When it comes to corporate leadership, occupational stress comes with the territory. Having worked their way to the top, senior executives are well versed in managing heavy workloads and making high-stakes decisions. In fact, many high achievers thrive in stressful environments and can feel lost without the pressure of a looming deadline.
But what happens when it all gets a bit too much? In our experience, even the most emotionally robust leaders have breaking points.
“Go on, keep bending that stick. Just don’t be surprised when you hear it snap.” Rohit Sukheja
According to The Priory Group, there are two types of stress; there’s the positive kind, known as eustress, which energies and motivates us. Then there’s distress, which causes the types of negative responses we more commonly associate with stress, such as sleepless nights, irritability, and burnout.
Somewhere in between eustress and distress, is our ‘tipping point’.
The thing is, not only is our work-stress tolerance level unique to us, but it can also be influenced by such variables as homelife, health, financial pressures, and the morning commute to work.
It’s important then, that as leaders, we have an awareness of our own limits and understand what we need to maintain our healthy levels of well-being and performance.
That’s right, we’re talking about “selfcare”.
For some of you, the phrase ‘selfcare’ will conjure images of yoga and quiet contemplation, but unless that’s your thing, selfcare doesn’t always have to involve meditation.
According to the experts at business.calm.com, selfcare is all about doing what’s right by ourselves and being our own personal advocate for our own wellbeing.
In other words, whether your thing is kicking back or kick boxing, you just need to do you.
Developing a Sense of Self
To be a resilient leader, we must first ‘know ourselves’. How often do we take the time to reflect upon our own performance? Do we ever ask our colleagues for feedback?
Self-awareness plays a huge part in mitigating burnout and stress; it makes us aware of our limits and enables us to avoid triggers.
A recent, large-scale study by Organisational Psychologist Tasha Eurich, however, found that only 10-15% of us are truly self-aware - which may go some way to explaining why so many of us are feeling stressed.
Thankfully, with a little effort, self-awareness IS something that can be improved.
At Starbuck & Associates, we use psychometrics, honed questioning techniques and self-reflection tools to help our clients to better understand their strengths, current limitations, and future potential.
By becoming more aware of their key stressors and subsequent behavioural patterns, our clients gain the ability to be proactive and address issues before they have a detrimental effect.
Understanding Our Own Needs
We’re complex and unique creatures; what works one day to calm our souls, may fail abysmally the next. As coaches, we can’t tell our clients what form of selfcare they need, but we can help them to reconnect with themselves, so they instinctively know what to self-prescribe.
According to psychological experts Karen Saakvitne and Laurie Pearlman, there are 6 elements of our daily lives which need regular care and attention if we are to maintain a heathy body and mind.
Physical Self: Our body, health, fitness, and diet.
Psychological Self: Our mind, our ability to think rationally, decision making and overall mental wellbeing.
Emotional Self: How we feel about the world around us and our place in it. How we feel about ourselves. Our mood.
Professional Self: Our workload, our relationships with colleagues, work/life balance, time management and organisation.
Personal Self: Self-awareness, connection to self, family, friendships, and hobbies.
Spiritual Self: Spirituality, mindfulness, connection to things which make us happy.
Selfcare and wellbeing expert Olga Phoenix expanded on this work to create The Selfcare Wheel.
This tool is used by wellbeing specialists worldwide to help their clients understand what they need to do to improve their own wellbeing
Within in the circle, the elements of ‘self’ are separated into segments, each containing examples of selfcare ideas and techniques to inspire. An image like the one above is supplied alongside a blank copy of the wheel, for the subject to populate with their own version of self.
Executive coaching touches on all 6 segments of self, but particular attention is paid to the emotional, professional, and personal elements of wellbeing.
Initially, clients may struggle to populate the self-care wheel, but through the soul searching and introspection that coaching demands, they soon develop a deeper understanding of their individual needs.
Finding a Balance
“Balance is not something you find, it’s something you create.” Jana Kingsford.
Being able to achieve a work/life balance is one of the biggest challenges for corporate leaders to overcome. Not only is overworking not good for our health, but it can also cause rifts in our personal lives, adding to the levels of stress we experience.
As coaches, the Time Management Matrix by Dwight D. Eisenhower (popularised by Stephen R. Covey in his book: 7 Habits of Highly Effective People) is just one ‘task prioritisation tool’ in our time management arsenal. It’s a great, simple quadrant which helps clients to identify their time thieves and prioritise their workloads.
Making Time
Reading this, some of you are probably wondering just how on earth you are going to take time out to analyse your working day. The thing is, an hour-long coaching session isn’t ‘time out’ from your role as leader – it’s time in, that will pay you back, tenfold.
Coaching sessions offer time strapped leaders the opportunity to put their ‘foot on the ball’ and look around to see if how they’re investing their time, is effective.
Our coaches help clients to analyse how their time is spent, looking for opportunities to delegate or switch up procedures to make them more streamlined and less work intensive.
Get Off (and stay off) the Hamster Wheel
‘Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again - but expecting different results.’
We’ve all heard this definition of insanity a thousand times, yet in practice, many smart, capable leaders continue to climb on the corporate hamster wheel until they’re simply too exhausted to carry on.
This doesn’t have to happen to you.
Burnout IS preventable and coaching CAN help.
At Starbuck & Associates, we provide a safe space for overworked, senior leaders to reconnect with themselves. We support them in reprioritising their workload and provide them with the tools to build their resilience to stress.
If you’ve been affected by the content in this article, please do reach out. If not to us, a therapist, your HR department, GP or a professional wellbeing support charity can help.
“Almost everything will work again if you unplug it for a few minutes, including you.” Annie Lamott
Email: Paul@starbuckassiociates.com
Phone: 07799474776
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