Balanced Leadership in Lean Times
 If you find it easy to sacrifice the balance points in your life during times of stress, you are not alone. In this challenging economy, we fall into the trap of focusing too much on our professional careers, often to the detriment of our health and well-being. We all struggle to balance our competing commitments: work, family, community, our mental and physical health as well as our values and integrity. As responsible employees we expend considerable time and energy managing our work lives and we often fail to take control of the other dimensions of our life. The truth is, achieving balance isn't simple or easy. It takes a whole lot of effort, especially during times like these when companies and indeed whole countries are thrown into turmoil.
Here are a few practices from my book, Balanced Leadership in Unbalanced Times, that you can incorporate into your work here at the University of Michigan.
1. Be Smarter than your smartphone. Jean-Jacques Rousseau said, "Man is born free, and everywhere he is in chains." No kidding! Today's chains often are digital: cell phones and computers. Take action and free yourself from a constant stream of demands. Let people know you will not be checking your e-mail or phone after a certain time each day. Pick a day each week and keep your computer turned off. See how much more connected you will feel to what is going on around you!
2. Adhere to healthy routines and rituals. Many leaders work at balancing their lives through what they call daily practices. These can be tiny habits or big ones. Usually they are sprinkled throughout the day as a way to stop and reconnect, if only for a moment. You can try walking in the arboretum, deep meditation or just reminding yourself daily to work smarter not harder. As you can see, these practices need not be heavy or overbearing and they can be whatever you want them to be!
3. Set an example by not working excessive hours. If you find yourself regularly working more than 40 hours each week, think about how to better manage your energy, not just your time. Ask yourself the question I ask my clients: Are you fully engaged in your work? Are there family or health problems that are preoccupying you? Now take some actions to resolve them. If you are exhausted, take your lunch break someplace that you know energizes you, not someplace that you know will drain you. Visit the art museum, read a magazine in the law quad or swim at the CCRB on your way home.
4. Set the culture. Ask yourself what you like or dislike about your office environment. Keep your work space and the shared office space you use clean and organized. Plan an outing with your coworkers to a U of M sporting event, or organize a group to go to a lecture.
5. Refrain from the negative practices of gossip, bad mouthing and complaining without suggestions for change. We all know that listening to others complain is draining so don't do it. Living in Michigan today it is easy to be negative. Create an "abundance group" where people get together to share only positive stories and ideas. Talk about the things you are excited about to find motivation and energy. Can't think of anything? Ask the people around you!
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On May 19th, HRD and CEW co-sponsored the very successful event, Profiles in Leadership: Conversations with Betsy Myers and Michigan Leaders. In this dynamic, conversation-based learning format, participants had the opportunity to listen to Betsy in addition to some of the University’s most well-respected leaders like Provost Teresa Sullivan and Executive Vice President for Medical Affairs Ora Pescovitz as well as some of the state of Michigan’s most successful business leaders and leadership experts. The overarching theme was authentic leadership and there were two panel discussions in addition to Betsy Myers interview sessions, one on leading in lean times and the other on creating successful women leaders. During this full day of conversations, those Michigan leaders shared their insights, personal philosophies, practices and lessons learned about how they each uniquely and successfully lead.
HRD has the great pleasure of featuring one of those leadership experts, Rob Pasick, in this month’s newsletter. Click on the video to hear Rob describe some of the most important lessons learned and concrete strategies his fellow panelist Stephanie Hickman Boyse shared during the leading in lean times panel. We hope you’ll also enjoy Rob’s own advice from his many years of experience as a licensed psychologist and executive coach on how to be a more balanced leader. Take a few moments to review the list and determine where you can exert more control in areas that will create more personal and professional balance in your efforts to become a more effective leader.
Thank you for joining us this month. Next month, we will feature a University leader who joined us for the Profiles in Leadership event. Come back next month to find out who we feature and what they shared during that special day!
If you would like to learn more about balanced leadership, Rob Pasick will be teaching an HRD course in 2010-11 on Balanced Leadership in Unbalanced Times, based on his book of the same title. If you are interested in being notified when registration for this course is available, click here.
Kristen Storey
Director
Human Resource Development |
