Is your stress sapping your leadership mojo?

Strategic leaders shield their organization from their personal stresses.

THINK ON IT: Is your stress sapping your leadership mojo?

There’s a lot written about the need to create separation between our work lives and our personal lives. It’s far too easy to take our work home with us and allow it to cut into our rest or our time with family.

But our personal lives affect our work life, too, no matter how often a leader tries to compartmentalize it. Everything that’s going on in your personal life — even wonderful things like welcoming a new child or successfully launching them into the world — adds up to have a significant impact on the amount of stress you are able to carry at a given time. 

The long established Holmes-Rahe Stress Inventory is a helpful way to gauge the compounding level of stress you may be presently carrying. It assigns points based on different life events that may have happened to you over the course of the last year. Your composite score gives an indication of the probability that you’ll experience a “health breakdown” in the next two years.

Assessing our current level of stress–and how well we manage it–is not only vital for avoiding a health breakdown, it’s critical to avoiding a breakdown in our leadership as well.

The more compounding stressors we are under, the harder it is to show up whole and make clear, concise decisions that are aligned with our organization’s vision and mission statements. The harder it is to live out our core values — both personally and professionally. 

Are you able to keep your leadership in place even though things are out of control? If not, what kind of resources do you need to help you bear the stress burden and regain your leadership mojo? 

Don’t be so busy putting out today’s fires that you sacrifice how you lead tomorrow.

Paid subscribers read on for a few tips on how to keep your shape in times of stress. Become a paid subscriber.

“For fast-acting relief, try slowing down.” — Lily Tomlin

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