opinion

A dangerous stretch

I’m noticing more and more frequently these days how many senior people I coach are being stretched to a point where their wellbeing has reached dangerously low levels.

Pressure on new hires

New hires, unfamiliar with the culture and the structure they’re joining, are being required to present key analyses and to make strategic judgments before they’ve barely got their feet under the table. The pace, speed and pressure implicit in such scenarios – especially given the high stakes that they’re working with – can accelerate stress at an alarming rate. People often respond by working longer and longer hours, quickly becoming exhausted and sacrificing the parts of their lives – the gym, the running, the yoga, the family time – that had been helping to keep them balanced.

Over-using long-established leaders

At the other end of the length-of-service spectrum, long-established leaders who are the repository of years of organisational knowledge are used as resources of wisdom and judgment. As a consequence they find themselves expected to plan, mobilise and lead areas of activity that should have been delegated elsewhere. The result is an indiscriminate overload of work on a single person, their resilience wearing thin and the quality of their work becoming ragged.

Such situations may have evolved because it appears to be an easy solution to keep turning to the most experienced person. In fact this means that some of their colleagues and reports are not developed, others are disempowered and yet others are missing out on having their performance appropriately managed. In such situations the leader’s quality and quantity of sleep, family life, and – crucially – time away from the mobile phone, and their effectiveness can suffer badly.

The demands of a new project

And anywhere along the length-of-service spectrum the allocation of responsibility for running a new project – especially if it is sizeable and core to the organisation’s success – with inadequate resources to support that individual and that project, can mean a psychological, emotional or physical stretch that isn’t sustainable. The newly-appointed project manager finds him- or herself unable to manage the imbalance between the pressure on them and the resource available to them. They find themselves strung out too thinly. The stress can result in a range of symptoms from heart, digestive or immunity problems to mental health issues.

Endangering health

In all such situations the individual’s quality of health is being jeopardised, usually by people who have no idea of the dangers of the demands they are making – including, of course, the individual themselves.

Health and the organisational agenda are in conflict

And there lies the fundamental conflict and struggle – between the individual’s health and wellbeing, on the one hand, and the imperatives of the organisational strategy on the other. Many people consciously sacrifice the former for the latter because they believe that to do otherwise would be career-threatening. It’s arresting to note that they view their priorities in this way, since they may not even be around to serve the organisational agenda if their health collapses – even though this is perfectly understandable when you also understand the systemic power of the human need to belong, to align, to serve, to perform, to relate to others and to be affirmed.

How change occurs: coaching or a breakdown?

In my experience it takes careful, creative and compassionate coaching for people to realise not only that there’s an issue, but also the risks they’re running, and to decide to manage themselves, the expectations they have of themselves, and their relationship to work, differently. Alternatively, it can take a mental breakdown and the associated havoc – in terms of distress, relationships, the pressures on family life, and interruption to their careers – before anything changes.

Self-care is career-enhancing rather than self-indulgent

At the very heart of this – as I’ve learnt from those of my own coaching clients who have been in this pattern – is the realisation that individuals come to that, whereas they’d previously regarded self-care as selfish, self-indulgent or disposable, not only is it ‘OK’, legitimate and necessary, but also it enables them to make a better job of their jobs and their relationships in and out of work, and it enhances their efficiency, their insight, a broader perspective, their emotional intelligence, and the quality of their judgments and decisions.

Why, so often, does it take a crisis or a near-crisis for individuals and organisations to become more effective and for organisations to get the sustainable return on investment that they assumed they were going to get in the first place?

Isn’t it time that senior leadership teams in all organisations addressed this challenge openly, consistently and with integrity so that individuals are encouraged to prioritise their self-care and so that none of their people is ever faced with the excruciating dilemma of choosing between mental health and maintaining their job?

Photo by John C Bullas BSc MSc PhD MCIHT MIAT via Compfight

Stretching to breaking point

Some senior people I coach are being stretched to a point where their wellbeing has reached dangerously low levels. At the heart of their recovering their health and balance is the realisation that, whereas they’d previously regarded self-care as selfish, self-indulgent or disposable, not only is it ‘OK’, legitimate and necessary, but also it enables them to make a better job of their jobs and their relationships in and out of work, enhancing their efficiency, their insight, the ability to take a broader perspective, their emotional intelligence, and the quality of their judgments and decisions.

Whose life is it anyway? Loyalties and agendas

Leaders may give away their authority by prioritising other people’s agendas and interests over their own – often indiscriminately and usually unconsciously. This blind loyalty to an assumption that questioning or challenging someone’s else’s agenda isn’t possible can, in turn, be down to another loyalty. This underlying loyalty can be to the leader’s outdated or misplaced belief that they have to do everything themselves if things are to get done to the necessary standard. This thinking habit or indeed a lack of thought - and the consequences - can be damaging to their leadership, career prospects, reputation, effectiveness, relationships, judgements and decisions. Leaders need to remember to be aware of the moment when a situation is drawing them in, and to give themselves space to think and options for alternative action.

Compassion: a business issue

Paul Gilbert, Professor of Clinical Psychology at the University of Derby, defines compassion as "a sensitivity to suffering in self and others with a commitment to try to alleviate and prevent it" – and he notes that the core of compassion is courage. Far from being a soft issue, his scientific perspective is directly relevant to how organisations can boost their effectiveness. Compassion can do much to restore trust, confidence and a sense of safety in the individual and in the system – and it’s partly about both presence and acceptance, with a close link to mindfulness. Leaders and their reports can take practical steps to boosting both their self-compassion and their compassion towards others.

Building resilience in a tougher world

We all - and particularly leaders - seem to be experiencing more and more pressure in our modern world. The need to build and maintain resilience seems more pressing than ever. By ‘resilience’ I mean not so much the ability to simply cope, but more the capacity to consistently adapt to changing circumstances, to learn from adversity, and to manage intense emotions and uncomfortable thinking in oneself and others. We need to learn to flex in our responses to adversity.

'Just being': my article in Coaching at Work

Transactional coaching objectives are irrelevant to some of my clients. 'Doing’ keeps them out of trouble but offers no fulfilment or satisfaction, whereas - ironically - 'being' and objective-free coaching offers them the time and space that are essential for them to profoundly engage with their coaching objectives

Honesty, wellbeing and mental health

Mental ill-health in organisations may be a taboo subject and may carry a stigma. Sufferers may suffer in silence until their condition worsens to the point of crisis. When crisis does strike, in addition to individuals’ difficulties, the organisational upheaval and cost can be significant, as can the damage to working relationships. However, in an open culture people are more likely to feel engaged and to give of their best, and evidence shows that business results are much better than in cultures where the issue is not faced. It is the coach's responsibility to work with whatever shows up - but not to aim to heal or cure.

A sense of belonging

The deepest human need is to belong. A strong sense of belonging and connectedness is positively associated with wellbeing, happiness and mental health. Feelings of belonging are understood to influence an individual’s identity and the extent to which they feel accepted, respected, valued for who they are - and these feelings in turn, by strengthening relationships, impact on engagement, effectiveness and productivity

Confidence, effectiveness and systems

Confidence that is depleted – which often results from an individual interpreting an external event or behaviour, and believing (albeit unconsciously) the message that they construct from it – leads very easily to effectiveness that is depleted. Looking outwards from the individual into their environment and the systems of relationships they are part of is often a more elegant and rapid process, offering more sustained and richer outcomes for rebuilding and re-resourcing, than cognitive approaches.

Stress, relationships and business results

Line managers can unwittingly create damaging stress in the relationships they have with their reports. This can come from their modelling themselves against others whose values they don't share - and once they allow themselves to be their authentic selves their working relationships can be transformed. Systemic coaching blended with comfort working with mental health issues can resource the client in valuable ways.

Leadership in professional service firms

Leadership is particularly complex and demanding in professional service firms such as law and accountancy. In such firms not only is profit generated through each fee-earner's billable hours, but the distribution and clarity of power is less clear, more diffuse and less demarcated than in other organisations. Leadership is an ambiguous matter of high autonomy and yet often high consensus.

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