The achievement of work-life balance can be challenging for people in leadership positions as they have put a lot of effort into achieving positions of increased exposure, influence, and accountability, so spending any time away from that could feel like going backwards or showing weakness. Organisational leaders can be burdened with a lot of responsibility since they frequently have to manage owner or stakeholder expectations in addition to looking out for the interests of their staff and the company as a whole.
Therefore, if a leader wants to have a long and fruitful leadership career and help their team succeed, they need to commit to unravelling that Gordian knot.
Leaders, like any other successful person, are not immune to mental health problems. The ability to relax is essential for those in positions of authority, and this begins with striking a good work-life balance. Achieving work-life balance at the executive level can have a trickle-down effect, encouraging a more adaptable and balanced approach to work among all employees.
All businesses and their leaders should pause for a moment to consider the important issue of work-life balance. A company with a great work culture rewards its employees for their accomplishments and encourages them to maintain a healthy work-life balance. It’s crucial to remember that a company’s success can be guaranteed by leadership that strikes a healthy balance between work and personal life, which in turn leads to increased productivity, better personnel management, and greater returns.
Having a good work-life balance means not letting your personal life suffer because of your job. When time, energy, and resources are not allocated fairly to the various facets of life, difficulties emerge. This could manifest itself in a leader who works 15 hours a day but is too worn out to enjoy time with loved ones at the end of the day. Their partner and children suffer because they are emotionally distant because they work too much. A lack of work-life balance typically affects more than just one area of a person’s life. Just like a domino falling, it can cause havoc in other places and disturb their entire existence.
If leaders are overly workaholic, it could put unnecessary stress on their staff. It can be distressing for employees to watch their leaders prioritising work over personal life. Leaders should provide a good example by balancing their own professional and personal lives. All employees, regardless of their level of responsibility, benefit from having a healthy mental state in order to maximise their output.
For this reason, it is essential for leaders to establish clear boundaries and priorities. Time limits must be established, and the day must be segmented properly in advance. Leaders need to put in a lot of extra effort to strike a perfect work-life balance to manage the extremely demanding and competing demands on their time.
Strategies that can help leaders achieve work-life balance
The following are strategies for leaders to help them strike a healthy work-life balance.
1) Leaders need to work smart, not hard
Leaders can lessen the impression that they have to put in extra hours by making the most of their time during regular business hours. One tactic is to focus on doing one task at a time. Even when it may feel like individuals are making progress on several fronts at once, research suggests that multi-tasking slows down productivity and increases the likelihood of making mistakes.
Instead, leaders should learn to concentrate better by creating to-do lists, ranking each item according to priority, and adopting measures to reduce interruptions and distractions. They can leave work on time, secure in the knowledge that they can take up exactly where they left off since they have kept organised lists of what needs to be done.
2) Leaders need to delegate tasks
Delegating tasks is a terrific way for leaders to help their teams and their employees. When leaders are able to build trustworthy teams, they produce employees they can rely on. A leader should focus on building a competent and dependable team and then assign responsibilities to them. This might provide employees with a sense of ownership while taking some tasks off the leader’s plate.
3) Leaders need to set strict boundaries
It’s a blessing that we live in an era of advanced technology and widespread digital connectivity. But technology’s downsides are often overlooked.
Being reachable at all times makes it more challenging for a leader to strike a healthy balance between work and personal life. Leaders should not assume that their teams will automatically work together on projects over the weekend or after office hours just because everyone has access to a computer or smartphone at home.
Leaders should enforce stringent guidelines for their teams about working beyond office hours. They should push for better work-life harmony among staff members so that people may give their full attention and effort during work hours. For leaders, technology should serve to simplify their lives, not to add stress.
4) Leaders must use technology in a way that benefits them
A mental adjustment is necessary for achieving an ideal work-life balance. The goal of process automation is to free up time for leaders to rest and refuel as necessary. For instance, there are countless apps available to assist users with everything from calendar management to automated lead follow-up.
If leaders can endeavour to become more thoughtful and creative in how they integrate and leverage technology, it will provide them with a greater balance between their personal and professional life.
Wrap up
There are many positive outcomes when leaders achieve an ideal work-life balance. Maintaining a healthy work-life balance improves efficiency, dedication, morale, and creativity across the board. Teams that are exhausted often produce subpar results and can become disillusioned with the companys overall vision.
Leaders, like everyone else, need to make money to pay the bills while keeping their minds healthy to do their jobs effectively. Like all employees, leaders require and have the right to experience work-life balance for themselves and their families.
About SeraphCorp
SeraphCorp is a Singapore-based leadership consulting firm that provides leadership development training, coaching, and bespoke programmes.
We see facilitating the art of growing leaders as our mission. Day in and day out, we work hand in hand with our clients to boost their human potential and organisational performance. Our goal is to have every organisation and every leader come away from our programmes fundamentally changed in some way.
Our clients include leaders and managers from diverse sectors and industries, while the companies we work with range from SMEs to corporate giants. We carefully curate and assemble our faculty from the ranks of leaders. Our faculty boasts extensive experience in the diverse fields of aviation, civil service, engineering, banking, manufacturing and property development.
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