As business leaders, we spend a great deal of time thinking about how to get the best from our people. We invest in training, culture-building, performance management, and flexible work policies. But there's one factor most of us consistently overlook: when our employees do their work, not just how they do it.

I recently came across research written about in Harvard Business Review that intrigued me, and I think it will resonate with you, too.

Each of us has a circadian rhythm – a biological internal clock that governs our energy, focus, and emotional regulation throughout the day. You've likely heard the terms: "larks" (morning people), "night owls," and those in between. What's important for leaders to understand is that these are not habits or preferences your employees can simply willpower their way out of. They are deeply rooted biological dispositions that remain stable over time.

Most of us have a general sense of our own rhythms. But very few of us build our workdays around them and most likely, even fewer think intentionally about our team members' rhythms when making decisions about scheduling, task assignment, or meetings.

Research shows that when people consistently work at their circadian low points, the consequences include weakened decision-making, more mistakes, reduced creativity, and even compromised ethical judgment.

Learning your teams’ circadian rhythms can help you optimize their peak times throughout the day. Here are a few principles worth considering:

• Start with self-awareness. Leaders who understand their own peak periods can protect that time for high-stakes work such as complex decisions, difficult conversations, and performance reviews while shifting routine tasks to their lower-energy windows.
• Map your team's rhythms. Free, validated tools like the Morningness-Eveningness Questionnaire can help teams identify when members are naturally most alert. Armed with that knowledge, leaders can schedule high-stakes collaboration during shared peak windows and use asynchronous workflows to bridge the gaps when peaks don't align.
• Assign stretch work strategically. People are more resilient, better at handling pressure, and quicker to recover from setbacks during their peak time. That's when to assign challenging, developmental work. Conversely, during circadian lows, steer employees toward lower-stakes, routine responsibilities. Don't confuse low energy with low commitment.
• Treat circadian misalignment as a risk factor. When urgent demands push people to work outside their most effective hours, it should be approached as a high-risk operating condition. Use checklists, add a second set of eyes on anything irreversible, and limit real-time decision-making to only what truly can't wait. When misalignment becomes the chronic norm, burnout follows.

"Morningness" Bias

Many organizations tend to equate early-morning energy with competence, discipline, and leadership potential. The popularity of the "5-to-9 before 9-to-5" mindset on social media amplifies this assumption. But that bias can lead us to systematically undervalue talented evening-type employees and overestimate the performance of those who simply happen to peak early.

When we build evaluation processes, meeting norms, and scheduling practices that assume everyone is at their best first thing in the morning, we may be inadvertently creating inequitable conditions. As leaders, we're well positioned to challenge this.

I encourage you to reflect on your own rhythms, have honest conversations with your teams, and look for the small, practical ways you can begin to put the right work in the right hands at the right time.

As always, I'd love to hear how you're approaching this in your organizations. Email me at mcorrado@aseonline.org