Leadership, Wellness, and Work/Life Balance
Pick any two.
While interviewing for a job at [redacted], a client of mine1 asked the recruiter about their reputation for overworking their people. The recruiter looked away, then responded “You know, it’s interesting. It really varies by team. Some are really intense, people put in a lot of hours. Others are not so bad. Be sure to ask your hiring manager about this!”
Hmm.
A few days later, the candidate interviewed with the hiring manager, and asked “How’s the work/life balance on your team? How is your own WLB, how is your wellness at work?”
The manager took a pause, clearly carefully considering their words. “You know,” the manager said, “it really varies by team.”
My client ended up taking the job, because… reasons. Before long, she was enrolled in the company’s training for hiring managers. She were shown a video in which actors role-played as hiring manager and interviewee.
“Say, isn’t [Company name] famous for requiring people to work really long hours?” The other actor replied “Well, Sheila, it really varies from team to team.”
It shouldn’t be surprising, I guess, but I was still quite startled. A successful, modern company should be training leaders on the connection between work/life balance and long-term productivity.
Instead, a training video ostensibly about leadership values puts the company on record as dismissing the role of leaders and culture on ensuring a healthy and productive workplace. It’s hard to believe, after everything we’ve been through, that those are the table stakes out there.
Health, Happiness, and Survival
In my eBook on Emotional Intelligence, I define “leadership” as:
The opportunity to influence others.
As a leader, your own behavior is your most potent tool for influencing others. Too much attention is given to what leaders say about their company culture, but they’d be well-advised to consider instead the impact of their own choices.
When a manager turns their camera off in a meeting, it signals to others that it’s acceptable to do so. If a leader in a cameras-off meeting turns their own camera on, they should expect that others will follow suit, whether or not that outcome is intended.
A leader who is chronically late for meetings will find themselves presiding over a team in which meetings rarely start on time. If the leader shows their expectation that meetings should dependably start right on time, people will tend to show up promptly.
I’ve worked for and with leaders who have been very intentional in the way they manage their own work/life balance and wellness at work. They were deliberate in acknowledging that these factors directly impact productivity, as much or more than rituals, artifacts, and process.
I’ve also known leaders whose own behavior ruthlessly undermined the culture they were ostensibly trying to promote. If you’re overcome by your desire to be seen as “one of the team,” it’s easy to forget the added significance your choices can carry.
Story Time
Story 1: I knew a VP at a large company who told the team that he was completely exhausted after a major push, which had been quite taxing on everyone. The VP took 6 weeks’ time off for a major “bucket list” vacation. Did this send the message that it was ok to take startling long vacations?
Did attendance crater as a result? No. Some decisions were delegated, a few were briefly postponed. The planet spun on, along its wobbly but mostly dependable axis. The message that I took from this choice: when we trade away our wellness for a short-term boost to productivity, everyone will suffer some long-term impact to their health and wellness.
Story 2: Another example, this one from an EVP. After five years of 14-hour days, and 7-day workweeks while presiding over explosive growth, she booked her own 3-week “bucket list” vacation — far less than HR told her she’d accrued — during a period of relative calm. Again, some things were delegated, and some were postponed.
The CEO approved the vacation, but upon her return, she took the SVP aside and said they were disappointed in the demonstration of her lack of commitment. The CEO said that they felt the choice would “send a message” to her team.
It’s not clear what message the team received, but there’s no doubt about the one the CEO sent. It rattled with mistrust, control, and minimization of the SVP’s contribution. The relationship was permanently damaged, and the SVP left the firm a few weeks later.
Story 3: I’ve learned that I’m prone to emotional displays at work. It’s a weakness, although one colleague charitably described an outburst as a demonstration of “passion for my craft.” Ugh.
I tried hard to maintain decorum, but eventually I couldn’t ignore the growing frequency of small but still disturbing discourtesies amongst my team. It took me too long to realize that I was abusing my accumulated privileges.
One last story: I’m always inspired by managers who role-model healthy behaviors at work. They do this by marking out time from their calendar between meetings, by openly taking “mental health days”, by utilizing their allocated vacation (or regular, meaningful breaks when vacation isn’t metered.)
There’s one thing that delights me even more than hearing about a leader who is keeping things safe and sane for their team. It’s when I hear someone reporting to their boss that they’re removing the company email from their phone, disabling Slack, and recording the delegations they’ve made prior to a vacation.
It shows that person has gained the psychological safety to act on the trust their leaders have placed in them. They’re openly making choices that are healthy for themselves, protective of their team, and boosting productivity in the long run for the company.
That’s how I’d like to work. Someday I’d like to work that way with you
Client anecdotes are, as always, fictionalized composites.