I was recently shadowing a senior leader as part of an executive coaching process. I attended a team meeting. Half the team had their eyes on laptops, one thumbed a phone under the table, and two whispered about a side issue. After a few minutes of this, the leader sighed and cut across the noise: “Can we please just focus?”

The leader’s frustration was palpable. Deadlines were pressing, and yet the group seemed to be everywhere but here. Her instinct was to clamp down, ban phones, shorten agendas, be stricter. But afterwards, as we explored, she began to see distraction less as a problem of discipline and more as a message. Something in the way her team was connected, the environment they worked in, the larger system around them, or their own psychology was pulling focus away.

Once she reframed it, her role shifted. She no longer needed to be schoolteacher-in-chief. Instead, she became steward of the conditions where attention could naturally thrive.

Here are the four pillars that shape focus and how leaders can work with each one.

1. Connection: To each other and to the goal

Distraction often begins when people feel disconnected. Attention thrives in communities where people experience belonging and see clearly how their effort contributes to something larger than themselves. Without those bonds, the work feels abstract, and minds drift. A team relating only through tasks and deadlines is like strangers on a train carriage, physically together but not bound in purpose.

When leaders build both relational trust and clarity of direction, they weave a fabric strong enough to hold attention.

A coaching example: A leader I worked with noticed her weekly meetings had become one-way broadcasts. Phones slipped out, energy dropped. She experimented with opening in small groups, asking, “What feels most important for us this week?” Within minutes, people leaned in, phones disappeared, and the room’s tone shifted. Attention followed connection.

Top tips for connection

1. Start with conversation, not content. Begin meetings with a check-in: “What feels most important to you this week?”

2. Co-create clarity of purpose. Ask: “What matters most right now? What can we set aside to do this well?”

3. Make accountability peer-to-peer. Encourage commitments spoken to colleagues, not just to the manager.

Reflection questions

• How do I design moments for people to connect before diving into tasks?

• Do we have a shared story about why our work matters, or is everyone working to their own script?

• Where is accountability still flowing only to me, rather than across the team?

Even when connection is strong, the environment can sabotage focus. That is where the second pillar comes in.

2. Environment: protecting attention

Even motivated people struggle to concentrate in environments designed for interruption. The modern workplace often demands constant availability: open-plan offices, endless notifications, calendars packed with meetings. In such settings, distraction is less about personal willpower and more the inevitable outcome of design.

Environments speak louder than instructions. If the space and rhythm of work invite fragmentation, no amount of exhortation will restore concentration. Leaders must treat focus like oxygen: invisible until absent, but essential for life. Protecting attention begins with reshaping the spaces and flows in which people work.

A coaching example: A product team I supported was drowning in Slack pings, emails, and back-to-back Zoom calls. They agreed to introduce two “quiet hours” every afternoon with no meetings and no chat. Within a month, people were not only more productive but also more energised, reporting they finally had time to “think properly.”

Top tips for environment

1. Create quiet hours. Protect blocks of uninterrupted deep work.

2. Cut digital noise. Audit tools, mute non-essential alerts, reduce channels.

3. Redesign meetings. Keep them shorter, more interactive, and end with clear commitments.

Reflection questions

• How does our current workspace, physical and digital, invite or sabotage focus?

• What signals do I send about respecting attention? Do I flood people with messages or protect their time?

• If focus is a scarce resource, what practices do we have to conserve it?

But even if the environment is well-designed, broader systems can still scatter attention. That is the third pillar.

3. System: how work is designed

Beyond the immediate environment lies the larger system, the structures, processes, and incentives that shape behaviour. A team can be well-intentioned yet pulled apart by conflicting priorities, shifting demands from senior leaders, or processes that generate more noise than value.

Systems often reward visible busyness over meaningful progress. Attention gets scattered across tasks that look important but contribute little. When distraction keeps recurring, it may say more about the system than about individual willpower. Leaders who step back to redesign, simplifying, aligning, clarifying, free attention to flow where it is most needed.

A coaching example: That finance leader I mentioned earlier realised her team was not “undisciplined.” They were overwhelmed by reporting software spitting out alerts and executives dropping last-minute demands. The team co-created a fix: turn off low-value alerts, standardise reporting formats, and agree cut-off times for new requests. Distraction fell because the system was simplified, not because people were scolded.

Top tips for system

1. Map sources of interruption. Trace conflicting requests or reporting overload back to their origin.

2. Simplify processes. Standardise and strip out duplication.

3. Align incentives. Ensure people are rewarded for what actually matters, not for scattershot busyness.

Reflection questions

• Where do our systems unintentionally create distraction or overload?

• How much of our busyness comes from real value versus process noise?

• Do our incentives direct attention toward what matters most, or toward competing priorities?

Still, even with systems redesigned, attention can falter because of something more personal: the rhythms and psychology of people themselves.

4. Personal Psychology: energy and resistance

Attention is also shaped by inner experience. It is bounded by biology and influenced by meaning. Humans cannot sustain focus endlessly; concentration ebbs and flows in cycles. When those rhythms are ignored, people unconsciously drift into distraction.

At a deeper level, distraction can also be resistance. People withdraw attention when work feels meaningless, imposed, or overly controlled. Outwardly they comply, but inwardly they disengage. Leaders who treat distraction as laziness miss the point. Leaders who see it as feedback can uncover what people really need.

A coaching example: One executive I supported noticed her team seemed glued to phones during planning sessions. Instead of cracking down, she asked: “What about this process feels like a waste of energy?” The answer: endless rehashing of decisions already made elsewhere. Once the group cut out duplication and reclaimed ownership, phones went away. Distraction had been protest, not weakness.

Top tips for psychology

1. Design with energy cycles. Encourage 90-minute focus sprints, breaks, and varied tasks.

2. Normalise rest. Encourage stepping away. Overwork drives distraction, not productivity.

3. Surface resistance honestly. Ask: “What about this work does not feel worth our best energy?”

Reflection questions

• Do I design with people’s energy limits in mind, or expect them to run indefinitely?

• Where might distraction be a quiet protest, not poor discipline?

• How willing am I to ask uncomfortable questions about meaning and ownership?

Changing the frame

The leader I coached discovered that distraction was not a moral failing but a clue. Sometimes it pointed to a weak connection. Sometimes to a noisy environment. Sometimes to systemic overload. Sometimes, there is personal energy or resistance.

Once she began seeing distraction through these four lenses, her leadership shifted. She stopped asking, “How do I stop them getting distracted?” and started asking, “What conditions would make focus possible here?”

Her team became more engaged not because she tightened the rules, but because they co-created clarity, simplified their environment, and honoured their energy. Distraction did not vanish overnight, but it lost its sting. It became a message about where to pay attention as a leader.

A Challenge for leaders

Focus cannot be forced. It can only be chosen. The work of leadership is to create the conditions across connection, environment, system, and psychology where that choice feels natural, rewarding, and shared.

So here is the challenge:

• What if distraction in your team is not the enemy, but the most honest feedback you will ever receive?

• What would change if you treated attention as your organisation’s most precious shared asset?

• And how would you lead differently if focus was not enforced, but freely chosen?