The Fallow Season: What Leaders Can Learn from Farmers
- 2 days ago
- 7 min read
Updated: 1 hour ago
Jan Turner works at the intersection of leadership, resilience, and conscious transformation. As an executive coach, former C-suite leader, and 2x burnout survivor, she brings the human back to organizations and guides leaders home to themselves.
I will never forget meeting a senior colleague at a community event where we were both volunteering. He had just returned from a six-month sabbatical to fulfill a dream of traveling the country. After obtaining his truck driver’s license, he drove a big rig around the nation, meeting people of all kinds, living simply and reconnecting with what truly mattered to his soul. He had returned to work uplifted and recharged and continued an impressive trajectory of leadership and impact.
That conversation deeply inspired me. As an executive coach, I’ve supported leader after leader who is disconnected from the natural rhythms that nurture us as human beings. Many professionals have shaped their identities and built work cultures around the often unstated belief that taking a meaningful break signals weakness or equates to failure. Rest can feel like a privilege you have to earn instead of a basic necessity. Organizations and executives can benefit from taking a page out of the playbook of farmers who, for centuries, have understood that this perspective is deeply misguided.
The value of a fallow field
In agriculture, fallowing is the process of leaving land intentionally unplanted for one or more growing seasons. This practice allows the soil to regain nutrient content and disrupts pests and pathogens. Combined with crop rotation, fallowing enables farmers to generate optimal yields more effectively and efficiently. When farmers ignore these steps, they can see their production decline until they potentially reach a point where the soil can no longer meet their demands.
This concept applies to leaders as well. Just as our bodies and minds need true rest to recharge, we must take time to restore the cognitive and emotional energy that high performance requires.
A 2025 United Kingdom-based study confirmed that recovery from work is an active process through which psychological and physiological systems return to baseline after strain. Without it, chronic exhaustion follows, impairing performance and decision-making and potentially leading to burnout and its cocktail of challenging symptoms: negativity, apathy, relationship strain and illness, among others.
What stopping produces
Extended rest provides leaders a host of benefits. A Harvard Business Review study found that 75% of leaders return from sabbaticals with fresh organizational visions, and nearly half successfully implement those innovations. Additionally, research from the University of Tampere found that extended rest significantly reduced stress and increased wellbeing, with effects lasting months after return, producing greater creativity, emotional resilience and improved cognitive function. Furthermore, extended breaks from work create distance, which can be a powerful condition under which perspective becomes possible. Dynamics such as mindset, decision-making, and behavioral patterns that can be very challenging to see from inside an organizational system become more readily apparent from outside it.
Organizations can also benefit when leaders take a meaningful pause from their work. When employees see their careers as a decades-long marathon, engagement and retention can suffer over time. Occasional extended breaks have been shown to lessen these risks. Additionally, when leaders step aside for a period of time, there is more headroom and opportunity for those on their teams to step up and contribute at a higher level, potentially uncovering talent that was lacking visibility and sufficient ‘at-bat’ opportunities. Interestingly, 60% of senior executives who took sabbaticals reported that their boards became more effective because of the planning their absence required.
Why we say no anyway
High-achieving professionals can pass up experiences that could truly benefit them, in part because of a deeply ingrained belief that their presence is essential and that taking time out from day-to-day projects is a weakness or an unrealistic pipe dream. Examples include not taking vacation time, carrying it over into the next calendar year and then failing to use it again, not taking paid time off, and/or requesting leave only when illness, medical conditions, or qualifying situations arise for themselves or their loved ones.
This dynamic stems at least in part from identity. When your self-worth is tied to your output, taking a break can feel like you're fading away or admitting defeat. Culture can also play a role. Many corporate settings tend to reward those who are always visible and taking on more. Employees may feel they are signaling to superiors and colleagues that they’re not serious about advancement, and they may fear sidetracking their career by intentionally ‘tapping the brakes’ at work. They may worry that a crisis will arise while they are away, or worse, that their job will be on the line if they step away for even a brief time.
A MetLife survey of over 2,600 full-time employees found that 66% wish they had access to paid sabbatical programs. The desire is definitely there, but in most organizations, the authentic support and appropriate programs are not.
What it means to be intentional about rest
Rejuvenation for leaders can come in many forms. What matters most is the intention behind it. Here are some ways to make a period of conscious rest meaningfully rich.
Set clear boundaries: Research on the way humans recover from workplace stress shows that truly stepping away from work on occasion is essential for our mental health. Establishing clear boundaries and openly communicating with colleagues about your non-negotiables for time away is an important act of personal leadership. This also includes letting others know the conditions under which you can be reached in a truly urgent situation.
Use the time to ask the questions you don’t make space for: This can include questions like these: What do I most need from this time away and for my next chapter? What have I been sidestepping or avoiding? How can I show up from a place of my highest self when I return to work? Ask the questions that most driven professionals rarely give themselves focused time or permission to contemplate.
Reconnect with who you are beyond the role: Many leaders share that after taking a sabbatical, they reconnect with aspects of their lives that had been put on hold for years, such as old hobbies, meaningful relationships, and learning new skills. Back in the workplace, experiences like these can increase leaders’ capacity to nurture others through genuine presence and curiosity. It’s hard to tap into such essential qualities when you are often running on empty.
Role model sustainable leadership: Leaders who prioritize wholeness in their own lives set a powerful and potentially life-altering example for others, whether they be colleagues, business partners, community members, or loved ones. When leaders take occasional extended breaks, they can encourage more employees to want to advance within the organization and take on the greater risk/reward trade-off of senior roles.
It’s not just about sabbaticals; make it a recurring practice: Leaders often take an extended break only when their bodies force them through illness, burnout, or life-changing situations. The professionals who best sustain their energy and overall wellbeing prioritize and build into their schedule ways to stay present, purposeful, and resilient. They then readily call upon these capacities when facing a significant obstacle or challenge. This can be practiced in different ways and to varying degrees:
Designate one day a week with no screens, no news, and no work-related input.
Spend time in nature, even briefly. Research consistently shows it reduces stress and restores attention.
Return to something you did before you became who you are at work: a creative practice, a physical pursuit, a form of play.
Take up a skill where you have no expertise, no reputation, and no performance pressure.
Sit with silence intentionally, whether through meditation or contemplative practice.
Inspiration lies within and without
I vividly recall a coaching client telling me he had only one professional regret: turning down his firm’s offer of a 30-day sabbatical earlier in his career. Now a partner, he wondered if such an option could ever be on the table again. He was describing a window that had opened and closed, and a version of himself he never got to meet.
That ‘other version’ of each of us is within reach and is waiting to be uncovered. As a leader, what steps could you take to prepare for what is yet to come in your work, career, or life? How could you support your team members in their own growth and leadership journeys? What could your organization do to better support employees and become an exemplar in its industry as the macro, technological, and competitive forces shift with ever-greater uncertainty? When we take on the mindset of a cultivator, we can help ensure that whatever springs forth as the seasons inevitably change will be more resilient than what came before.
The high-performing professionals and teams I work with often carry more than they realize. Integrative Coaching creates the space to name what is happening and rebuild from a stronger, more sustainable foundation. If you or your team are navigating a transition or wondering what it would mean to lead from a fuller place, explore more here.
Read more from Jan Turner
Jan Turner, Executive Coach and Strategic Advisor
Jan Turner is an executive coach, strategic advisor, and former C-suite leader with over 25 years of experience in global financial services. Having led teams across 11 different functions and survived burnout twice, she guides leaders and teams through significant transitions, helping them build trust, grow in confidence, and move beyond self-defeating habits. Jan’s approach combines whole-person development, mindfulness, business acumen, and practical leadership techniques that deepen presence, resilience, and overall impact. She helps organizations and teams to navigate complexity and drive results by fostering personal growth and transformative leadership. Her mission: bring the human back to organizations and leaders, home to themselves.
References:
Affinity Health at Work, 2025, Regular Breaks, Detachment and Recovery: The Hidden Drivers of Wellbeing and Performance
Harvard Business Review, 2025, When Employees Take Sabbaticals, Organizations Benefit
University of Tampere, 2021, Why More Professionals Are Taking Sabbaticals — And How It's Transforming Work and Well-Being (Forbes, citing University of Tampere study)
Atlassian / TSNE Mission Works, 2018, Is It Really Worth It to Take a Sabbatical?
Forbes / MetLife, 2025, Why More Employers Offer Paid Sabbaticals to Combat Burnout
