A theme that comes up consistently in my coaching practice is the difficulty leaders experience making time for practices that could be described as forms of self-care, such as exercise, sleep, meditation, or reflection. [1,2,3,4] It’s not that my clients don’t view these activities as important—they’re well aware that staying active, being well-rested, pursuing mindfulness, and thinking deeply are priorities. And it’s rarely the case that my clients lack the freedom to make time for these activities–most of them are CEOs or in other senior leadership roles that afford them substantial control over their calendars.
The difficulty lies in how they tend to view these activities—as indulgences. My clients are happy workaholics who enjoy pushing themselves to achieve aspirational goals (an identity I share). [5] This attitude can be a powerful advantage, motivating them to go above and beyond the call of duty, but it also has a shadow side that must be managed carefully, particularly when people have advanced to senior leadership roles.
Many of my clients have succeeded, at least in part, as a result of their ability to focus relentlessly on work and to resist fatigue while processing a large number of tasks rapidly, accurately, and for extended periods of time. This capacity allowed them to stand out as individual contributors and in their first leadership roles, and these efforts were supported by their ability to work longer and harder than their peers and direct reports. At that stage in their careers they didn’t need to exercise regularly, to get a full night’s sleep, or to make any time for mindfulness or reflection in order to be effective. Such activities could be viewed as forms of recreation—enjoyable and rewarding, yes, but also time-consuming and self-indulgent. The truly dedicated professional, they reasoned, would do without them–but things change.
Today, my clients no longer define success as a function of output—at least they shouldn’t. An additional hour or two plowing through email or crunching numbers at the end of the day (or, worse, late at night) will not make a meaningful difference, and, if anything, may actually hurt their performance. That’s because success in their current leadership role is almost never an individual process—it’s an interpersonal experience that involves connecting with, understanding, and influencing other people. [6] (A CEO client once joked, “If I’m sitting alone working on a spreadsheet, I’m probably destroying value.”) Success for my clients entails showing up in the right state of mind with full command of their mental and emotional faculties in every single one of their interactions. And this obligation begins when they leave their home in the morning and doesn’t end until they return at night, because they’re being closely observed at all times, not just when they’re in front of a crowd. [7] Everyone they interact with over the course of the day will be paying close attention to their behavior and demeanor, and they will be “on” in some capacity almost constantly.
These aspects of senior leadership would be demanding under the best of circumstances, but compounding the challenge for many of my clients is the fact that their personal lives have grown increasingly complex at the same time. They’re new parents, and they’re not getting enough sleep, or their children are older and want to spend time with them. Their spouses and partners generally work, and both of them often arrive home in need of some support, which can be difficult when everyone’s tired and depleted. [8] And they’re usually a decade or so older than they were when they first took on a leadership role, and they need more rest and recovery time than they did as younger people.
In this context, taking care of themselves isn’t optional. They may choose to forego regular exercise or sufficient sleep, and they may allow time for a mindfulness practice or deep reflection to get pushed off their calendar—but there will be consequences, and their performance will suffer. They will find it more difficult to focus on key tasks and avoid distractions. [9] They will be less effective at handling stress and more likely to experience a threat response in the face of bad news or a difficult conversation (and less likely be aware that this is happening.) [10] Their ability to sense and manage their emotions will be diminished, and they will be quicker to express anger and fear. Similarly, their ability to regulate themselves physically—body language, facial expressions, tone of voice—will suffer, and they will be less influential and more reliant on force and authority to extract compliance. All because they failed to realize that the nature of self-care has changed as their life has grown more complex and their job has evolved. At this point, self-care is no longer an indulgence—something nice to do when they have free time. It is an investment—a necessary practice to insure that they are able to fulfill their responsibilities as a senior leader as effectively as possible.
So what does this mean in practice? How do leaders manage this transition? The details will differ for everyone, but I can make some general observations based on my work with clients over the past decade:
Return on Attention
It starts by recognizing that a leader’s attention is their most precious resource. [11] This is a concept I discuss repeatedly in my writing, my practice, and my teaching because it has major implications for leaders. [12] What we pay attention to matters—it has a significant effect on our productivity, our mood, and our resilience under stress. This is compounded for leaders, because the impact of their attention is multiplied through the mechanism of the organization. And as a consequence, everyone wants some of the leader’s attention—they want the leader to respond to their message, attend their meeting, review their idea, and give them some feedback. The leader will never be able to fulfill all of these demands, and yet very few people will have any idea of the burden this imposes on the leader. It is the leader’s responsibility to determine what people and tasks actually merit their attention, and one way to make those decisions is by assessing the “return on attention”–he benefit being derived from any given investment of the leader’s attention. [13]
Defensive Calendaring
Being able to answer the question above allows the leader to make better decisions about what to pay attention to and what to ignore—and this is what makes it possible for them to make time for self-care. These activities will not happen by accident, nor will sufficient space to accommodate them magically appear in a leader’s calendar. These activities only happen when the leader dedicates time to them well in advance and protects that time from others who are seeking their attention. The key is recognizing that self-care activities are important but not urgent, and other people will always have demands for the leader’s attention that are urgent—at least to them. [14] In my experience this is ultimately why senior leaders hire executive assistants—to help them better manage their calendars by serving as a gatekeeper, assessing whether others’ demands truly merit the leader’s attention. (And as we know, show me your calendar, and I’ll show you what you value.) [15]
Shorter Cycles
Having prioritized their attention and cleared time on their calendars, many leaders who want to invest more fully in self-care activities find it surprisingly difficult to initiate and sustain these efforts. This highlights the inadequacy of awareness, which is the necessary first step toward change, but rarely sufficient to drive change on its own. We do not think our way to new behaviors—we must actively experiment until we discover the right combination of incentives, goals, and environmental cues that turn intentions into habits. [16, 17] Leaders who aspire to exercise more regularly, get more sleep, meditate consistently, or maintain a reflection journal typically find that commitment, desire and willpower can help them get started, but they almost always stumble and fall short. A crisis breaks out, or the press of daily life simply gets in the way. This is a pivotal moment, and it’s essential to avoid the despondency and demotivation that can accompany such setbacks. At that moment the leader must get curious about the factors that contributed to the stumble, apply the results of that analysis, and return to the desired activity. This process will repeat itself over and over again—it’s an unavoidable aspect of senior leadership roles, particularly in dynamic organizations—and the leader’s paramount objective is simply to shorten the cycle time so that they can absorb the blows that disrupt their self-care routines, recover quickly, and regain their momentum.
The Potential Payoff
When a leader can put these principles into practice, it’s possible to unlock a virtuous cycle. Exercise, sleep, meditation and reflection are all practices that help us manage our attention more effectively, directing it toward desired objects of focus and away from unproductive distractions. This allows us to make more productive use of our time and free up space on our calendars, some of which can be dedicated to self-care. And the greater resilience we feel when we’re physically active, well-rested, mindful, and contemplative enables us to bounce back more quickly when we inevitably fall short of our intentions.
None of this is easy—the fact that I discuss these issues with most of my clients, all of whom are tremendously intelligent and capable people, makes clear just how difficult it can be. But if leaders can shift their perspective and view self-care as the investment that it truly is, then the challenge of overcoming the many barriers that stand in the way of behavior change becomes that much easier.
For further reading on these topics, see Open Space, Deep Work and Self-Care.
Footnotes
[1] Get Moving! (Exercise for Busy People
[2] A compilation of readings on sleep.
[3] Don’t Just Do Something, Sit There! (Mindfulness for Busy People)
[4] The Value of Journal Writing
[5] Happy Workaholics Need Boundaries, Not Balance
[7] Leadership as a Performing Art
[8] How Not to Fight with Your Spouse When You Get Home from Work
[9] To Stay Focused, Manage Your Emotions
[10] David Rock on Neuroscience, Leadership and the SCARF Model
[11] Spending Attention
[12] The Art of Self-Coaching, Class 3: Attention
[13] Return on Attention
[15] Show Me Your Calendar and I’ll Show You What You Value
[16] Babies, Bathwater and Goal-Setting
[17] Building Blocks (A Tactical Approach to Change)
Photo by James Watkins.