Is energy management the new time management?
Modern work rarely gives people space to pause. The pace is fast, expectations are high, and technology has made it possible to stay connected almost all the time. For many leaders and teams, the challenge is no longer about fitting more tasks into the day, but about sustaining the energy, attention, and judgment needed to perform well over time.
This conversation brings together facilitators from The Academy by Intuition to reflect on what that challenge looks like in practice. It begins with energy management, but gradually moves into broader territory, touching on how people experience pressure at work, how leaders influence others through their behavior, and where tools like AI can help or fall short. Along the way, the discussion explores ideas of trust, psychological safety, and the role of self-reflection in understanding what truly drives performance.
Highlights:
Is energy management the new time management?
Juanita
My question for you is this. In a professional landscape that makes us feel that we need to be plugged in and connected to keep up and stay on top of things, how can businesses and L&D leaders equip their teams to proactively manage their mental and physical energy, rather than just reacting to work demands and professional demands?
Is there any one common misconception about energy management that you frequently encounter through the workshops and coaching that you do?
Wendy
With technology, it is probably an enabler, but it also makes us feel that we need to be constantly plugged in. I can resonate with what you are saying. There is a lot of demand on us every day.
But if we look at this concept of time, we all have the same amount every day. We all have 24 hours.
Instead of managing just our time, which is not effective enough, we should also think about what we are doing to harness the energy we have. How do we manage the quality of energy that we bring into how we use our time every day? That is essentially what energy management is about.
There is now a wave of interest in this because people are feeling the fatigue, the stress, and the drain of what we are doing every day. The concept, in short, is managing our energy so that we can manage the demands and roles that we face every day.
Do we need to rethink ‘energy’?
Juanita
I think so much is going on in the tech world right now. I am actually feeling a bit overwhelmed with so many tech tools coming out and new features being introduced, just wanting to make sure that I do not lose out as well.
So managing all of this, and our own energy awareness, is also very important.
Thanks, Wendy. Those are really good insights. Leonard, I just wondered if there is anything you would like to add to what we have just spoken about.
Leonard
Yes, I think there is a misunderstood idea of energy management. When people talk about energy management, they often think about reducing stress and workload. Very often, we frame it in that sense.
However, I like to move that paradigm to something a bit different. I feel there is a missing piece. The basic idea is how to increase energy, rather than just manage energy.
If you look at that, things like alignment with purpose become important.
Can AI help us manage our energy?
Juanita
With so much talk about AI, Wendy, do you think there is a role for AI in proactive energy management?
Wendy
I think there is. If you look at the role of AI and how it can help us, AI can support us at work. We use AI to automate processes, and we have AI companions that help us collaborate and think. That is on the work side.
If you think about how AI can be infused into personal energy management, today we have health trackers and tools like that. AI can help analyse biometric data, sleep patterns, and energy levels to suggest ways we could optimize our work, focus, relaxation, and sleep.
It can even suggest when we should take our meals and what we should eat. I think AI has a role to play. It is about how we choose to integrate it into our lives, both in work and in our personal space. These are tools that help us, especially because we are so busy. This is definitely a space to watch.
Leonard
That said, AI is a tool. It cannot replace what drives us in terms of energy. In any discussion on energy management, we need to understand and self-reflect on what energizes us.
The 4 pillars of developing trust
Leonard
In the work by David Maister, when we talk about trust, it can be a very woolly thing. You trust someone, but you do not trust someone else. The question then is why and how. Why do you trust that person and not the other one?
What I like about The Trust Equation from David Maister is that it focuses on credibility, reliability, intimacy, and the idea that people do not see you as someone who acts out of self-interest.
If you look at these four concepts and work with them, you can start to think about how to increase credibility, reliability, and intimacy, and so on. We talk a lot about this in workshops on influencing because it really helps people think about whether trust is there to begin with.
Looking inward to increase our energy
Leonard
I think there is a misunderstood idea of energy management. When people talk about energy management, they think about reducing stress and workload.
However, I like to move that paradigm to something a bit different. I feel there is a missing piece. The basic idea is how to increase energy, rather than just manage energy.
If you look at things like alignment with purpose or focusing on strengths, these are concepts that come up quite regularly in positive psychology, where we focus more on the positive side of things and what drives us.
Often, the focus is on what is lacking and how we need to improve. But we forget to look at strengths. What have you done well?
Juanita
Forgetting what we have done is common, and I think celebrating small wins is very important.
Why AI advice falls flat without self-reflection
Leonard
It starts from there. Because if you ask AI what to do, it will give you a string of suggestions. Some of them may appeal to you, and some may not appeal to you at all.
That is why there is a lot of self-reflection needed. There is often an argument that you do not have time to reflect, and I contest that.
Any discussion or workshop we do on energy management needs to include elements of self-reflection around what energizes you. It can be many things, as I mentioned earlier.
From there, you can start to think about how to manage your energy and how to change.
Every leader sends signals, whether they mean to or not
Leonard
What I am trying to say here is behavior. The cues that leaders let out, often unconsciously. Like it or not, leaders are watched.
Because they are watched, whatever cues leaders put out are judged. That is why, in any workshop on psychological safety, leaders need to be aware.
They need to be mindful of the kind of energy they bring, the words they use, and the actions they exhibit. These things can create psychological safety issues.
