Conscious Care-Engagement: The Key to Beating Burnout
Cherie Dorotich
The Corporate Rebel ?? Developing impactful Women Leaders is my thing // ?? Integrative Leadership Development // Creating happy, confident women in + out of the boardroom
I am calling out the cliche of the traditional narrative around self-care and individual resilience is being challenged. It's time we dive into the concept of conscious care-engagement—a revolutionary approach that sidesteps the pitfalls of isolated self-care and introduces a more integrated, sustainable method to combat burnout.
Rethinking Self-Care: Why Going It Alone Doesn’t Work
The conventional wisdom suggests that leaders should fortify themselves with solitary acts of self-care—running, meditation, or a solitary bubble bath. While these are beneficial, they often leave a void. They demand that leaders, already strapped for time and energy, squeeze yet another activity into their overcrowded schedules. This approach not only isolates but subtly reinforces the notion that seeking help is a sign of weakness, further ingraining the stigma around vulnerability in leadership.
The truth is, this model is inherently flawed. It places undue emphasis on individualism in a role fundamentally about collaboration and influence. Let’s face it, leaders operate within a community and their strength often lies in their inter-connectedness, not their solitude.
Embracing Care-Engagement: A Collective Approach
Care-engagement flips the script by actively inviting others into our personal well-being space. Unlike traditional self-care, which often isolates and adds to our burdens, care-engagement involves actively inviting others into our healing processes and is more likely to provide eudaimonic wellbeing rather than the less effective hedonic well being. This approach pivots from the erroneous notion that strength emanates from solitude and acknowledges that real power lies in vulnerability and inter-connectedness.?
Imagine integrating a professional wellness coach to conduct tailored sessions right in your office, or having a nutrition-oriented business prepare your meals at home. Imagine the scenario: a leader decides to invite a trainer to their office at lunchtime for a walk and debrief, or schedules a masseur to provide a relaxing massage at the end of a hectic day. These actions symbolically and practically dismantle the barriers to seeking help. These aren't just fantasies but practical, impactful strategies that shift the burden of care from the individual to a collective.
This method not only eases the leader’s load but enriches connections within their support network. It transforms care from a solitary chore into a shared responsibility, enhancing well-being through community involvement and reducing the isolation that so often accompanies leadership roles.
Overcoming Barriers to Care-Engagement
Adopting a care-engaged approach necessitates a broader cultural shift within organisations. It requires dismantling the myth that leaders must be islands of strength and self-reliance.? To cultivate this environment, organisations need to:
Educate: Provide training on the benefits of care-engagement for well-being and productivity.
Facilitate: Make logistical arrangements that simplify the process of receiving care, such as flexible scheduling and in-house wellness services.
Normalise: Encourage open discussions about the benefits of seeking help, showcasing testimonials and case studies from successful leaders who practice care-engagement.
Unpacking the Childhood Origins of Care-Engagement Discomfort
The initial discomfort of inviting care into our lives is real. It stems from deeply ingrained societal norms that equate leadership with self-sufficiency.? Many leaders fear that by showing they need others, they expose themselves to judgment. Tackling these fears requires courage and a shift in perspective, seeing the act of requesting help not as a failing but as an astute leadership strategy that prioritises sustainability over heroics.
Beyond societal norms, the discomfort associated with care-engagement often has deeper, more personal roots stretching back to childhood. Many leaders, particularly those of us who have excelled rapidly, are likely to have experienced childhoods where high levels of independence were not just encouraged but required. From a young age, we learn that our ability to manage alone was not only rewarded but was a condition for receiving approval, connection, and love.
This early conditioning is reinforced by societal expectations that valorise self-sufficiency, particularly in professional settings. The reward systems in place from childhood often persist into adult life, where independence continues to be rewarded, now with promotions, bonuses, and recognition. This engrains a belief that needing others is a weakness, contradicting the very nature of human social dependence and connectivity.??
Doesn’t it make sense that when we are driven by intense unmet childhood needs to function in a maladaptive way (isolate self to receive the reward of connection) in our working role, that burnout becomes inevitable?
The task for us, then, is twofold: We must recognise and unravel these deep-seated beliefs about independence and self-sufficiency that stem from our earliest experiences. Additionally, we must actively work against the societal reinforcements that perpetuate these beliefs. By understanding the origins of our discomfort with care-engagement, we can begin to challenge these ingrained ideas and encourage a shift towards a more collaborative, supportive, and sustainable model of leadership.
Navigating through this discomfort involves recognising the biases we’ve internalised and actively choosing a different path—one that values self-preservation through collective support.? By understanding and adjusting to the discomfort of care-engagement, we foster a culture where seeking help is seen as a strength, not a liability.This isn’t just about wellness; it’s about setting a precedent for future leaders that strength is not measured by how much one can handle alone, but by how effectively one can mobilise and utilise resources—including human support.
Practical Steps Towards a Care-Engaged Leadership
1. Scheduled Professional Visits: Integrate sessions with wellness professionals who can come to your workspace. Whether it’s a physiotherapist, a massage therapist, or a yoga instructor, having expert care on-site can drastically reduce the effort and time typically involved in self-care.
2. Personal Care Services: Schedule in-home services such as meal preparation or housekeeping to alleviate daily pressures, allowing you to focus on recuperation and professional tasks.
3. Debriefing Sessions: Incorporate routine debriefing sessions with a trusted colleague or coach who can provide both professional feedback and emotional support.? Having a debrief coach , external from your organisation, do a brief call twice a week for debrief and support makes a fabulous lunch break under a tree (or laying flat on your back on your office floor!).
4. Art and Music Therapy Sessions: Integrate creative therapies by inviting artists or music therapists to conduct sessions in a common area of your workplace, or to attend to your home for a personal 1-1 to start your morning. These sessions not only foster a sense of community and creativity but also serve as therapeutic outlets for stress and emotional expression.
5. Professional Development Coach On-Site: Have a professional development coach available onsite or via video call to help you reflect on your professional journey, set goals, and develop strategies to achieve them. This type of engagement promotes mental clarity and career satisfaction.
6. Start a 'friends collective' group chat with friends: Select your key positive vibe friends and share a group chat space with these simple rules:?
Each of these strategies not only reduces the isolation inherent in traditional self-care but also enriches your support network, creating a scaffold that holds you through stresses and challenges.
The Ripple Effect: Strengthening Community Through Shared Care
Adopting a care-engaged approach has broader implications beyond individual well-being. It cultivates a corporate culture that values and integrates care as a fundamental aspect of its operation. This culture shift can lead to more sustainable work environments, reduce burnout rates, and promote a healthier, more collaborative workplace.
Moreover, by normalising the request for help, leaders can dismantle the stigmas associated with receiving care, thereby fostering a more inclusive and supportive corporate culture. It also places value on care professions, integrating them more deeply into the corporate ecosystem and enhancing their perceived value within our society.
For Future-Forward Leaders
For female leaders, engaging in active care is particularly potent. It not only combats burnout but also challenges the stereotypical expectations placed on women in leadership. By embracing and advocating for care-engagement, female leaders can redefine strength in leadership, showing that the most resilient leaders are those who know when and how to seek support.
Beating burnout in today’s high-pressure environments isn’t about adding more solitary tasks to our to-do lists. It’s about rewriting the narrative of what strong leadership looks like. It’s about being pioneers in a movement that values collaborative care over solitary endurance. “Conscious care-engagement” is more than a strategy; it’s a movement towards a more humane, sustainable, and effective form of leadership.? It's a call to shift from a solitary, heroic leadership model to one that is inherently relational and community-oriented. It's about making leadership sustainable, not just for the leaders of today but for those of tomorrow.
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