Jairam Sridharan, MD and CEO of Piramal Finance, returned from a 16-day vacation to 3,000 unread WhatsApp messages, 2,000 unread emails, and hundreds of missed calls — including from his boss and the company’s promoter. His conclusion: “Everything in the world has carried on just fine without me.”[1]
That’s the part that surprises people. Not that he took the break. That nothing broke.
The myth of the indispensable executive
Most professionals — not just CEOs — carry a background belief that constant availability is the cost of their role. That if they step away completely, something important will go wrong and it will be their fault for not being reachable. Sridharan’s 16 days tested that belief against reality. Month-end operations at Piramal Finance proceeded normally. Major decisions were made without him. The company didn’t pause waiting for his input.
This doesn’t mean leadership is irrelevant. It means the fear of being unreachable is usually a story about ego, not operations.
The honest trade-off
Sridharan didn’t frame his 16 days as purely win. He acknowledged missing an important life event affecting a close friend — something he wouldn’t have missed if he’d stayed connected. That cost was real.
His framing of the trade-off is worth sitting with: “Device and interruption-free time does entail some costs, some sacrifices. But the ability to be 100% present with your family for two weeks? Priceless.” That’s not a dismissal of the cost — it’s a clear-eyed decision about what the cost buys.
What this means if you’re not a CEO
Most of us can’t take 16 days dark without real professional consequences. But the underlying test is still worth running in smaller form: what actually requires your real-time response, and what just feels that way?
A practical version:
- Take one full day per month fully offline and note what actually required your attention versus what resolved without you.
- Audit your “urgent” notifications. Most urgent-feeling pings aren’t urgent — they’re just fast. The difference matters.
- Tell one person where you are. A single point of contact for genuine emergencies removes the fear that covers for the habit.
The indispensability myth is expensive to maintain. It costs attention, presence, and the kind of rest that actually restores capacity. Sridharan’s 16 days is an extreme data point — but the data is clear.
References
[1] “Everything carried on just fine without me: CEO’s viral post on taking 16 day digital detox,” Business Today, June 25, 2026. businesstoday.in. Quotes and story details sourced from this report. ↑︎
Kurt Greiner
Kurt is a digital strategist and IT professional blending emerging technology with practical application to help businesses and individuals streamline their digital presence. His current work focuses on the intersection of intentional living and technological resilience, exploring how individuals can leverage modern tools to navigate the second half of life with purpose.
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