A few years ago, I worked with a leader who had just stepped into a demanding new role while also caring for a seriously ill family member. His stress levels were unsustainable.
During one particularly heavy travel week (think three European capitals in four days) he began taking his camera out in the evenings. First, mostly as a distraction. But, by the end of the year he had photographs framed in his office. The role was still intense, family life still demanding, but he found an outlet both challenging and low stakes. He didn’t need to relax; he needed to focus. But not on work, and not on family.
When a leader isn’t ‘at the office’ they’re just a person. A hobby is just a hobby. Your prime competition is yourself (or perhaps someone on Instagram). Even failures are mostly just dares to stick around and improve. When failing at something fun, our reaction is ‘oh, I can do better than that’. (Cue: every game ever played on your mobile.)
At work, failure can lead to self-indictment. In fun, it is merely part of the path, the process of moving from amateur to accomplished. There’s even reliance on that certainty. I don’t have to be brilliant to learn to bake better or improve my French. Each time I mess up, I get better and sharper. Taking risks at work is scary. But taking no risks starves our innovation and our adaptability atrophies.
New hobbies are challenging but low risk disruptions to our comfort zone.
Several years ago I wrote about my post-Covid re-entry into London life. Like many people, I emerged feeling lonely after so much forced isolation. I missed the physical routine of training for triathlons and gyms were open again. It would’ve been easy to go back. But that’s a mostly solitary endeavour, and it didn’t appeal.
You’ll have to check out my other post to learn how competitive ballroom dancing ends the story, but the point here is that I took a massive risk. If you’re the person who thought cycling, swimming, and running in one go was ‘enjoyable’, you can imagine the mindset shift required to tango or foxtrot…competitively. (I’m as surprised as you are.)
For me it opened up an entirely different side of what a hobby could be. The physical test was still there — if anything, my core strength was better than before — but my mind was working in a completely new way: coordination, timing, listening, communication. With a teammate, not a stopwatch.
Lower stakes errors let us learn without scrutinty.
Leaders rarely describe themselves as self-taught. Yet most rely on their own experience at work. With a hobby, it’s easy to forgive yourself for beginner mistakes. But at work, even in uncharted waters, leaders demand of themselves flawless execution. In other words, strong leaders demand a great deal of themselves. Hobbies give them permission not to.
There’s also an unspoken assumption by many successful people that every hour should justify itself. But stepping away often restores the very focus you’re chasing.
Neuroscience backs this up: short periods of intentional rest help the brain integrate complex information far more effectively than continuous effort. You don’t have to meditate on a mountain. Ten quiet minutes of something undemanding — running, sketching, gardening, anything ‘not work’ — can have the same effect.
Disruption as education.
Disrupting yourself on purpose isn’t meant to be punishment. It’s a special kind of maintenance: by doing something new you maintain skills that atrophy in extended routines. Your failures are more frequent, so you experience more humility. That humility usually extends to being more empathetic and patient. It sustains and stretches your adaptability: with a new set of hobbies, things take longer, require new tools (mental or physical) and challenges your status quo.
One client told me her early-morning runs, done without music, were ‘her part’ of her day. Another client kept a putting mat in his office. Not even to improve his game: it was just a ritual that forced him to slow down.
Particularly interesting (to me, anyway) was a CEO who deliberately took up a new hobby every five years, purely to stay bad at something. He loved the humility of learning because it helped him remember what it felt like to be new when he managed people without extensive experience.
The point isn’t the activity; it’s the reset. When you spend your professional life mastering uncertainty, it’s healthy to have one area where the stakes are low, progress is optional, and joy is allowed to be the goal.
There’s also a restorative rhythm in having a pursuit where progress is visible. Executives spend most of their days dealing with abstract outcomes — strategy, influence, shareholder value. A painting finished, a loaf baked, a photograph printed — these are tangible. They remind people that effort can still produce something you can hold in your hands.
Trying something new outside of work might be the smartest leadership move you can make.
The last point is simply the value of observing our behaviour in low stakes environments. Do we improve faster without pressure? Are we more willing to ask for help? Do we seek collaboration or solitude? A hobby doesn’t just teach you a new skill, it can reveal different ways to overcome challenges. But at the end of the day, new hobbies break us out of our safety zones. And sometimes, make us break out our dancing shoes.
In terms of my background and expertise, I have spent my entire career working as a trusted advisor to senior leaders wanting to improve the effectiveness of themselves, their teams and their companies. Prior to starting my own consulting firm, I led the global executive assessment and development team for Cisco. Earlier in my career I held leadership roles with RHR International, PepsiCo, Ashridge Executive Education, Hult International Business School and the Central European University, Budapest, Hungary.
