Leadership titles can sound impressive. Director. Vice President. Executive. Team Lead.
But Glenn Brûlé suggests there may be a more revealing way to understand how someone actually leads: look at their calendar.
In Strengthening Minds. Empowering Leaders., Brûlé makes the point that a calendar can expose what a leader truly values not what they say they value, not what appears in a strategic plan and not what is written on a company wall. It shows where attention is actually being invested.
That idea is both simple and uncomfortable.
A leader may say that coaching matters, but is there time reserved for meaningful conversations with team members? They may say strategic thinking is important, but is every open space consumed by meetings? They may claim personal development is a priority, but does reflection ever appear on the schedule?
Brûlé writes from experience. He describes a period when his own calendar was filled from morning to evening with meetings, calls, project reviews, emails, travel, committees and presentations. At the time, being busy felt productive. Looking back, he realized he had confused activity with leadership. Instead of leading his calendar, his calendar was leading him.
That distinction matters because attention is limited.
Modern leaders operate in environments designed to fragment it. Emails arrive constantly. Notifications interrupt conversations. Meetings multiply. Requests compete for immediate responses. Brûlé argues that leaders can gradually become caretakers of everyone else’s priorities while abandoning their own.
And scattered attention affects more than productivity.
The book connects constant interruption with cognitive load, working-memory fragmentation, mental fatigue and reduced decision quality. For leadership, that means the way time is structured can influence the quality of thinking, judgment, communication and presence.
This is why Brûlé introduces the idea of Attention Integrity™: the alignment between what leaders say matters and where they actually place their attention.
If developing people matters, the calendar should show it.
If strategy matters, thinking time needs protection.
If relationships matter, conversations cannot always be squeezed between tasks.
If growth matters, reflection needs space.
Brûlé makes this point particularly clear when discussing reflection. He asks leaders when they actually schedule time to think. Many calendars are packed with meetings, presentations, travel, updates and performance discussions, yet intentional reflection is often missing even though reflection can improve almost every other leadership activity.
That is the larger message behind Strengthening Minds. Empowering Leaders. Leadership is not defined only by authority or intention. It becomes visible through repeated choices.
Your calendar records many of those choices.
So instead of asking only, “What kind of leader do I want to be?” Brûlé encourages a more practical question:
Does my schedule reflect the leader I say I want to become?
That question can reveal priorities, habits and gaps that a job title never will.
Discover Strengthening Minds. Empowering Leaders. by Glenn Brûlé and explore a neuroscience-informed approach to attention, accountability, reflection and intentional leadership.
Get the book on Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0HK4YBJHR
