Why Spacious Leadership Beats the Doing Mode That Burns Out Teams

The Relentless Pursuit of Productivity: A Leadership Paradox

The relentless pursuit of productivity has created a leadership paradox that threatens organizational effectiveness. While business culture celebrates the always-on, task-crushing executive, new research from MIT Sloan Management Review suggests this approach may be fundamentally flawed. Megan Reitz and John Higgins present compelling evidence that what they term "doing mode" – the narrow focus on short-term targets and rapid execution – has become a dangerous organizational default.

Their findings should concern every leader. When 40% of employees report having no time for reflection, 24% are too rushed to discuss failures, and 59% describe their meetings as hurried, we face a crisis of thoughtful leadership. The authors argue for a shift toward "spacious mode" – a more expansive form of attention that considers interdependencies and enables deeper understanding. But does this framework offer practical solutions, or does it represent wishful thinking in a competitive business environment?

The Doing Mode Trap: More Pervasive Than We Realize

The research reveals a troubling reality about modern leadership. The doing mode, characterized by narrow focus and instrumental thinking, has evolved from a useful tool into an organizational obsession. Leaders operating in this mode prioritize predictable control and tangible outcomes, often at the expense of strategic thinking and team development.

This resonates with broader research on executive decision-making. A study by McKinsey & Company found that executives spend only 23% of their time on strategic activities, with the remainder consumed by operational tasks and meetings. Similarly, research published in the Harvard Business Review indicates that senior leaders interrupt their own strategic thinking every 11 minutes on average due to operational demands.

The consequences extend beyond individual leadership effectiveness. When leaders model constant busyness, they create organizational cultures that reward activity over impact. Teams begin measuring success through task completion rather than meaningful outcomes. Innovation suffers because creative thinking requires the very spaciousness that doing mode eliminates.

Consider the case of Yahoo under Marissa Mayer's leadership. Despite Mayer's reputation for data-driven decision-making and intense work ethic, her tenure was marked by rapid-fire acquisitions and constant reorganizations that ultimately failed to reverse the company's decline. The focus on doing – acquiring companies, launching products, restructuring teams – overshadowed the strategic thinking needed to compete with Google and Facebook.

The Neuroscience Behind Spacious Leadership

The distinction between doing and spacious modes reflects fundamental differences in how our brains process information. Neuroscience research supports the authors' framework, though they could have strengthened their argument by incorporating these findings more explicitly.

Dr. Daniel Siegel's work on "mindsight" demonstrates that reflective awareness – similar to what Reitz and Higgins call spacious mode – activates the brain's middle prefrontal cortex. This region is crucial for emotional regulation, empathy, and complex decision-making. When leaders operate in constant doing mode, they rely heavily on the brain's more primitive systems, leading to reactive rather than responsive leadership.

Research by Dr. Judson Brewer at Brown University shows that mindful awareness – a key component of spacious mode – reduces activity in the default mode network, the brain system associated with rumination and anxiety. Leaders who cultivate spacious awareness literally rewire their brains for better decision-making and reduced stress.

This neurological evidence supports the authors' practical recommendations. The SPACE framework – focusing on safety, people, attention, conflict, and environment – aligns with what cognitive science tells us about optimal brain function for leadership tasks.

Implementing Spacious Leadership: Beyond the Framework

While Reitz and Higgins provide the SPACE framework, successful implementation requires deeper organizational change than their article suggests. The transition from doing to spacious mode challenges fundamental assumptions about productivity and value creation.

Salesforce offers an instructive example. Under Marc Benioff's leadership, the company has integrated mindfulness practices throughout its operations, including meditation rooms in offices and mindfulness training for employees. However, Salesforce's success stems not just from these practices but from Benioff's willingness to make spacious leadership a core business strategy. The company's V2MOM (Vision, Values, Methods, Obstacles, Measures) planning process explicitly builds in reflection time and encourages questioning assumptions.

The implementation challenge becomes more complex in crisis situations. During the 2008 financial crisis, some leaders who embraced rapid decision-making – like JPMorgan Chase's Jamie Dimon – navigated successfully through quick, decisive action. Others, like Lehman Brothers' Dick Fuld, suffered from what appeared to be a combination of both hasty decisions and paralysis in the face of complexity.

This suggests that effective leadership requires the ability to shift between modes appropriately. The authors acknowledge this need for balance but could have provided more guidance on when each mode is most appropriate.

The Cultural and Organizational Barriers

The most significant limitation in the authors' analysis concerns cultural and organizational barriers to spacious leadership. American business culture, in particular, has deep roots in what historian Jackson Lears calls "the culture of control" – the belief that problems can be solved through increased effort and systematic management.

Research by organizational psychologist Edgar Schein reveals that changing organizational culture requires addressing three levels: artifacts (visible behaviors), espoused values (stated beliefs), and basic assumptions (unconscious beliefs). The shift to spacious leadership demands change at all three levels, a process that typically takes years rather than months.

Companies attempting this transition face practical obstacles. Quarterly earnings pressure creates short-term thinking that conflicts with spacious leadership principles. Performance management systems often reward visible activity over reflective thinking. Board expectations and investor demands can push leaders back into doing mode even when they recognize its limitations.

Patagonia provides a counterexample worth studying. The company's leadership philosophy explicitly values long-term thinking and reflection, supported by policies like encouraging employees to take time off for environmental activism. However, Patagonia operates in a unique market position that allows for this approach – a luxury not available to all organizations.

Measuring Success in Spacious Leadership

One weakness in the original article is its limited discussion of how organizations can measure progress toward spacious leadership. Traditional metrics – revenue growth, efficiency ratios, task completion rates – are designed for doing mode evaluation.

Research by organizational development firm Korn Ferry suggests that leaders who demonstrate reflective practices show higher engagement scores and better long-term financial performance. However, these benefits often take 18-24 months to manifest, creating measurement challenges for organizations accustomed to quarterly assessments.

Some progressive companies are experimenting with new metrics. Google's Project Aristotle identified psychological safety – a key component of spacious leadership – as the most important factor in team effectiveness. The company now measures and manages psychological safety as deliberately as it tracks technical performance.

Similarly, Johnson & Johnson has incorporated "credo-based leadership" assessments that evaluate leaders on their ability to balance multiple stakeholder needs and think systemically – core elements of spacious mode thinking.

The Future of Leadership: Integration, Not Replacement

While Reitz and Higgins make a compelling case for spacious leadership, the most effective approach likely involves intelligent integration of both modes rather than replacing doing with spaciousness. Military leadership provides useful models for this integration.

The U.S. Army's After Action Review process exemplifies structured spaciousness within an action-oriented culture. After every mission or training exercise, teams engage in systematic reflection guided by four questions: What was supposed to happen? What actually happened? Why were there differences? What can we learn?

This process creates space for learning and improvement while maintaining the decisive action orientation essential for military effectiveness. Business leaders can adapt similar approaches, building reflection and systems thinking into their operational rhythms without sacrificing responsiveness.

Practical Steps for Leaders

Based on the research and analysis above, leaders seeking to incorporate spacious leadership should consider several practical steps:

• Conduct an honest assessment of your current mode balance. Track how you spend your time for one week, categorizing activities as either doing-focused or spacious-focused. Most leaders discover they spend less than 10% of their time in spacious mode.
• Experiment with structured spaciousness practices. Begin meetings with two minutes of intentional silence. Schedule weekly "assumption testing" sessions where you and your team question current strategies. Create "failure parties" where teams celebrate intelligent failures and extract learning.
• Redesign your environment to support both modes. Create physical spaces that encourage reflection – many successful leaders report that walking meetings or outdoor spaces enhance their spacious thinking. Remove digital distractions during strategic thinking time.
• Model the behavior you want to see. When leaders demonstrate comfort with uncertainty, embrace conflicting perspectives, and make time for deep conversation, they give their teams permission to operate spaciously.

The Competitive Advantage of Spacious Leadership

The authors' core insight – that spacious leadership enables better decision-making and innovation – aligns with emerging research on competitive advantage in complex environments. Companies operating in rapidly changing markets need leaders who can perceive patterns, adapt strategies, and maintain team cohesion under pressure.

Amazon's leadership principles provide an interesting case study. While the company is known for operational excellence and rapid execution, its leadership principles explicitly value "customer obsession," "long-term thinking," and "learning and being curious" – all elements of spacious leadership. Jeff Bezos famously made Amazon's culture compatible with both detailed operational focus and expansive strategic thinking.

The evidence suggests that organizations combining operational excellence with spacious leadership practices outperform those relying solely on either approach. This hybrid model may represent the future of effective leadership in an increasingly complex business environment.

Conclusion: A Necessary Evolution

Reitz and Higgins have identified a critical challenge facing modern leaders. The dominance of doing mode represents an understandable response to business complexity, but it has created unintended consequences that threaten long-term organizational health.

Their spacious leadership framework offers valuable guidance, though implementation requires more organizational change than their article suggests. Leaders must address cultural barriers, measurement challenges, and the practical difficulties of shifting established patterns.

The most promising approach involves thoughtful integration of both modes, with leaders developing the judgment to know when each is appropriate. In crisis situations, decisive action may be essential. In strategic planning, innovation challenges, and team development, spacious leadership offers significant advantages.

The stakes for getting this balance right continue to rise. As business environments become more complex and stakeholder expectations more demanding, leaders who can combine operational effectiveness with spacious wisdom will create sustainable competitive advantages. Those who remain trapped in pure doing mode risk burning out their teams while missing the strategic insights needed for long-term success.

The choice facing leaders is not between action and reflection, but between reactive busyness and purposeful effectiveness. Spacious leadership offers a path toward the latter – if leaders have the courage to create the mental space necessary for wiser decisions.

For more in-depth insights about creating mental space for wiser leadership, consider exploring this interesting article from MIT Sloan: Create Mental Space to Be a Wiser Leader.