A Measure of Leadership Quality: Can Your Employees Truly Rest?
Jarmo Liiver, CEO at Verston Estonia
October is Mental Health Awareness Month. It’s a good time for any leader to ask themselves: what is my role in protecting the mental health of my people? Before you start thinking about offering psychological support, massage chairs or office plants, answer one essential question: can my employees truly disconnect during their vacation?
It’s worth noting that the mental health effects of rest are still under-researched in academic literature. However, one thing is already well established: psychological detachment from work during vacation is a prerequisite for recovery. The Spanish Journal of Psychology published a study showing that detachment from work life during vacation is critical to recovery and reducing burnout. Even more intriguing: if a leader cannot rest, neither can their team. Mental well-being is contagious – both positive and negative.
When someone says they don’t have time to rest or continue working during vacation or sick leave, it’s a clear sign of a leadership issue – not employee dedication. It means tasks aren’t distributed, backups are missing, and knowledge doesn’t flow – in other words, the leadership system is broken.
Ask and measure
At Verston, we’ve made this a conscious part of our leadership approach. We follow simple but firm principles: every person has the right to refuse work during vacation and sick leave, and every employee must have at least one person who can step in for them. We don’t just expect people to take time off – we build the environment to make it possible and we measure whether it works.
Our employees answer a weekly Moticheck feedback survey, with questions designed around key elements of employee experience. Regarding rest, we ask: is there at least one person who can replace you during vacation or sick leave? Does your manager disturb you during leave? Do you refrain from contacting colleagues while they’re on leave or sick?
These questions are repeated quarterly to track changes, trends, and patterns – not just a one-off annual snapshot.
What have we learned?
Nearly 80% of our employees say they can truly disconnect without being interrupted, and they don’t disturb others either. This percentage has thankfully increased over time. The remaining 20% must remain in our leaders’ focus. That’s where the system still fails and needs attention.
We don’t use regular questions only for feedback, but also to build awareness. When an employee has to evaluate whether they can disconnect or avoid disturbing others, they become more conscious of the importance of true rest. At the same time, our leaders have an extra incentive – their performance bonuses are tied to team feedback results. So when you ask and measure, culture starts to shift.
Vacation structure reflects leadership quality
In the 2024 academic collection Organizational Recovery – How Organizations Promote the Recovery of Their Employees, it is emphasized that organizations can create health-promoting conditions through culture, leadership, workspace, and work design that support employee recovery. This marks a vital shift – recovery-supportive work environments are no longer just a good practice; they’re becoming a strategic leadership benchmark.
True rest is possible only when roles and responsibilities are clear, information flows across teams, systems continue to function despite vacations, and managers don’t message employees during weekends or holidays. These are not people problems – they are leadership issues.
Being irreplaceable is not a virtue
If someone is irreplaceable in your organization, it doesn’t reflect their dedication or skills – it reveals system failure. Irreplaceability usually means knowledge hasn’t been shared, responsibilities haven’t been mapped, and information lives on post-it notes instead of in processes.
From a mental health perspective, this means chronic stress – the knowledge that before taking a vacation, you have to ‘earn it’ by overcompensating, and after returning, you have to ‘pay it back’. Or that even while on vacation, you can’t fully relax. In the long run, this costs the company much more than simply arranging cover.
Where to start?
- Start by asking your employees whether they can truly rest. Do it more than once a year.
- Treat effective vacation planning as a key leadership performance indicator. If people can’t take time off, it’s a process issue.
- Make substitution and knowledge-sharing part of the system. +1 should not be a concept – it should be part of the culture.
- Lead by example. If you, as a manager, message someone during vacation, you’re signaling to the whole team that rest isn’t real.
Good leadership isn’t about feelings – it’s about structure and the ability to build a team that functions even when someone is away. When true rest is possible, people work better, stay healthier, and are more satisfied. Rest is a core requirement for sustainable people and a sustainable business – and it is a leadership decision.