Sleep deprivation has become one of leadership’s most normalized sacrifices. In this essay, Chinyere Oparah explores how burnout, late-night work, and constant responsiveness undermine leaders’ wellbeing and decision-making. Drawing on coaching experience, sleep research, and critiques of grind culture, she argues that reclaiming sleep is both a leadership practice and a form of resistance. The piece offers leaders practical strategies for restoring healthier rhythms of work and rest.

Chinyere Oparah explores what it means to lead with courage in seasons of fear. Reflecting on the fallout from the 2025 DEI executive order and the conversations sparked at AAC&U, she examines the tension between strategy and complicity, and invites leaders to consider how small, collective acts of integrity shape institutional culture. 

As we close out a grueling year, Chinyere Oparah reflects on grief, ambiguous loss, and the quiet resilience required to keep leading with integrity and heart. As the year comes to a close, I’ve been sitting with the weight of what this year has asked of us. I suspect I'm not alone in feeling like 2025 was one of the hardest years I've lived through. Many of us are ending the year holding immense grief – sharp and visceral, or stifled and unnamed, because there was no time to feel it. We have...