Why Leaders Need to Show the Way With Work-Life Balance

“A healthy, fulfilling work-life balance is not a new want. It his however endued with new meaning, repositioned after the unprecedented experiment in personal and professional resilience we have all recently lived through.” This was written when this blog was first published in 2021, and almost two years on there is an argument to say the experiment is still ongoing. 

Wellbeing and flexibility are the pillars of work-life balance, and have been promoted from buzzwords to workplace imperatives in so far as employees are increasingly unlikely to tolerate working and living without them. However, a number of companies still know more about remote working full time in unprecedented circumstances than they do about hybrid working in more stable ones. In other words, organisations struggling to let go and empower authentic, tailored, and guilt-free work/life balance is still a common problem.

For us at FranklinCovey, the idea of balance has always been an age-old principle. In The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People, Stephen R. Covey describes the P/PC balance – P equals productivity and PC equals the capability to produce. When productivity outweighs productivity capability, then output is not only unsustainable but also damaging to performance in the long term.

Rather than delve into the personal and business benefits of work/life balance- those are explored on a macro level in our blogs on Quiet Quitting and the top HR priorities of 2023– this blog focuses on the micro level of individual leaders and the influence they have on the health and happiness of their people by virtue of the choices they make.

How does personal work-life balance change how leaders influence organisational effectiveness?

First, there’s the matter of personal effectiveness. As tenacious as you may be, no amount of dedication or determination means you can be everything to everyone.

If you’re stressed, tired, overwhelmed, distracted you cannot perform to the best of your ability. Conversely, if you are energised, revitalised and fit for work then it will show in how you perform and relate to people.

Research has dubbed burnout an international crisis, with a global survey of 20,000 people in 11 countries found 50% of employees and 53% of managers to be burnt out- is the correlation coincidental?

Your behaviour as a leader will influence your employees

In a 2015 study, researchers examined “work-life friendly role modeling,” the impact of managers investing balanced energy in work and personal life. On average, supervisors who reported that they take action to separate home and life were more likely to be perceived by employees as keeping a healthy work-life balance, and they in turn were more likely to proactively manage their time between their personal and professional lives themselves.

If leadership is doing it, people are reassured by the example. If they’re not, that can easily show up in their behaviour and decision-making. Stressed out, fatigued, over-burdened people can be resentful. When resentment creeps into a business, it can cloud your judgement and influence your behaviour and decisions.

If you have to miss out on your child’s school play, how sympathetic would you be to an employee who is asking for flexibility to enable them to meet family commitments?

If you haven’t made it out of the office before dinner time every day for the past week, what would your subconscious make of the employee who rushes out the door at the clocking-off time every day without fail?

f you, as a leader, feel that work is taking over your life, eating into your family and leisure time and stressing you out, how would you approach a relationship with an employee who wants a better balance between life and work?

Resentment could cloud your judgement. It may not be a conscious thought process, but you’re human, and humans experience envy.

Behaviour is learned 

A boss who preaches about the importance of punctuality, but shows up late? A boss who claims that openness and honesty is a highly regarded company value, but who lies and keeps important information from employees? People see through these double standards.

“Do as I say not as I do” does not fly with today’s aware and awakened employees.

So what about leaders who advocate wellbeing and work-life balance and claim these are part of the company culture, but whose outward behaviour is that of an always-on-boss who just can’t let go? Anything you say about wellbeing will sound disingenuous when you don’t take care of yourself.

Flexible working may be a right, but there is still a stigma

Even when people have a right to request flexible working, they are often reluctant to do so because of how they will be perceived. A ‘right’ means a lot less when the expectation, or at least hope, from leadership is you don’t use it.

It’s often the case that even when the law states employees have the right to request flexible working, and you’ve made an effort to create policies that are there to support work-life balance and wellbeing, employees are still reluctant to put their hand up. When people who are the most visible are also those who appear to be working the hardest, prioritising work/life balance feels like admitting you are less invested in the work or committed to the team. 

Much of this misconception can arise from the implied messages that come from leadership behaviours and standards. If your boss is not considerate with themselves, they’re not likely to come across as considerate or open-minded to the needs of their team. People are not going to feel confident in asking for home working or flexible working patterns, even if they would ultimately make them a better employees. 

The actions of your leaders build your culture

If leaders are ‘always on’, engage in presenteeism and miss out on holidays, nights out, family and leisure time, then your team take note. You lead, they will follow. And then start start to ungenerously judge each other by those standards.

A report published by global recruitment firm Robert Walters revealed that 55% of Millennials polled are those pushing hardest for remote working. Over one third (37%) of other age groups feel this generation plays the “family or long-commute card” too often.

Work-life balance is defined differently across generations, and creating a culture where wellbeing is important to and supported in everyone, means you as a leader need to demonstrate that inclusivity, understanding and transparency are rules to live by.

Don’t underestimate the power of leading by example

When you neglect your own self-care and work-life balance, even in the name of aiming to do the best by your team or business, the message you give is: This is what it takes to succeed here. This is what we value. This is what we want you to aspire to. Your team will want to measure up to your tacit expectations, and then they will burn out just as fast as you will. 

Demonstrating via a top-down approach that achieving positive work-life balance is an active, inclusive part of your business’s culture is just one way for leaders to influence organisational effectiveness through their own behaviour.