Pursue Energy Renewal, Not Work-Life Balance
Last night, I got to witness my husband in action.
Don’t get me wrong. I’ve seen his work up close and personal. He’s been my Chiropractor for about six years. Following a terrifying car accident in 2013, I lived with chronic lower back pain for more than three years. By the time I met Brian, my back pain had become so debilitating that I could barely sit in my car for the duration of my 50-minute commute into North Carolina each day for my job. And as my sweet girl, Madi grew I struggled to lift her. If you know me, you’re probably thinking, “Wait a minute. Jes can lift really heavy things.” No doubt. I do love to lift heavy things. The last time I maxed out my deadlift, I swooped up an easy 320 pounds. But in 2016 I was in a much different place. My health had suffered for a number of reasons and it negatively affected me in countless ways, that at the time, I didn’t understand.
The reason I tell you this story about Brian? Not just because I love the guy. I mean, come on! He healed that back pain in a little less than three months. And, to answer your question, no, I didn’t marry him because he fixed my wrecked back. The reason I tell you this story is because, I’ve learned so much from him about how the body has the capacity to renew and heal itself in indescribable ways… how the health of the body affects our mind’s ability to process information … how the health of the body affects our ability to regulate our emotions and use them in ways to facilitate our performance, rather than destroying it. This weekend he is teaching a seminar with others that share his philosophy on health.
You may be asking, what exactly does any of this have to do with Leadership? Last night at dinner, I shared with some of the other doctors that I’ve been a scholar of leadership for over two decades. Through years of research and practical experience, I’ve been piecing together the elements of leadership that support Leaders on their quest to build enduring organizations. But there has always been a missing piece. Our Leader-First® Leadership model works to strengthen the right Leader behaviors that reinforce four critically necessary culture states. When methodically nurtured, these culture states provide a breeding ground for high-performing, connected, innovative teams—teams capable of building organizations that endure.
In previous articles, I’ve touched on these culture states—Trust, Purpose, Belonging, and yes, Vitality. Even though I could intuitively feel its importance through my own experiences, I’ve denied the impact that vitality has on both Leaders and the people they lead. How could I have missed this? One of the definitions of the word Vitality is the power of enduring. It was literally spelled out for me. It comes down to the fact that I had to learn it the hard way--through my own, often unpleasant experiences.
We are, and will forever be stuck with 24 hours in a day. Trying to do more... and more... and more... with an unchanging space of time is the very definition of ignorance. The most common mistake made by Leaders of people is this—working an employee to the point of exhaustion does not lead to more productivity and higher performance. In fact, working late hours, and long days, with no truly focused time to recenter and recuperate, catastrophically impairs high performance. Productivity and performance are impaired to an even greater degree in unfocused workplaces riddled with distraction and micro-management, especially when the type of work requires a high degree of mental processing.
As a Leader, I know the demands you face on a day-to-day basis are incredible. In a fast-paced, ever-changing organization, the idea of balance seems unattainable, even laughable these days. That’s exactly why we’ve shifted from using the word balance to using the word renewal. It’s hard to think that much positive has come from the past couple of years, but I’ve seen at least one constructive outcome of the coronavirus pandemic. It has changed the landscape just enough … has pushed Leaders to the brink of personal health crises, that they are starting to understand their wellness matters. Further, they are seeing that wellness can’t be pawned off as a superficial, check-the-box initiative. Health and wellness are very much personal accountabilities. But Leaders have the responsibility to cultivate organizational cultures that value the wellness of the people they lead if they truly desire to build organizations that endure.
Most research about leadership focuses on the psychology of it. Not enough focus is given to the physiology of leadership. While it is not a popular or pervasively studied concept, holistic wellness is inherently linked to how well people lead others. In 2007, Tony Schartz and Catherine McCarthy published Manage Your Energy, Not Your Time in Harvard Business Review. Their study demonstrated a discernable link between human energy renewal and increased work performance. The concept of energy comes from the world of thermodynamics, so the definition of energy can get a bit technical. But its very basic meaning is the capacity to work. Schartz and McCarthy’s research explored the four main energy wellsprings in human beings: the body, emotions, the mind, and spirit. They also looked at how in each wellspring, energy can be systematically sustained and renewed. Shulbha Kothari took this research further in his 2017 article, Renew your Inner Energy through Human Internal Energy Sources. Kothari shared that “as many as 80-85% of all disease and illness is caused by stress.” In 2014, Simon Sinek labeled serotonin The Leadership Chemical and helped us to understand how Serotonin and other bodily chemicals can reinforce or weaken leadership effectiveness.
At Crescent Leadership, you’ve heard us say that Leaders must first look to themselves. This is the conceptual underpinning of our Leader-First® Leadership model. The Leader has to set an example that signals to the team—My health and energy matter. Yours matters to me too. Teams cannot perform without energy. So instead of figuring out how to squeeze more time out of our people, let’s shift our focus to energy.
Time is finite, but energy is exponentially renewable.
