Inspired by Essentialism: The Disciplined Pursuit of Less by Greg McKeown
There’s a particular kind of exhaustion that business leaders know well.
It’s not the tiredness that comes from working hard on the right things. It’s the deeper depletion of spreading yourself across too much, too often — of feeling busy without feeling effective. Of ending the week wondering where it went.
Greg McKeown calls this “the undisciplined pursuit of more.” And in his book Essentialism, he makes the case that it’s the default trap most high-performing leaders fall into — not because they’re undisciplined, but because they haven’t stopped to ask a harder question:
What actually matters here?
The Essentialist Mindset — It’s Not What You Think
Essentialism is often misread as minimalism or laziness. It’s neither.
McKeown’s core argument is that almost everything is non-essential — and that the leaders who create the most impact are the ones willing to make that uncomfortable distinction clearly. They don’t try to do more. They get ruthlessly focused on doing the right things, in the right way, at the right time.
For a business owner or senior leader, this is deeply practical. Your team doesn’t need you doing more. They need you:
- Thinking more clearly
- Deciding more decisively, and
- Developing them more intentionally.
That only happens when you’ve protected enough space to do it.
Why Leaders Resist Essentialism
Here’s what makes this so hard in practice: most leaders tie their value to their output:
- Being needed feels good.
- Saying yes feels generous.
- Full calendars feel productive.
But McKeown makes a critical distinction. There’s a difference between being busy and being effective. And for leaders specifically, the cost of confusing the two isn’t just personal — it ripples through the entire organisation.
When you’re overcommitted, your best thinking goes to the wrong things:
- Your team picks up on the urgency and chaos, and mirrors it.
- Decisions that should be delegated come back to you because you never created the space for others to own them.
Essentialism, in this sense, isn’t just a personal productivity strategy. It’s a leadership one.
5 Ways to Lead with an Essentialist Mindset
1. Get clear on your one job.
Not your job description — your actual highest-value contribution as a leader. For most business owners, it’s somewhere in the space of strategy, culture and developing the people around them. Everything else should be questioned.
2. Design your week before it designs itself.
If your highest-value work isn’t scheduled first, it won’t happen. Reactive demands are infinitely creative. They will fill every available space you leave. Protect your focus before the week begins.
3. Practise the pause before every yes.
Before committing to anything — a meeting request, a new project, a responsibility that drifts your way — ask: “Is this essential?” If you can’t answer clearly, the answer is no.
4. Audit your recurring commitments.
Most leaders are carrying weight from decisions made months or years ago — habits, meetings and tasks they’ve never stopped to question. Once a quarter, review your commitments and ask which ones would you choose again, knowing what you know now.
5. Make space before you need it.
Reflection, strategic thinking and developing your team all require unstructured time. Build it into your rhythm deliberately — not as a reward for when everything else is done, but as a non-negotiable. It’s the work that makes all the other work better.
The Connection to Self-Leadership
One of McKeown’s quieter insights is that Essentialism begins with knowing yourself well enough to know what matters to you — not just what matters to the business, to your team, or to whoever is making the most noise.
That’s where self-leadership comes in.
When you’re clear on your values, your strengths, and the specific contribution only you can make, it becomes much easier to say no to everything else. Not with guilt. Not with apology. But with the confidence of a leader who knows exactly what they’re protecting.
Balance, in this context, isn’t about doing everything equally. It’s about being so clear on your priorities that you stop carrying the things that aren’t yours to carry.
A Question Worth Sitting With
As you move into the second half of the year, here’s an honest question:
If you could only focus on three things for the next 90 days — three things that would genuinely move your business and your leadership forward — what would they be?
And the follow-up: how much of your current week is actually spent on those things?
The gap between those two answers is where Essentialism lives. And closing it might be the most important leadership work you do this year.