ServiceNow president and chief financial officer Gina Mastantuono has urged business leaders to treat recovery and work-life balance as essential to performance, warning that long hours and minimal sleep can set a damaging example for employees.
Speaking at the Fortune Most Powerful Women Summit in Santa Barbara, California, Mastantuono said the business world had not fully adopted the approach to rest long understood by athletes.
She said some senior employees still appeared to value overwork as a sign of commitment, telling Deloitte’s US sports chief commercial officer and women’s sports leader Alicia Hatch: “There’s always been this—if you have to work 14-hour days and you get four hours sleep, and that shows that you’re working the hardest and you deserve the most.”
“And in fact, that is such a terrible example for the people around us,” she added.
Mastantuono, who has spoken about the role of fitness in personal health and leadership, said recovery should be regarded as part of achievement rather than something secondary to it.
“Recovery is part of the performance; it’s not secondary,” she said. “Muscle doesn’t grow when we pump out at the gym. It grows when we’re sleeping at night and letting the muscles recover.”
Research cited at the discussion included a University of Florida meta-analysis of almost 200 studies, which found that recovering from work was associated with better sleep, improved mental health and greater long-term satisfaction with life.
Mastantuono said applying that principle had helped her listen more carefully rather than react immediately, while remaining calm under pressure. She attributed those changes to better work-life balance and said they had enabled her teams to carry out their work more effectively.
“When we do focus on taking care of ourselves, then we are much better bosses, much better colleagues, much better parents,” she said.
Janet Evans, a four-time Olympic medallist and swimming and chief athlete officer for LA28, the organising committee for the 2028 Olympic and Paralympic Games in Los Angeles, also described the importance of taking time to recover.
Evans said she had sometimes needed reminders to step back, despite her experience of managing recovery during competition. She recalled LA28 chief executive Reynold Hoover, a three-star former US Army lieutenant general, using military language in the workplace to encourage her to leave a problem until the following day.
“No one’s guns are drawn. No one is shooting each other,” Evans recalled him saying. “So Janet, you’re gonna figure this out tomorrow.”
