Leaders “Put Your Mask On First”

We've all heard the pre-flight announcement when the flight attendant instructs passengers that, "if there should be a change in cabin pressure...put your oxygen mask on first before helping others." During COVID-19, we have come to understand that "putting your mask on first" helps us protect our own health while also helping our community stay healthy. This concept of “putting your mask on first” is also true for a leader’s ability to attend to their own wellbeing needs so that they can effectively lead and care for others.

A question that I am continually hearing from leaders is, “how can I bring my best leadership self during this extended time of volatility, uncertainty, complexity, and ambiguity? If leaders don’t prioritize self-care to maintain mental, emotional, and physical well-being, they are disadvantaged in their abilities to accurately perceive situations, build relationships, problem solve, make decisions, and manage stress. Below are 5 things leaders must do to maintain healthy high-performance during difficult times.

1.????TIME TO RECOVER AND RECHARGE

Tony Schwartz, the Founder and CEO of The Energy Project, provides useful insights about how we're designed to move rhythmically between spending and renewing energy. His research shows when we recharge and renew, we can get more done in less time at a higher level of quality and in a more sustainable way.

Below are the 4 dimensions of energy and different activities to recharge each dimension:

Physical - affects how we feel, how well we think and even how motivated we are to do our jobs.

• Eat healthy, exercise and adequate sleep (7 to 8 hours)
• Recharge intermittently during the day

Emotional – positive emotions are critical to high performance.

• Awareness of your emotions and triggers that produce negative emotions
• Participate in activities you enjoy

Mental – ability to focus on one thing for sustained periods of time increases quality of work.

• Clarify priorities
• Avoid multi-tasking and devote uninterrupted time to your work

Purpose – connecting to values and purpose.

• Define core purpose
• Focus on meaningful goals

2.????QUALITY RELATIONSHIPS

During this time of remote work and limited in-person interactions, it is important to make time for your most important relationships. I like the way Shawn Achor summed up the importance of strong relationships in his book?Happiness Advantage: “The greatest predictor of success and well-being is one’s social support network.?Countless studies have found that social relationships are the best guarantee of heightened well-being and lowered stress, both an antidote for depression and a prescription for high performance.”

Close relationships protect people from life’s discontents, help to delay mental and physical decline, and are better predictors of long and happy lives than social class, IQ, or even genes.

3.????HEALTHY STRESS MINDSET

In her wildly popular TED talk, Stanford researcher and bestselling author Kelly McGonigal shares research that shows one of the most important factors for healthy stress management seems to be?how well?people cope with stress rather than?how much?stress they face.

Studies show that people who view stress as a bad thing are more negatively affected in terms of happiness and health. Those who view stress as a motivator report fewer symptoms such as headaches, backaches, and fatigue—even though they experienced the same amount of stress. A healthy stress mindset includes:

• Looking at a stressful situation as a challenge rather than a threat.
• Awareness that your body’s response to stress is helping you prepare for peak performance.
• Understanding that stress is caused only by things you find important.

4.????MANAGE WORRY

WORRYING is a MENTAL RESPONSE to being overly concerned about a situation or problem. In a world with COVID-19 and ongoing protests due to racism and social injustice, it is easy get overwhelmed by our thoughts and dominated by our worries. Two actions that can help challenge and disrupt the negative impacts of worry are:

Talk to a Trusted Friend - Feeling heard is an extremely effective way to sort out your thoughts and help you regain perspective and see a situation more positively. Verbalizing your worries helps you return to a neutral state and diminishes the obsessive grip of negative emotions.

Write Down Your Worries - A regular practice of journaling about your worries can help provide dedicated time to get worries out of your head. As you write down your concerns, here are a few questions to keep in mind:

• What are you feeling about the situation?
• What is beyond your control? What things can you control?
• What actions can you take to lessen the worry?

5. BREATHE?

We have an intuitive understanding that breathing patterns can calm our mind and emotions. However, because breathing happens automatically, many of us don’t give our breath as much attention as it deserves and have not learned to harness its full potential to calm our minds and reduce stress.

One of the reasons breathing can change how you feel is that our emotions and breathing are closely connected. Researcher Pierre Phillipot made two profound discoveries about the connection between breathing and emotions.

• Your breathing mimics your emotions.?When you are excited, you breathe quickly and in a shallow manner; when you are calm and relaxed, you draw in slow, deep breaths.
• Your emotions mimic your breathing.?We can change how we feel by using our breath. If you want to get worked up quickly, start taking in fast, shallow breaths; if you want to calm down, take in slow, deep ones.

How are you “putting your mask on first” so that you can bring your best leadership self to this extended time of volatility, uncertainty, complexity, and ambiguity?

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Tony Gambill is the founder and principal for ClearView Leadership, an innovative leadership and talent development consulting firm based in Chapel Hill, North Carolina. Tony brings more than 20 years of executive experience in leadership development, coaching, and team effectiveness within global for-profit, non-profit, technical, research, healthcare, government and higher educational industries.