Care for Self as Well As Others

Last time we looked at care as a leadership strategy - how care for others is the key to great leadership. Leaders who truly care for the welfare of others and demonstrate that continuously are the ones who can lead their teams and organisations through uncertainty because their people are more willing to follow and try different things. Care builds trust and trust is needed if you want someone to move willingly out of their comfort zone and try something new. Particularly if that change will be an uncomfortable or difficult one.

There was one aspect of care though that I didn't talk about and it's a really important one - always remember that care is not just for others. Care for Self is really important, and, sadly, often overlooked. I have seen many leaders who care very deeply about their people and their organisation. They devote themselves to their organisation and their teams and they work tirelessly to make them better. And they completely neglect themselves.

The impacts of a lack of self care are profound. At its worst it can lead to burnout, depression and a trip to a very dark mental state that can take a long time to recover from. I've been down that path myself. I worked really hard to build a great team in an organisation that really didn't value people at all. I fought so hard for the team against the impersonal machinery of this large organisation that I left myself exhausted and burned out. I had nothing left to give. My performance in the job suffered. My team suffered. My family suffered and I suffered. Eventually I had to leave and spend some time recovering. I spent nearly 18 months sitting at home not really able to do anything before I was able to get back to work.

I was lucky. My family survived. I survived. I was able to leverage what I learned into a career in coaching so that others wouldn't have to go through what I did. But many are not so lucky. Families break up. Careers are ended and lives are lost.

Even in less extreme cases people suffer. Neglecting yourself can lead to overwork, stress and general discontent. That stress and unhappiness will come out somehow. It will impact your performance at work and at home. It will eat away at the care you feel for others. That care you spent so much effort building up will be gradually eroded away and be replaced with cynicism and resentment. And people will notice. You will cease to be the great leader that you worked so hard to become.

I have had several truly compassionate leaders talk to me about the resentment they feel at having to spend so much time fixing other's problems for them. How much time they have to spend on other people. They also talk about the difficulty they have devoting the same amount of time to caring for their family and look for strategies to balance work and family. I have also had the opposite - people who devote so much time to family that they have no time for work and are looking at strategies for being able to devote as much time to work as they do to family. What they almost never talk about is how they have left no time at all for themselves.

Work is important. Family is important. But Self is important as well. It's not a two way balance. It's a three way balance. Work. Family. Self. All are important. All need some time.

Self care is the foundation of all other care. The best analogy I can come up with is that we have a limited reserve of care, like a battery. We expend it when we care for others whether at work or at home. Self care is different though. Self care is like popping your care battery in the charger. Caring for self builds up your reserves and allows you to continue caring for others. Without regular charging, your care battery will run down and the care you have for others will suffer. It will become tinged with resentment and anger. It will eat at your mental state until you can't maintain the illusion any more. Regular self care is vital. How much will depend on the person. Some need more, some need less (they have a battery that charges much quicker).

Now, self care is much like "wellness" and "mindfulness". It's a much overused phrase that is more often than not used to sell you something expensive. I have some good news though. Self care requires no special equipment. No special clothing. No superfoods. No difficult to learn techniques.

What it involves is you taking some time regularly to do things that you like. Whether that's walking in the park, reading a book, going out with friends or whatever. It involves looking after yourself. Eating well. Making sure you take some time out to eat rather than just cramming a bag of chips at your desk. It doesn't mean a descent into hedonism though. It's not about just indulging yourself mindlessly. That way can lie madness. I have seen people give in to alcohol and drugs as a coping strategy. That is not self care. That's the opposite. It's trying to dull the mental pain by inflicting different mental pain. I'm not saying to give up drinking or your drug of choice, but don't rely on it exclusively for self care.

Self care is about living well, not about living to excess. Living to excess may feel good but it's not self care. It's more like binging on pleasure because you feel unhappy, then feeling guilty about it so binging more to feel good again for a while. It's not sustainable. Find what you like. Develop a hobby. Or several. Eat well as often as you can.

Most important of all, devote some regular time to doing what you like to do. Recharge your care battery regularly and it will give you years of reliable service.