I've sat through enough 8 a.m. leadership meetings fueled by black coffee and stale pastries to know something is broken. We spend fortunes on leadership training, emotional intelligence workshops, and strategy retreats — yet we rarely talk about the plate in front of the leader, or the water they forgot to drink by 3 p.m.
Let me be upfront: what follows is not a scientific paper or a nutritionist's prescription. It's my opinion, shaped by years of watching people — and myself — perform, struggle, and recover in the workplace.
As a Group HR Manager, I've come to believe that leadership isn't just built in boardrooms. It's built in kitchens, in gyms, on morning walks, and yes — in salad bowls.
I didn't read this in a textbook. I lived it, watching my own energy and judgment rise and fall with what I ate, drank, and how much I moved — and watching the same pattern repeat in the leaders around me.
A Bowl With a Backbone
Let me make the case with something deceptively simple: a salad of crisp lettuce, sweet cherry tomatoes, sharp white onions, crunchy nuts, and a handful of fresh fruit — finished with a drizzle of olive oil and a squeeze of lemon.
This isn't just lunch. It's a metaphor I've come to lean on — one I didn't invent overnight, but arrived at slowly, meal by meal, meeting by meeting. It represents the kind of leader I want to be, and the kind of leaders I try to develop.
• Lettuce is the foundation — humble, unglamorous, but it holds everything together. Good leaders build on solid values, not charisma alone.
• Cherry tomatoes burst with flavor in small packages. The best ideas in an organization often come from the quietest voices — small, but capable of transforming the whole dish.
• White onions bring sharpness. Real leadership needs a little discomfort — honest feedback, difficult conversations, the willingness to sting a little for the sake of growth.
• Nuts add crunch and staying power — resilience. They're small, dense, and packed with what you need to get through a long day.
• Fruit adds sweetness — because leadership without joy, humor, and celebration burns people out.
• Olive oil is the binder — the quiet consistency that holds a team culture together, smooth and unforced.
• Lemon is the finish — that final sharp note of clarity that cuts through fog and wakes up flavor, the same way a clear decision cuts through a cluttered meeting.
A salad works because no single ingredient dominates. Neither should a leader. This is the part of my own experience I trust most — I've felt the difference on the days I actually built my plate this way versus the days I grabbed whatever was fastest.
Dehydration Is a Leadership Risk, Not Just a Health One
Here's my unpopular opinion, drawn from watching my own bad days far too closely: dehydration might be one of the most underrated threats to leadership performance today.
We talk about burnout, decision fatigue, and poor judgment under pressure — but we rarely connect the dots to something as basic as water intake. I know this because I've been the dehydrated leader — the one who snapped in a meeting or misread a room by 4 p.m., and blamed it on "a bad day" when the real issue was simpler and more fixable than that.
That personal recognition is what changed my habits. I've started keeping a bottle of water on the table in every leadership meeting I run. It's a small nudge, but it says something bigger to me: clarity starts with hydration.
When the Afternoon Slump Hits
Every leader knows that 2 p.m. wall — the one where energy dips, patience thins, and focus scatters. I know it intimately, because I used to fight it with extra coffee, and it never actually worked; it just delayed the crash.
These days, I often reach for something lighter instead: a cold mix of celery, lemon, and cucumber, with a scoop of matcha stirred in. I didn't arrive at this combination from research — I arrived at it from trial and error, from paying attention to how my own body and focus responded.
Cucumber and celery rehydrate, lemon sharpens, matcha delivers a calm, steady lift instead of the jittery crash I used to feel. I've noticed the difference myself: fewer sluggish afternoons, clearer thinking in late-day meetings, and a mood that doesn't dip by 5 p.m.
This is the kind of small ritual leadership development programs rarely mention — yet in my own experience, it has done as much for my decision-making as an hour-long workshop.
You Don't Need a Gym to Lead Like an Athlete
The second half of this philosophy is movement — and I want to be clear: this is not about becoming a fitness influencer. Leadership doesn't require a gym membership. I say that because it's true for me — I'm not a gym person, and I never claimed to be.
For me, it requires fifteen minutes of skipping rope before my first call. A brisk walk between back-to-back meetings. A short run before the world wakes up and starts asking things of me. I found what worked through experience, not a fitness plan — and I'd encourage every leader to find their own version rather than copy mine exactly.
Movement isn't vanity. It's mental hygiene. It clears the noise, regulates stress hormones, and — much like that salad — reminds you that you are made of many parts working together, not just one overworked function called "the brain."
The Real Op-Ed Here
I'm not writing this as a nutritionist or a fitness coach. I'm writing this as someone who manages people for a living, and who has watched talented leaders struggle — not from lack of skill, but from neglecting the basics: food, water, movement. Some of those leaders were people I managed. One of them, for a long stretch, was me.
If we want resilient, clear-headed, emotionally steady leadership in our organizations, I believe we need to start treating health as a leadership competency, not just a personal side quest. That's not a management theory — it's a conclusion I reached the hard way, through my own trial and error.
So here's my invitation to every manager reading this, offered gently: consider building your next leadership offsite around a salad bowl and a walking trail, not just a whiteboard. Keep water on the table. Take a short walk when you can. And when the slump hits, maybe try celery, lemon, cucumber, and matcha alongside your coffee, not instead of it if that's not what feels right for you.
Because in my experience, it's hard to pour clarity, patience, or vision from an empty, dehydrated, sedentary cup. I know, because I tried to for years.
Lead like your salad: balanced, colorful, a little sharp when it needs to be, and always fresh.
Next in this series: the health drinks that fuel my days as a leader — from what I sip before a big decision, to what keeps my energy steady through a long day of meetings.
Jemima Ngode, CHRP (K) Group HR Manager, Radio Africa Group
