"Sorry for the Late Cancellation!" and Other Modern Leadership Techniques
Meetings are dying at the hands of the very people who should run them best. This is what happens when success outgrows basic respect for time.
Legend has it, there was a time, when professionals respected calendar invites the way the British respect tea schedules and dental neutrality. A time when 3:00 PM meant 3:00 PM, not a meeting that both exists and doesn’t until someone materialises on Zoom, if they ever do. A meeting request came with the quaint assumption that attendance was expected.
Now, calendar invites are ceremonial. Decorative. The person who asked for your time might show up. Or not. Either way, you’re left staring into the abyss of your own empty meeting room, rechecking the invite.
And this isn’t garden-variety junior behaviour. These are seasoned operators, the types with LinkedIn bios that end in “builder,” “board advisor,” or “lover of tough problems.” They can juggle metrics, and mergers, yet remembering a 10 AM they booked is apparently too ambitious.
“Sorry Just Saw This,” An Exercise in Excusable Incompetence
“Sorry, just saw this.”
“Running late, be there in 5.”
Total silence, followed hours later by a cheerful “Let’s reschedule!” link as if you’re the one who forgot.
At this point, these phrases should come pre-installed in Outlook’s auto-replies, right next to “Best regards.” They’ve become a fully fledged performance art of modern flakiness, executed with such casual flair that you almost admire the shamelessness. Almost.
But why does this happen? Is there a meteor shower of bad luck raining down exclusively on directors and VPs every Tuesday at 10am?
No. There’s science.
The Future-Time-Slack Illusion convinces people they’ll have more free time later. Future Me, they think, will definitely have bandwidth. He doesn’t.
The Planning Fallacy allows high-functioning adults to believe they can compress five mission-critical tasks, and three context switches into a single calendar slot. They can’t.
Scarcity-induced tunneling means when something urgent explodes (as it always does), your meeting gets sucked into a black hole of triage. It’s not personal. It’s just that your slot was the weakest antelope.
Video call fatigue, which is very real. After their 17th back-to-back, even the most resilient executive becomes a sentient shrug.
Still, these people know better. They can manage funds, boards, and entire companies. But a 30-minute Zoom they asked for? That’s a bridge too far. They don’t think they have to care.
How the High-Performing Learned to Be Low-Functioning
The higher someone rises, the less gravity applies to their behavior. Accountability thins with altitude. By the time an executive has a few impressive titles under their belt, they can bend time itself without consequence. Meetings vanish, replies evaporate, and somehow it is framed as a sign of importance rather than incompetence.
Psychologists even gave this phenomenon a label: idiosyncrasy credits. Think of it as the frequent flyer program of bad manners. Rack up enough status, deliver results in the right rooms, and suddenly you earn the right to treat basic norms like optional upgrades.
Show up late to a founder’s call? He’s “moving fast.”
Miss a VC check-in? She’s “juggling term sheets.”
Ignore an email chain you initiated? You’re “heads down.”
If a junior staffer tried the same act, they’d be gently ushered to HR for “culture misalignment.”
This is not really about busyness. Everyone is busy. It is about entitlement, perception management, and a subtle addiction to optionality. When someone believes their time is inherently worth more, they stop canceling properly and start reappearing at their own convenience.
The worst part? The system rewards it.
A senior operator who seems impossible to pin down is assumed to be important. Their unavailability is proof of value.
A mid-level manager who behaves the same way is branded unreliable.
Over time, the norms diverge. The very people who should model discipline and punctuality become the ones detonating meetings across the org chart, while the juniors are scolded for being five minutes late to a sync no one needed in the first place.
Calendar Crimes of the Accomplished: A Legal Review
Some behaviors are forgivable. These are not. These are high crimes in the modern etiquette of time. Below is a partial docket of offenses because until someone drafts a real Geneva Convention on Human Scheduling, we’re left with naming and shaming.
❌ The Drop-In 29
The calendar holds a 30-minute slot. At 31 minutes past the hour, your inbox pings:
“Still good to talk?”
This is a declaration that your time was never considered real in the first place. You were a penciled-in maybe. A backup plan.
Recommended sentence: 30 minutes in Outlook jail with no access to “Find a Time.”
❌ The Meeting Mimesis
They booked it. They never confirmed it. They didn’t show up. Then they pretended it never happened.
Recommended sentence: Forced to sit through a 90-minute “async brainstorm” recording. At 1x speed.
❌ The Preemptive Bail
They ask for your time. You oblige. Then, hours before, they cancel with a “can’t do today” and that’s it. No proposed reschedule. No explanation. Just silence and a gaping hole in your afternoon.
Recommended sentence: Public flogging via company-wide calendar invite titled “Respecting Time 101.”
❌ The Tag-Then-Ghost
They message you first. They’re eager. “Let’s find time to connect!” You send them options. Silence. The trail goes cold.
This is not forgetfulness. This is performance scheduling.
Recommended sentence: A forced loop of every “Sorry I’m Late” meme ever posted on LinkedIn.
These are calculated behaviors made possible by perceived status. Calendar gentrification at its worst. Because in their minds, your availability is theirs to borrow.
Solutions Nobody Wants Because They Require Boundaries
Now comes the part where, traditionally, I’d hand you a few practical solutions. Clean hacks.
“How to protect your time in 5 easy steps.”
But all the real solutions? They require boundaries. And boundaries are unpopular in a professional culture where everyone is expected to be “collaborative,” “flexible,” and “available on short notice” with the enthusiasm of a Labrador.
But, let’s give it a shot anyway.
Reconfirmation rules.
“If I don’t get a yes by 5pm, I’ll release the slot.” That’s it. No threat, no drama. Just a polite firm deadline For some reason, this terrifies people.10-minute grace drop policy.
Add it to the invite. “If we haven’t started by ten past, I’ll release the time.” It’s basic decency, disguised as a hardened stance. Hold steady.Light prep requirement.
“Please send 3 bullets or a one-line agenda. If not, we’ll move async.” Half of your meetings will disappear in a puff of unpreparedness. You will not miss them.One-time courtesy reschedule.
They flake once? Fine. Offer a new slot. They flake again? Switch to email. Let them roam free until they find their way back to responsibility.
The minute you try this, someone will make you feel unreasonable. You’ll get that slow head-tilt, the “oh… you’re one of those boundary people.” The people disrespecting your time have built a system where you’re the one who seems inflexible.
Sadly, in today’s workplace, being disciplined reads more like a food allergy. It’s taken seriously only when someone important also has it.
You want to believe the system makes sense. That people ascend into leadership because they’ve mastered the technicals, and the fundamentals of being a reliable human.
However, outcomes get rewarded, not etiquette. Hit the numbers, land the deal, impress the board, and you can miss a dozen meetings without so much as a raised eyebrow. Respect, punctuality, and follow-through become optional features.
In this culture of overbooking and vagueness, the ability to actually commit to a slot is now a minor act of rebellion. If you show up when you say you will, respect others’ time, and follow through without needing three reminders, you’re borderline weird.
So no, it’s not just in your head. You’re not overly sensitive. You’re just one of the few left refusing to treat other people’s calendars like scratch paper. Keep doing that. Let them flake. Let them circle back. You can be the person who still knows how to hold time sacred.
At StratEx - Indonesia Business Advisory we work with HR leaders to reset expectations across the org.. Contact us if you’re interested to replace vague leadership habits with precision and trust.