One of the questions I often ask myself as a leader is this: How much of our energy is going into real progress, and how much into simply looking busy?

If you lead a team or an organization, you know how easy it is to mistake busyness for productivity. Calendars fill up, messages fly back and forth, and people feel stretched thin. Yet when you zoom out, you sometimes see that the most important initiatives, the ones that will define the future of the company, are advancing more slowly than they should.

This tension is what makes Cal Newport’s work resonate with me, especially his books Deep Work and Slow Productivity. Together, they highlight a problem we all recognize: modern work culture is not designed for meaningful accomplishment. But they also offer a framework for how leaders and professionals alike can approach work differently.

Depth Over Distraction

In Deep Work, Newport describes the ability to focus without distraction on cognitively demanding tasks. For a CEO, this could mean stepping away from the constant flood of operational noise to think about strategy. For a product leader, it might mean uninterrupted time to design with care. For a developer, it might be hours of concentrated coding.

This kind of work creates the breakthroughs. It’s what moves an organization forward. Yet, ironically, it’s often the first casualty in a culture obsessed with responsiveness.

When was the last time you, or someone on your leadership team, had a three-hour block free from meetings, emails, or notifications to think deeply about the future of the business? If the answer is “rarely,” you’re not alone. But it’s a signal that our attention may be misallocated.

Rethinking Productivity

In Slow Productivity, Newport takes aim at the way we define productivity itself. Too often, productivity is equated with visible activity: the number of meetings attended, the speed of email replies, the volume of projects launched simultaneously.

But as leaders, we know instinctively that these metrics don’t always reflect real impact. The work that truly matters, the kind that creates lasting value, rarely happens in a rush. It requires patience, care, and a willingness to do less in order to do it better.

Slow productivity doesn’t mean lowering standards. On the contrary, it’s about setting a higher bar for what counts as success: not doing more, but doing what matters most at the right pace.

What Leaders Can Learn

This is where I see the connection between deep work and slow productivity as especially powerful. Deep work gives us the practice of focus. Slow productivity gives us the philosophy of restraint. Together, they form a discipline that can help organizations produce work of lasting value.

For leaders, this raises important questions:

• Are we rewarding busyness, or are we rewarding impact?
• Do our teams have the time and permission to go deep on the projects that matter most?
• Are we creating an environment where patience and focus are valued, or one where activity is mistaken for progress?

The answers to these questions shape not just productivity but also culture. Teams that are encouraged to slow down and focus deeply tend to produce higher-quality work. They also experience less burnout, because their efforts are aligned with clear priorities rather than scattered across endless tasks.

A Leadership Responsibility

As CEOs and executives, we have a responsibility here. Our calendars set the tone for the organization. If we fill every hour with meetings, our teams will feel compelled to do the same. If we glorify speed and availability, they will follow suit.

But if we model deep work – blocking time to think, reflect, and build – and if we embrace slow productivity by prioritizing fewer, higher-impact initiatives, we send a different message: that what matters is not how busy you look, but the value you create.

This shift doesn’t happen overnight, and it doesn’t mean abandoning urgency where it’s needed. Businesses will always have moments that require speed. But sustainable excellence comes from a rhythm that allows for both urgency and depth—knowing when to move fast, and when to slow down.

A Challenge to Consider

So here’s my challenge to fellow leaders: this week, choose one area where you can practice both deep work and slow productivity.

Maybe it’s protecting a block of time on your calendar to think about strategy instead of reacting to emails. Maybe it’s postponing or eliminating a nonessential project so your team can focus on one that truly matters.

And then ask yourself and your leadership team the harder question: What would our company look like if we made this the norm rather than the exception?

Because the truth is, the organizations that will thrive are not the ones that stay the busiest. They are the ones that create the conditions for deep, meaningful, and sustainable work.

And that starts with us.