Business leaders are raising the alarm: meetings have taken over, and real work is being left behind. And Southwest Airlines CEO Bob Jordan is the latest to speak out on the phenomenon—arguing that many leaders mistake constant meetings for leadership.
“When you first start, it’s easy to confuse busyness and going to meetings with leadership,” Jordan said last week on a panel of CEOs at The New York Times DealBook Summit. “…Because what we all find, I’m sure, is there’s no time to ‘work’ and you confuse going to meetings with the work.”
Over the years, Jordan’s solution has been increasingly straightforward: protect his time. For 2026, his goal is to keep his calendar completely clear every Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday afternoon—blocking anyone from booking meetings during those hours.
While he acknowledges that approach might sound “crazy” to some executives, he said CEOs are hired to do work only they can do—and that rarely happens when they are trapped in back-to-back meetings.
“It’s so that you can work on things you need to work on. You can think about what’s important right now. You can call people you need to talk to,” Jordan added.
