Reducing the Toll of Leadership
Every committed leader I have worked with was personally sacrificing something really important to them.
(Leadership can also be rewarding in many, many ways, this post is not about that.)
Committed leaders really care. They sacrifice their time, their energy, their personal dreams, and sometimes even their health.
That kind of sacrifice leads to exhaustion. Exhaustion leads to resentment. And it becomes really hard to lead authentically and effectively.
That’s the thing we don’t often talk about, when we talk about leadership: the toll it takes on good people.
When this is the norm – and with our talented, committed leaders it often is – it leaves us with work environments where leaders and teams are tapped out.
It leaves us with work environments where the most equipped and caring leaders are leaving their roles.
It leaves us with work cultures where grit and grind has become more important than humanity and delight.
Now, if you are a leader prone to beating yourself up or are looking at this as a personal failing - please hold.
Consider that this isn’t a personal indictment on you as a human and leader.
This speaks directly to the systems, culture, family of origin messages, and more that we receive that say:
Work more. Do more. Be more.
Be a team player no matter what.
Leadership is the culmination of success - get it at all costs.
Here is the way to be a good leader (that was written by someone benefiting from the very systems harming us).
Emotions are weak. Hide vulnerability or no one will take you seriously.
And. So. Many. Other. Messages.
Being a human leading humans can feel soul-sucking.
(Again: it can also be energizing and generative, but that’s not what we’re talking about today.)
Especially if you really care about people.
Especially if you really care about the cause/company/community you are leading in.
Especially if you are a committed leader that wants to do good with the power you have.
Especially if you have identities that don’t fit the traditional mold of leadership.
And that starts taking a real toll on leaders and their lives, in ways that you probably recognize:
We say yes to all the things.
We work harder to fulfill on expectations (some internal, some external).
We put other things that are meaningful to us on the back burner.
Perhaps because we think we’re supposed to.
Perhaps because we don’t want to relinquish control.
Perhaps because we get our purpose and value from feeling needed.
We do this because we’ve made an identity-level association that leadership is sacrifice, and that you can’t be a good leader unless you’re working way too hard and giving up way too much.
That’s a model of leadership that is punitive and punishing and ultimately not sustainable.
And it’s one that is taught everywhere as we grow up.
We are not taught to lead in a way that is authentic to who we are.
We are not taught to lead in a way that celebrates our strengths and our vulnerabilities.
We are not taught to understand how our external conditioning informs our internal conditioning and how that informs everything.
We are not taught that questions can be more powerful than answers.
There is so much we are not taught that would fundamentally change the dynamic of leadership and workplace culture.
The end result is the same: The cost of standard leadership is too high for good people – the ones we need and want to lead!
But there’s a different way to do it.
When you’re overworking and sacrificing and performing a leadership character, you end up reactive, resentful and depleted. No one performs at their highest level when they’re spiritually and cognitively spent.
Instead, leadership can come from a resourced place. An authentic place. You have to model the boundaries and integrity you want your teams to emulate – and you have to do it by being it to yourself.
And that requires unlearning some of the more grueling and self-defeating conditioning we’ve all received about “good leadership”.
I call this “re-leading”. It’s a process in which we reconstruct our vision of leadership from the inside out. You can’t do it unless you are it.
And that starts with inquiry into your most basic beliefs about yourself and leadership.
Interested?
Here are some journaling exercises drawn from The Re-Lead Framework. I recommend you spend 3 to 5 minutes writing on the one that feels most intriguing to you.
Reveal: What messages about leadership have I received over my lifetime?
Reinvent: What is the version of leadership that I want to bring to the world?
Recalibrate: What do I need to shift to practice that version of leadership?
Realize: What does it look like to include others in my process of developing more inclusive versions of leadership?
This kind of reflection reveals you to you – and leaders who know who they are tend to be the ones who practice daily respect for their own capacities. They’re also the ones who are most resilient, inspiring and just plain effective.
And they’re the ones who have more delight in their life because they actually have a life.
I know who most of us would rather work with…
So please for the love of leadership and your life … be gentle with yourself if you find yourself paying a high personal price for leadership.
And also know that there is another way – one where yes, you still lead with commitment and make cool stuff happen while also reducing the toll leadership takes on you, personally.
