Leader Self-Care
Posted on July 07, 2020 by Jamey Gadoury, One of Thousands of Executive Coaches on Noomii.
Your work and your people need you at your best
“What’s that?”
I had just asked a leader about his “self-care.”
Whether humor or unfamiliarity with the term, his response highlights a common leader challenge: Self-care is sometimes pushed to the bottom of our priority list.
Even more so in crisis.
Urgent demands, changing schedules and high stakes soak up our attention. The drive to succeed or the desire to serve others can make self-care seem unimportant or even selfish. Neither is true.
Your work and your people need you at your best.
At the start of a 15-month military deployment to Iraq, I remember a general officer encouraging us to set aside time for reflection and reading. Forms of self-care. In my arrogance, I thought “must be nice, at your level and with your staff.” In hindsight, his words were spot-on, for each of us. 100mph-until-you-burnout is no way to execute combat. Or a global crisis.
How are you assessing and organizing your self-care? How are you preparing for the long game? Take time to list out the obstacles to your usual options, as well as unique ways the crisis is impacting you. Be candid with other leaders and get ideas from them or online resources.
Remember that you are not alone in dealing with crisis. One leader described how “mentally exhausting” COVID-19 had been – and he’s no stranger to crisis. Another put “self-care” among the top 3 leader challenges he was observing, and was finding it hard to do it well. One of the most resilient leaders I know had a moment of COVID-19 reality hit “like a body blow.”
Consider the leader who was excelling at self-care: long-term consistency at the gym. Just before the COVID-19 crisis hit, she celebrated that consistency by un-cluttering her apartment of all her at-home workout gear. Ouch. (Thankfully, her replacement package has arrived and she’s back into the swing of things.)
Acknowledge the new reality. Be creative. Schedule your self-care activities. And guard that time. Your work and your people will benefit.
And you’ll be leading well by example.
First published at the Outsider Consulting, LLC website. Re-posted by permission.
