We all want to have a rich and meaningful work life and a fulfilling life beyond work.
At the individual level, you need to examine what you truly value, share this with key stakeholders in various life domains both to get feedback and support, and then to experiment with new ways of doing things so that - over the arc of a life - you can achieve harmony and have more of what it is that you uniquely want out of life.
If you're searching for "work/life balance" you'll always be disappointed because "balance" connotes a zero-sum equation.
If you shift your mindset to asking "How can I initiate change that's good for my family, and my community, and my career, and my private self (mind, body and spirit)? then you are more likely to produce harmony in your life, over the course of your life.
Skilled leaders focus on "we," not "me."
My research and practice indicates that people need to be doing work they love and to love the work they do. They need to feel that their efforts matter for the people and causes about which they really care. Further, they need to be doing work with people they respect and enjoy. Finally, they need to feel free to choose where, when and how it all gets done. It's not easy to put these conditions in place, but it is certainly possible to do so, as I have seen and shown in my work in organizations and communities using the Total Leadership approach.
The really good news is that when you give people the tools and the support to pursue what I call "four-way wins" - that is, improved performance in all parts of life - they are actually much likely to achieve these wins and, through the process, develop further their leadership skills.
The only failure is the failure to learn from conscious and deliberate efforts to make things better, even if those attempts fall short of the mark.
Firms that fully embrace the needs and interests of the whole person will win today's competition for the best talent.
"Leading" is about mobilizing people toward valued goals.
Knowing what matters most, what I call "being real," is the alpha and omega for leaders.
People struggle most with seeing new ways of doing things and often need help in breaking through their tradition-bound mindsets.
Curiosity about the world and questioning of the status quo to open minds to alternative visions of the future are essential leadership skills. And they can be learned.
I am very gratified to have lived to see a revolution in the field of work/life: Everyone - men and women, employees and employers - now has this issue top of mind.
You really can choose to be the leader you want to be, in all parts of your life, if you take seriously the idea that there's a purpose to your life worth pursuing because it matters not just to you but to others. Consciously and deliberating devoting effort to realizing this idea is ennobling, though never without some struggle.
Invest in helping people know what matters to them and who matters to them (and why), and encourage them to continually experiment with how they get things done in ways the serve their interests and yours as an employer.
The worst thing you can do, despite the innumerable obstacles we confront, is to not try.
Boundaries are shifting between work and the rest of life for men and for women at different life stages. Work is becoming home and home is becoming work. The progressive CEOs who grasp this emergent reality and adjust to embrace it will be at a competitive advantage in the marketplace for talent.
My view is that leadership is not about position - you can lead very well with no one reporting to you in a hierarchy and you can lead quite poorly with many people below you in the traditional chain of command. Leadership is about mobilizing people toward valued goals, and anyone can do this, in any aspect of life.
I find that many people have a hard time, at first, in painting a compelling image of an achievable future; to envision their legacy, that is. Often this is because they're afraid to commit for fear of failure.
Instead of the metaphor of scales in balance, I prefer the idea of a jazz quartet: you're trying to make music that feels and sounds good, and sometimes you only hear the trumpet or just the bass and piano. Sometimes all four are playing at the same time, but perhaps at different volume.
Continual improvisation on a theme is a more useful way to think of how to bring the various parts of life together.
Right now we're in the midst of a grand experiment on how best to harness the incredible power of the Internet while we struggle to maintain useful boundaries among the different parts of our lives.
My purpose is to help people understand that leadership skills are useful and relevant for pursuing meaningful aspirations in all aspects of life, and that this is a choice, a decision, not a default.
I believe each life has value and that we're on this earth to leave it better than how we found it. I want people to take this to hear and to try as hard as they can to improve their capacity to do so.
