Have you ever had an injury and didn’t discover it until hours or even days later? You kept feeling a nagging pain but were so occupied doing something else until at some point the pain signals became louder, and it could no longer be ignored. Remember your injury? I can relate—I once walked around for a week without realizing I had a badly fractured toe. Injuries can really sneak up on us. Leadership Recovery is all about taking time to recognize and tend to leadership injuries—some we oftentimes don’t even know we have.
Leadership Recovery focuses on the learning, healing, and growth needed for leaders to operate at their best. Given the daily struggles and demands of leadership, it’s important to be mindful of how to navigate these challenges, the bumps, cuts, and bruises they cause, aka Pain Points and how to recover from them. To really appreciate the application of Leadership Recovery, leaders must fully recognize and have an awareness of what they deal with on a daily basis. Leadership is not for the weak or faint of heart! It’s demanding! Whether it’s moving toward the mission, ensuring engaged employees or direct reports, interacting with stakeholders, and managing so much unpredictability—leaders deal with ALOT!
Am I wrong? When was the last time you stopped to take that all in? Take a moment to think about what you’ve had going on in the last 2 weeks. Have you had any “pressure cooker moments”? They happen to each and every one of us.
Still not sold on the idea of your need for Leadership Recovery? Here are 10 reasons that highlight its relevance to you.
- Leaders have complex worlds.
Leadership happens on 3 levels. You lead yourself (self-leadership), you lead others, and you lead at the organizational level at various degrees, depending on your position. And then, when you zoom in further, as a leader, your responsibilities become even more complex. You have to learn different personalities, uphold the mission, vision, and values, report to stakeholders, be mindful of customers, etc. The demands of leadership are overwhelming.
- Leaders are 100% Human!
This can be really difficult for leaders to remember. It’s almost as if that’s a secondary consideration that’s optional. Remembering that you’re operating as a human being means that yes, you recognize your unique and amazing abilities, but you’re also mindful and respectful of your limitations as well. And as a human being, you have mental, physical, emotional, and spiritual needs that should be attended to. Unfortunately, many leaders don’t. Many are teetering on burnout.
- Cars need tuneups! So do you!
We all know that you can’t drive your car endlessly without some sort of maintenance. Leaders aren’t much different.
- Navigating your emotions is complex.
Every organization is at the mercy of VUCA. VUCA stands for Volatility, Uncertainty, Complexity and Ambiguity. With so many moving and unpredictable elements at play, that’s enough to leave any leader’s emotions on a rollercoaster ride.
- You can’t always predict how leadership experiences impact you.
The deadline that gets missed, the funding that runs out, the contract that doesn’t go through, the stakeholders who are disgruntled—the everyday occurrences can sometimes affect you more than you realize at times. You can never tell when you have reached your tipping point. Many leaders find themselves over the edge and do not know how they even got there in the first place.
- You can’t compartmentalize your life.
There is no person on the planet that can section off their personal life from their professional lives. Everything bleeds over to everything else. If you’re struggling emotionally, mentally, physically, and/or spiritually, it will often follow you to work. Some leaders are going through a divorce, raising kids, caring for aging parents, or dealing with sickness themselves or with a family member. Life is happening, and as much as people think they can leave it at the front door before they come into work, that is nearly impossible.
- Leaders don’t often get much time to heal and reflect.
It’s common knowledge that many leaders teeter on burnout. I think #’s 1-6 show how easily that’s possible. The constant momentum of leadership makes it difficult to reflect and slow down for many. I compare it to riding on a Bullet train going nearly 200 mph and trying to look out of a window. Can you really see anything clearly? So how can you heal and reflect on things you can’t even clearly see? And thus the cycle perpetuates.
- To Optimize You!!!
You are your greatest asset! Taking time to increase your capacity and efficiency and alleviate the threats of burnout is worth doing. This is my FAVORITE thing to talk about!!!! The full strengths and abilities you have are unimaginable. Leadership Recovery allows you to tap into them and use them to work from a place of advantage, peace, and confidence.
- To increase your success
Everyone defines success differently. For you, maybe reaching organizational profit goals, ensuring you have accountable employees/direct reports, have work-life alignment to work but also vacation. How do you define success? Are you ready to create a better plan to help you obtain it?
- To put you back in control of your work life, personal life, and wellbeing
Are you ready to get off the bullet train and back to seeing life more clearly? Are you ready to redefine your life and priorities and to stop feeling like everything is constantly spilling over into everything else or that you’re losing control. Or maybe you’ve noticed that haven’t been tapping into your strengths, could use greater capacity and to get back on track with your goals. Maybe you want to lead more effectively and are looking for greater opportunities. Leadership Recovery isn’t a one-time event. It’s the necessary on-going learning, healing and growing that’s needed for you to operate at your best.
Ready to have a deeper conversation about how to get greater Leadership Development and Leadership Recovery support for you and/or your team? Please book your complimentary & confidential consultation at www.victoriabaylor.com/call
