Look after yourself
However big your workload, as a leader you need to be at your best and that means proactively investing in your well-being and knowing when to stop
In an uncertain and constantly changing business landscape, you need to be continually on your toes, making quick decisions and often pulling long hours. As a leader, the stakes are high and every day you’ll be challenging yourself and stepping out of your comfort zone.
That makes it all the more important that you put a premium on well-being, both your own and that of your team. In a high-pressure environment, you need everyone to be at their best, and you’re no use to your team if you’re too tired to think straight or too stressed to sensibly prioritise your workload. The last thing we want to see is your carefully considered and strategic step up followed six months later by spectacular burn-out, so it’s worth you thinking about how you can find the magic balance between stretch and stress; commitment and overloading yourself.
Leading requires high energy levels, clarity of mind, and above all an optimism and confidence that transmits itself to everyone around you. You need energy and equilibrium, and that’s something that needs to be constantly replenished. So take a look at your diary and start to envision the simple tweaks to your routine that will create the opportunity within a busy 24 hours to get a good night’s sleep, at least one healthy meal, enough exercise to leave you out of breath, and some time to think and reflect.
Sarah says: Simple habits can improve well-being
For me, the 30-minute walk to work every morning creates the headspace I need to start the day with a clear focus. It also doubles as my exercise fix. And I sleep like a baby at night. This isn’t rocket science, it’s about forming positive habits that I know are good for my mental and physical health in the long term. Lavender pillow spray on, mobile phone off. Plump the pillow up, pull the blinds down. These are the bedtime rituals that help get me to sleep. I always shoot for eight hours of sleep, often I only get seven, and occasionally I dip to six, but I love making up for it with long lie-ins at the weekend!
At the same time as looking after your own well-being, you need to closely safeguard that of your people. Part of this is about team perks and practices, from having water and healthy food on offer to designated areas for relaxation and opportunities to exercise the body and mind, whether that’s gym membership, football leagues, lunchtime jogging clubs, film nights, pilates sessions, or a ping-pong table in the basement. (Unruly’s latest addition to our HQ is an augmented reality bouldering wall, made interactive and gamified by our climbing-crazy software engineers.) Be on the lookout for people who may be developing working habits that could lead to burn-out and do everything you can to encourage a culture where long hours are not the norm and worked only when absolutely necessary.
Leading by example is the most effective way to role model this behaviour – I won’t send emails after 9pm unless I’m responding to a member of the team – and it’s the norm for Mums and Dads at Unruly to flex their working hours in order to make the school drop-off, nativity play, sports day, parents' evening, concert – those life milestones that no parent wants to miss. Find the balance between ambition and well-being, understanding that the two do not need to be in competition if you’re in the right company – some businesses will care a lot about your well-being and others less so.
The good news is that the macho/masochistic leader, bragging about late nights and lack of sleep, has become a corporate relic. That’s just not helpful and not effective in a time of heightened complexity and constant change, where we need to have our wits about us to respond quickly and problem-solve creatively on the fly.
So as you take control of your stepping up journey, make some well-being resolutions and develop proactive strategies for managing your well-being. From experience, it’s more realistic to build exercise or meditation into your current routine wherever possible, so they don’t add additional pressures to your diary; and to help you stick to your well-being resolutions, you might find it helpful to enlist the support of your housemates, partner, parents, children, boss or colleagues to keep you honest.
Within the workplace, seemingly small things can have a seismic impact on performance and productivity: for example, the more you can foster a happy and positive culture, the calmer you’ll be and the longer you’ll live – yes, you did hear that right! Studies have shown that happiness in the workplace is a significant contributor to longevity, so there really is no excuse for letting your workplace well-being slide!
Words of wisdom: Look after yourself
There’s a long overdue awakening in Western society taking place that recognises the importance of looking after our minds. The stigma around mental health is starting to fade and many people now realise that mental fitness is just as important as physical fitness when it comes to our health and well-being.
Nowhere is this more important than at work, the place where we spend most of our waking hours. The great leaders of tomorrow understand that the psychological well-being of their employees is vital to ensure their team are not just productive and engaged but also resilient, empathetic, happy and healthy.
Meditation is a very valuable skill that helps develop many of the skills needed to thrive in the 21st-century workplace. Hundreds of research papers a year are now published showing a positive link between meditation and attention, focus, creativity, memory, immune system, compassion, sleep and more.
Mindfulness meditation is a practice that many forward-thinking companies are now teaching alongside other important wellness initiatives such as nutrition, yoga, sleep and physical exercise.
MICHAEL ACTON SMITH, CO-CEO AND CO-FOUNDER, CALM.COM
Words of wisdom: Secrets to leadership success
Eighty per cent of success is showing up
I’m a huge fan of these words from Woody Allen, one of the most famous directors of all time. It seems simple to suggest that if you are not involved you have no chance of affecting anything, or succeeding, or achieving, but this adage has really stuck with me throughout my career.
It’s making the effort to be present physically and mentally, to be contributing, and to be making things happen. Although you shouldn’t stop at 80 per cent (the final 20 per cent is what defines you), you would be surprised how many people don’t do the 80 per cent – the showing up and getting involved. And once your foot is in the door, make sure you commandeer a coat hook and get a set of keys cut.
If you’re not failing, you’re not trying hard enough
At school and at home as a child you are always being encouraged to get things right. Getting things wrong is a failure. But in a fast-changing digital world this kind of thinking can result in being too safe and not seeking disruption. We need greater appetite for risk and that can only come with the acceptance that things will fail.
Nobody gets everything right first time, nor should they. We learn from our mistakes and, at the risk of falling into cliché, learn more from them than our successes.
Fuelling change and innovation has never been a smooth process. There are constant hurdles to overcome, but they add excitement. I know from speaking to people involved with the Unilever Foundry that the process is challenging yet extremely rewarding. The more experience you have of what hasn’t worked, the more your future work will be better for it.
The difference between ordinary and extraordinary is one little word: ‘extra’
About ten years ago now I watched Bear Grylls take to the stage at a leadership conference I had organised when I was leading our global Laundry and Homecare business. He was the youngest British person to ever climb Everest, and was there to talk about the experience of his climb. This was long before his TV show fame. He said something that has stuck with me to this day – that the difference between ordinary and extraordinary is just one little word … extra. He puts in extra and that differentiates him from others. And he achieves more.
During a trip to India last year, I was asked to speak to a group of students from the country’s top institutions about my leadership methods. I felt this quote rang so true in a nation of 1.25 billion people; one that is second only to China at the top of the population charts. I looked at the classroom and saw a room full of potential future leaders, but what would set them apart from their peers in their futures? What is it that turns a footballer from top-class professional into Cristiano Ronaldo, a great children’s writer into JK Rowling, an experienced politician into a Prime Minister or President? What is it turns the ordinary into the extraordinary? The answer is that one little word …
Have fun! Miserable people deliver miserable results
This is one of my own quotes! There are some people who enter a room and suck out all the oxygen, and with that all the possibilities and opportunities go too. There are others who bring energy and confidence to experiment. People who get people to be at their best more of the time. People who bring inspiration, belief, energy and of course some fun! I know which ones I would rather be around – what about you?
KEITH WEED, CHIEF MARKETING AND COMMUNICATIONS OFFICER, UNILEVER
Step 3: Velocity – on a page
Takeaways
- Invest in yourself: your skills, confidence, network and well-being. Don’t expect this to happen by magic. Take the time to actively develop and work on these areas, and momentum will soon build.
- As a stepping-up leader, it is no longer enough to rely on IQ and emotional intelligence. You also need to be digitally, entrepreneurially and inclusively intelligent.
- To step up, you need to be mission-obsessed, putting purpose at the heart of everything you do; you will need to put your people first, become your team’s optimist-in-chief, and you can never wait to be asked to take on new responsibilities.
- Be proactive in building your confidence as a leader, treating it not like a vase that could be shattered, but as a muscle that can be trained and developed. Make sure to challenge yourself without setting expectations unreasonably high, and try to learn from your mistakes rather than dwelling on them. Seek regular feedback from the people you work with and be your own supportive inner voice.
- Invest in nurturing a leadership network, of people who can be your mentors, champions and truth tellers. Carefully choose the events you attend and ask yourself what value you can bring. With every relationship you foster, always be thinking first about what you can do for the other person.
- Above all, remember to look after yourself and know when the time has come to stop and take a break. Implement routines that create time to think, and focus on topping up your energies for the challenges ahead.
Assignment
Use the stepping-up leadership principles to do a self-assessment exercise on yourself as a leader. Where are you strong and where do you need to improve? What do you feel comfortable with and where do you need to build up confidence?
Read and listen
Books
- Sheryl Sandberg, Lean In: women, work and the will to lead, WH Allen 2017
- Arianna Huffington, Thrive: the third metric to redefining success and creating a happier life, WH Allen 2014
- Michael Acton Smith, Calm: calm the mind, change the world, Penguin 2015
Music
- Nina Simone, Feeling Good
- Pharrell, Happy
- Snap, I Got the Power
Up next
Why a great team must be your No. 1 leadership goal
How to take a hands-on role in recruiting the best people
Strategies for supporting, nurturing and empowering your people
Why you must be a courageous, kind and above all an empathetic leader