Vitamin R for Engineering Leaders: Recovery
Imagine you’re in a high-stakes meeting with VPs or executives. A question is directed at you, and you freeze. Or you have a brilliant insight but stay silent, paralyzed by the fear of being wrong.
The meeting ends. You have five minutes before a 1:1 with a direct report who is struggling with a critical project. How do you show up?
If you are still stuck in the “mental loop” of the previous meeting, for example, replaying your silence, criticizing your performance, and feeling the heat of self-doubt, you have no energy left to be the leader your report needs.
This is why we need Vitamin R: Recovery.
The Cost of “Emotional Latency”
In engineering, latency is the delay between a request and a response.
Leadership has its own version of latency: the time between an event and your ability to show up fully for the next one. When you can’t recover from a mistake, or even a moment of discomfort, your “emotional latency” spikes.
You carry the baggage of the last meeting into the next. You ruminate, you replay, you self-criticize. That invisible load quietly taxes everything that matters: your ability to mentor, give clear feedback, stay patient, and think strategically.
We often focus on external management, such as motivating teams, recognizing talent, setting direction, etc, but the most critical system to manage is yourself.
Habits over Perfection
In nutrition, a deficiency isn’t caused by one “cheat meal”. What matters is the set of habits that reliably brings you back on track. For instance, I love sourdough bread, and enjoying it occasionally doesn’t compromise my health because I have a robust system of good habits (e.g., 90% of my diet is based on whole foods).
Recovery in leadership works the same way. When you have a solid foundation of leadership habits, a single “bad” meeting or an emotional reaction under pressure isn’t a system failure, but just a data point.
One missed answer doesn’t define your competence. One failed launch doesn’t define your organization. One tense 1:1 doesn’t define your values.
It only becomes a real deficiency when you stop the recovery process, when you stop reflecting, adjusting, and returning to your baseline habits.
Quickly recovering (aka “absorbing Vitamin R”) prevents a single error from turning into a permanent outage.
Managing Your Uptime
A different use case is when engineering leaders often go through “sprints”, long stretches of high-intensity focus, or heavy planning seasons.
In a distributed system, if a node is under heavy load for too long, we remove it from rotation to prevent a crash. As a leader, you must do the same. In this case, Vitamin R (Recovery) needs to be absorbed slowly and intentionally. Allowing yourself time to recover after a period of high intensity is not “slacking”, it guarantees longevity. Similarly, in fitness, muscle doesn’t grow during the set; it grows during the rest period. Without recovery, effort turns into injury.
How to Absorb Vitamin R
When you find yourself spiraling into self-criticism (rumination), you need habits that interrupt the loop and create space for recovery.
1) Write it down, then schedule it
Spend 60 seconds jotting down the mistake or the sentence you wish you had said. This “flushes” it from your mind. Then explicitly allocate time later (even 15 minutes) to reflect. The act of scheduling it reassures your brain that it won’t be ignored, so it can let go for now.
2) Do a quick physical reset
Wash your hands, stand up, step outside, or grab a coffee or a glass of water between calls. A physical interrupt signals closure: the last meeting is done, and a new one is starting.
3) Use the 5–5–5 rule
Will this matter in 5 minutes? 5 months? 5 years?
Most mistakes don’t survive the second “5.” This reframes the moment and reduces the emotional charge.
4) Box breathing
Use a 4-second box breathing cycle (inhale–hold–exhale–hold). This lowers physiological stress and helps shift you from “fight” back into a calmer, more deliberate mode.
If instead you feel depleted after a major milestone, you need different recovery habits: ones that reduce cognitive load and prevent burnout.
5) Non-decision time
Block a half-day (or a full day) with zero high-stakes decisions. Use it for input gathering, writing, planning, and reflection, not for irreversible decisions.
6) Zero-notification hours
Build a daily habit that removes notifications: a workout, a long walk, or a simple routine without your phone (or with it, but without checking your messages). These are scheduled maintenance windows. They remind you that you’re not just a leader, you’re a person with constraints, needs, and priorities.
7) Take a PTO
Take some time off to recharge. A few days away from the office or work could be beneficial to fully recover in some situations.
Vitamin R doesn’t come in a bottle, but it may be the most valuable supplement for a sustainable career: it’s a self-healing mechanism.
The best engineering leaders aren’t defined by avoiding mistakes. They’re defined by how they “Recover”.