, but is low energy or something you enjoy.
Break down your time into four quadrants: high-priority + high-energy, high-priority + low-energy, low-priority + high-energy, and low-priority + low-energy.
| High-priority + high-energy | High-priority + low-energy |
| Low-priority + high-energy | Low-priority + low-energy |
Low priority + high energy is not a good combination. If you treat your energy as expensive, those are things you should cut back on. Low priority + low energy might be something you can cut altogether, unless it’s something that can give your brain a reprieve and doesn’t interfere with your high priorities.
Reclaim your energy for what matters the most
While you can’t necessarily get rid of high-priority + high-energy demands, you can try to protect yourself. Keep the interactions or work to the bare minimum.
I used to work with a group of people who were very high-drama. Meetings turned into battles, and the disagreements would continue in long strings of emails. I couldn’t escape the interactions, because it was part of my job.
But later in the day, I would complain about the group at dinner with my family. I would stew over the interactions while I was driving around. I let the drama absorb way more of my energy than it deserved. With effort on my part, I learned to say, “Nope. I’m going to leave work at work.”
You can also find ways to recharge your energy, whether it’s a walk, a nap, or locking your phone so you don’t get sucked into an endless doomscroll.
Recharging isn’t a luxury—it’s essential, especially when you’re locked into a lot of high-priority + high-energy work. If you’re not careful with how you spend your time, it’s a quick path to burnout, feeling frazzled, or lacking the energy for things that matter in your life.
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