For many managers and people who work in leadership positions, dealing with emails is a dilemma. It's likely the "unpredictable, uncontrollable and ongoing nature of day-to-day email in terms of volume, importance and urgency" contributes to their levels of anxiety and to diminished leadership skills.
That's because it's not unusual for many leaders to prioritize email management over people management. An obsession with managing their inbox prevents them from dealing with their employees. As a result, they ignore the issues that might only be mild problems at first, until unfortunately, they inevitably transform into a major problem or crisis by virtue of neglect.
As leaders, they are expected to motivate and inspire their team in pursuit of longer-term strategic goals and also, less ambitiously but more practically, to monitor their daily output, to set clear expectations and to give regular feedback.
When presented with a choice between the appeal of their inbox and other more important activities, many sacrifice the latter. Daily email demands have a negative impact on their goal progress. This is because leaders must divert resources from other tasks to check, filter and respond to emails.
The solution is cultivating self-control which is like a muscle—it can be strengthened or improved over time through exercise. Some suggestions include making space in your diary for the only periods during which you'll be checking emails, setting a timer for yourself so you don't become distracted by your inbox for too long, turning off email alerts so you're not interrupted by them.