Holidays are made for leisure, not hybrid work
Too often leaders feel they need to compromise their values, their true selves, or take unnecessary risk. Margot’s approach provides a secure and authentic path to realising leadership potential, holding integrity and achieving the right results, writes Margot Faraci.
Ah, those lazy, hazy days of summer. Remember those?
We’d take off on holidays, unreachable, undistracted, and no one doubted the sense of it. We still achieved greatness. Life-saving antibiotics were developed in this work-relief model. People landed on the moon. We took leave, but somehow, humanity still progressed.
Today, right now, it’s a good bet you’re both reachable and distracted. Beach cricket is timed around conference calls, and instead of looking in on the surf club for a shandy the executive holiday-maker is staying back at the house to review a document.
This absence of boundaries while on leave is so common it’s unquestioned. It’s also understandable. The intensification of work is real – and we’re anxious about it. A global consulting firm recently released a survey of executives worldwide showing 98 per cent thought their business models had to change in the next three years, and 70 per cent said their jobs were at risk.
The pervasive stay-in-touch habit is a symptom caused by achievement orientation, a belief that it constitutes good leadership. “We’re going through difficult times, but I’m always on for my team and that means I’m a good leader.”
Nonsense.
Rest is critical to ward off misery and disease.
Any medico will tell you that recovery time is essential for proper emotional, physical and mental functioning. We need it – globally 53 per cent of managers are reporting burnout.
Being always-on reduces performance. It generates beta waves in the brain, which are about activity and transactions. But for big-thinking executive work you need theta waves, which drive ideas and complex decision-making. Theta waves only come when we’re daydreaming and relaxed. Your brain needs to get bored so it can do some hard work in the background.
Nor does staying in touch make you a great leader. Great leadership is demonstrated in the way one conducts oneself: how we treat others, our integrity and expertise. Roosevelt’s Man was in The Arena, not taking a 2pm client call from the holiday rental.
“The best leaders don’t wait for permission to set boundaries when they’re on leave.”
Great leadership starts with great leadership of self.
The best leaders don’t wait for permission to set boundaries when they’re on leave. No one’s going to give you your own time, you have to take it. The boundary police are not coming to save you – you have to be your own boundary cop.
So change your mindset and stick to it, appreciating that changing any habit is hard. If there’s a skeleton staff working, empower your delegate.
A full office closure means there’s nothing to do, so act accordingly. In all cases, let your out-of-office messages do the work. Go clear and early on your email and phone.
If you want to know your shortcomings, there’s none more helpful than a teenager, so ask the nearest one to call you out should you break your boundaries on the family holiday.
Love yourself enough to protect your own boundaries, and get lazy. Love your business enough to allow your mind to get hazy.
Love your family enough to simply be with them. And trust that humanity will progress just fine without you for a while.
