The name of this blog comes from our mission at INFLUENCE: “To empower people with clarity and confidence.”
Our objective is to provide brief but meaningful topics (under 500 words) that inspire, educate and empower leaders through resources both inside and outside of INFLUENCE. This week’s edition is provided by David Salmons.
Over the past few posts, we’ve taken a wide angle look at how good corporate cultures can connect and support employees. What we haven’t focused on so much are the leaders themselves, and how they can increase their own resilience in situations that might otherwise lead to burnout.
Today, we’ll explore this area of self-care by turning our eyes to Palena Neale, Ph.D. and founder of a leadership mentoring practice that helps leaders increase their impact. Palena’s professional vision involves overcoming stereotypes about self-care for leaders, as well as sharing researched activities that provide tangible benefits.
To begin, one of the more disheartening points she makes is that many leaders view focusing on their own wellbeing as a sign of weakness, while others trivialize it as an indulgent luxury. As such – at least initially – they sometimes aren’t open to proven health and well-being strategies.
Her preferred method for addressing this is with data. Like anything else, she says that caring for oneself is an investment. While it may require an input of time, it has proven to pay substantial dividends.
For example, when considering the most common and yet commonly ignored personal-care habits, she points out that the research is clear: diet, exercise, and sufficient sleep promote well-being. “Specifically,” she notes, “a healthy diet has been linked to better moods, higher energy levels, and lower levels of depression. Aerobic exercise increases blood flow, boosting both learning and memory. Getting good sleep has been linked to increased focus, improved cognitive function, greater capacity for learning, and improved empathy.”
When leaders insist they don’t have time to invest in these baseline health activities, she puts on her coaching hat and asks questions like:
- “What are the key priorities in your life? Can you achieve them without health and wellbeing?”
- “How much time could you save by responding from a place of control rather than reacting from a place of stress?”
- “What is one thing you can choose to say no to today that will give you back at least five minutes?” How could you use this time to improve your well-being?
The point, Palena emphasizes, is that many leaders must overcome their resistance to habits that increase wellbeing, and a part of that involves turning the spotlight on what they already know. To help leaders do this, she follows up with coaching questions like:
- “If the strongest leader you knew was struggling with stress, what would YOU advise them to do?”
- “If you didn’t need help, but you just wanted to recharge your battery — how would you do that?”
Once leaders have agreed to address the basics, she points to a variety of additional activities that show returns for micro investments of time. These include activities like:
- Reaching out to someone you haven’t spoken with in a while to increase social connectedness,
- A gratitude exercise or an act of kindness to promote positivity,
- Journaling to promote self-awareness,
- Online mindfulness meditations to improve emotional regulation.
In summary, Palena observes that a little investment in well-being can significantly increases a leader’s personal capacity, so if we want to become the best version of ourselves that we can, overcoming our resistance and investing in our own well-being is more than worth it.