For many managers, the workday doesn't really end when they leave the office.
After a day filled with meetings, emails, deadlines, and difficult decisions, the evening can become the only quiet time available to catch up. Checking messages after dinner may seem responsible. Answering a few emails before bed can feel productive.
But new research suggests there may be a cost: managers who continue dwelling on work in the evening can be less effective leaders the following day.
A bad night can affect the next workday
Research led by University of Florida management researcher Klodiana Lanaj followed managers and their employees from day to day. The findings suggest that managers who spent their evenings mentally stuck on work tended to arrive the next morning feeling more depleted.
That exhaustion affected how they led.
Employees reported receiving less of the two things they most need from their managers: support and direction.
In other words, the problem isn't simply that a manager feels tired. When mental recovery doesn't happen after work, that fatigue can influence how the manager interacts with the team the next morning.
Managers who were able to mentally disconnect from work, by contrast, tended to feel more rested and were better able to engage in leadership activities the following day.
Why disconnecting from work is becoming harder
Modern work culture makes switching off increasingly difficult.
Microsoft's Work Trend Index has reported growth in meetings taking place outside traditional working hours, while many employees continue checking email late into the evening. For remote and hybrid workers, the boundary between working time and personal time can be particularly difficult to maintain.
For managers, this creates a familiar cycle:
Work runs late → the evening becomes recovery time → work messages continue → sleep and recovery suffer → leadership performance suffers the next day.
A few emails may not seem significant. The bigger issue is whether work remains mentally active long after the laptop is closed.
New managers may be especially vulnerable
The research also highlights an important issue for people who have recently moved into management.
Experienced managers have usually encountered difficult workplace situations before. They may have developed ways to process conflict, uncertainty, and pressure without carrying those problems into the evening.
New managers don't necessarily have that experience.
A difficult conversation with an employee, an unfamiliar leadership responsibility, or a problem they don't know how to solve can continue occupying their thoughts long after the workday ends.
That's why leadership training shouldn't focus only on what managers do during working hours. Recovery outside work can also influence how effectively someone leads.
You don't need a complicated recovery routine
Disconnecting from work doesn't have to mean following a particular wellness program.
Different people recover in different ways. Exercise, walking, hobbies, spending time with family, reading, or simply having a period without work-related screens can help create a psychological boundary between work and personal life.
One practical step is especially straightforward:
Set a clear time when work ends for the day.
That doesn't mean every manager can stop working at exactly the same hour every evening. It means deliberately creating a point at which work is no longer the default activity.
Managers influence their employees' evenings, too
There is another side to the issue: a manager's behavior can affect how employees experience their own evenings.
Research by Sabine Sonnentag of the University of Mannheim and colleagues found that employees can have greater difficulty mentally disconnecting from work when they expect their manager might contact them outside working hours.
Importantly, the manager doesn't necessarily have to send a message every night.
If employees believe a late-night email could arrive at any moment, they may continue thinking about work and checking their phones even when no message comes.
That means an occasional late-night email can communicate more than its immediate content. It can create an expectation that employees should remain available.
Senior leaders set the tone
This isn't only an issue for individual managers.
Consider what happens when a senior executive sends an email to a manager at 10 p.m. The manager may feel pressure to respond immediately — and may then forward the request to their own team.
One late-night message can therefore travel down an entire organizational hierarchy.
If senior leaders wait until the next morning whenever something can reasonably wait, they give everyone below them permission to do the same.
Creating healthier boundaries therefore requires more than telling employees to "switch off." Organizations also need leadership practices that make switching off realistic.
What managers and companies can do
A few practical habits can help:
Set a predictable end-of-day boundary. Decide when routine work should stop whenever possible.
Avoid unnecessary late-night messages. If something can wait until morning, schedule it for the next workday.
Use delayed delivery for non-urgent emails. This prevents your working hours from becoming someone else's working hours.
Protect managers' own recovery time. Leaders cannot consistently protect their teams from excessive work if their own schedules leave them exhausted.
Give new managers additional support. First-time leaders may need particular help dealing with uncertainty and workplace stress.
Focus on outcomes rather than constant availability. Being reachable at all hours is not the same thing as being an effective manager.
The bottom line
Leadership doesn't begin from zero every morning.
How a manager spends the evening can influence how much energy, attention, and patience they bring to their team the next day. And because managers set expectations for their employees, their own working habits can affect the wider team's ability to disconnect as well.
The goal isn't to eliminate ambition or stop managers from working hard.
It's to recognize that recovery is part of sustainable performance.
A manager who closes the laptop at night isn't necessarily less committed to the job. Sometimes, stepping away from work is precisely what allows them to return the next morning ready to lead.