LEADERS MAKE TIME FOR SELF-CARE
This past week I traveled to facilitate a full-day leadership training for the leadership team at a large company. During the day, we touched upon a number of issues that you might expect:
-Delegation
-Accountability
-Delivering and Receiving Feedback
-Learning from Mistakes
-Building Collaborative Culture
-Being Authentic
-Cultivating Self-Awareness
-The Corrosive Effect of Gossip
-Avoiding Working in Silos
-Building Self-Awareness
These were just some of the leadership subjects we discussed. By the end of the day, we had addressed a host of important leadership topics. After I arrived back home in Maryland, I emailed the CEO of the company and, coming from a place of curiosity, asked him what his biggest take-away from the training had been.
I expected him to say something about building and sustaining a positive culture, training his people to do their jobs well, completely and in a timely manner, or serving as a role model for his leadership team when it came to character and competence.
Instead, he said “The part about self-care.” He admitted to me that he is so driven at work and so determined to get “everything” done and lead his team to success that he had been neglecting his own health and well-being.
His admission reminded me of many articles I used to read about the legal industry, articles which depicted the heightened levels of depression, alcohol dependence, drug dependence and burn-out among law firm and law department leaders.
Self-care is an interesting leadership topic. Almost all leaders know at an intellectual level that they ought to be taking care of themselves. Some people would call that common sense. However, as we said at the start of this one-day leadership training session, what is common sense is not always common practice.
During the leadership coaching chapter of my career, I have heard so many accomplished leaders claim to me: “Larry, I am super busy. Many people here at the firm are depending on me. I know I should be taking better care of myself, but I don’t have time to exercise regularly.”
There are two word choice errors in that statement? Can you spot them yourself?
As I have said previously in this newsletter, we do not “have time” for things like self-care – we must “make time” for crucial activities like that. Additionally, whenever we use the word “should,” we are judging ourselves and finding ourselves lacking. That detracts from our self-esteem and our effectiveness. As Father Alexei Michalenko taught me many years ago, “Don’t should on yourself.”
Self-care requires a personal commitment on the part of leaders. Ironically, multiple empirical studies have shown that when leaders make the time to engage in self-care on a consistent basis, they are happier, more productive and more effective in both their professional and personal lives.
During the leadership training session, I challenged all participants to start engaging in enhanced self-care in one or more of the four personal dimensions:
-Physical
-Mental
-Social-Emotional
-Spiritual
I asked the participants:
“What is one thing you could do, starting Monday, to enhance your self-care in one of these four dimensions?” I encouraged them to write it down and save it.
Then I asked them : “On a scale of 1-10, what is your level of commitment to what you just wrote down?”
Think about your own level of self-care today – Sunday, August 17, 2025 – and ask yourself what you could do to strengthen your self-care regimen and your commitment, starting tomorrow.
Next week we will explore alternative strategies for improving your self-care in the four human dimensions.
Make it a good week!
If you believe this content would resonate with a friend or colleague, please feel free to forward it along!
-Larry