One important aspect of leadership is time estimation. Having a realistic sense of implementation time, cross-project dependencies, and team bandwidth is critical to delivering complicated work without burning people out.

Even the best estimators are still human — and as a species, our ability to estimate accurately is always a challenge. This is especially true for high achievers who default to yes. It matters that leaders recognize when more time is needed, and actively encourage it rather than rewarding the false confidence of an aggressive deadline.

"Done by Friday, sir!" is the answer a manager wants to hear — it ticks their box for the upward progress report. A leader hears the same answer differently, and might respond: "Take until Tuesday." Because they know the work that happens in those extra days often yields meaningfully better results.