The Leadership Dividend: Why Time Spent With Your People Has the Highest Return
Leadership strategies for better team performance
How leaders can use effort—not hours—to strengthen connection and performance.
In a recent Harvard Business Review article, researchers highlighted something refreshingly human: effective managers invest time and effort into relationships, not just tasks.
In my work with executives, I see a powerful tension inside this idea.
One leader told me,
“If I had more time, I’d spend more of it on the manufacturing floor with my team.”
The intention was sincere. The reality was familiar: The leadership moments that create alignment and connection are often the first to disappear when the calendar gets crowded.
Yet those small, consistent touch points create trust, clarity, and stronger performance, the “leadership dividend” that grows over time.
When urgency replaces connection
Leaders rarely skip time with their people because they don’t care. They skip it because something else looks more urgent:
A meeting.
A fire drill.
A metrics review.
But here’s the truth: Teams are shaped in conversations, not dashboards.
And when leaders repeatedly choose operational urgency over human connection, they unintentionally:
Reduce visibility
Slow down alignment
Increase miscommunication
Create distance without realizing it
The result?
Leadership becomes reactive, not relational, and organizations feel it.
Connection is a capacity strategy
This is where leadership and Time Economics™ naturally intersect.
In my experience, the highest-return investment a leader can make isn’t a new tool or system, it’s being present with the people doing the work.
Even five intentional minutes can create:
Faster decisions
Better collaboration
Fewer disconnects
Stronger ownership
More consistent progress
This is what Time Economics™ highlights: the return on effort. Not everything requires more time, but it often benefits from better direction of effort inside the time you already have.
Managing work vs. leading people
Every leader faces the same tension: Do I stay in my inbox, or do I step into the environment where my team is working?
Time management pushes leaders toward visible activity. Time Economics™ reframes the question:
“Where will my effort create the strongest return?”
And in nearly every organization I’ve worked with, engaged people produce the returns leaders are aiming for.
The leadership dividend
When leaders consistently invest brief moments into their teams, a measurable shift happens:
Trust deepens
Communication strengthens
Problems surface earlier
Engagement increases
Performance rises
These aren’t soft benefits, they’re operational advantages. This is the leadership dividend: a compounding return created by steady, intentional connection.
And it doesn’t require adding hours to your day. It requires redirecting effort toward what drives progress across the business.
Now what?
If you’re noticing that connection slips when your calendar fills, you’re not alone.
That’s exactly what my Time Economics Workshop helps executives address. It shows teams how to reallocate effort toward high-return activities, including the relational moments that make leadership effective, scalable, and sustainable.
Because leadership isn’t defined by how much you do. It’s defined by how intentionally you invest in the people who move the work forward.
FAQ
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Time Economics™ helps leaders see where their effort creates the strongest return. It reframes connection from a “nice-to-have” into a strategic investment that improves decision-making, collaboration, and execution.
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Most leaders don’t need more hours, they need better direction of effort inside the hours they already have. Even a few intentional minutes with employees can significantly improve alignment and performance.
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Connection directly influences performance. When employees feel seen and supported, they communicate sooner, solve problems faster, and produce stronger work. It’s a business accelerator, not a cultural accessory.
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It gives executives and teams a clear view of where time and effort are being overspent, incorrectly invested, or underleveraged. Then, it guides them through a practical redesign of workflows, decisions, and collaboration so progress compounds instead of stalls.