For as long as I’ve been in leadership, fatigue has been accepted as “part of the job.” Early mornings, late nights, and long days on the road are treated as the price of entry. But something has shifted since 2020. The global pandemic stretched leaders thin in ways we’d never imagined. The volatility, uncertainty, complexity, and ambiguity (VUCA) of “change management” has now become a constant backdrop of leadership. The pace is faster and the demands more relentless, with timeframes compressed but expectations accelerated. For many of the leaders I work with, this new normal requires regularly working 16-hour days or