People First, Professionals Second

Colleagues, we need to talk about self-care. Not surface-level work. I mean the real work we have to do as leaders to sustain ourselves so we can do the good work only we can do. So we can be powerful and effective in the professions we care about, present for the families and friends we love, and just… whole people for ourselves.?

I’m wrapping up two weeks of being in rooms with groups of leaders: first at our Women in Leadership Institutes, and then with a new leadership development cohort. At both of these gatherings - one with a specific focus on sustaining self, and one oriented around a broader scope of leadership in higher ed - the conversation about how poorly we are nurturing our own wellbeing was right in the center of the table, over and over again.

Leaders everywhere are exhausted. And collectively, we’re asking - why does it have to look like this??

I could certainly write this just for women leaders. There are significant nuances in women and gender-diverse leaders’ experiences in this regard (see: pay inequity, mental load, pervasive gender norms, lingering patriarchal work structures, etc.). But I also hear this leadership exhaustion from men, with the subtext that there are few spaces in which the vulnerability for them to say so is welcomed.?

“Hustle culture” is not serving us, friends. We may be doing more, accomplishing more faster, but to what end? In recent months we have seen the tragic deaths of two college presidents whose passing spurred widespread speculation about the weight of professional stress for leaders, especially BIPOC women. One leader in these past two weeks said, “Am I quite literally working myself to death? As I look at the leaders around me, who I care so much about, I think, am I modeling leadership that will drive them to their own deaths?” Another leader said, “I am good at self-care if it’s ‘secret,’ like getting a massage over lunch, or going to the doctor at 7:30 in the morning. But if it has to be public, if it has to be on my calendar and I have to say it to my team, I’m almost definitely not going to do it.” Why do we feel as if caring for ourselves is a failure of character, or a fundamental weakness??

I am in conversations constantly with leaders who are trying desperately to reprioritize their own energy and wellbeing. As Gen Z moves into the workplace, they are driving a tidal shift toward a more person-focused model of leadership sustainability as they refuse to replicate the decades of overwork that they see in their predecessors. But the only way this shift is actualized is if we name it, say it, live it, and model it for our teams. Audre Lorde said “Caring for myself is not a self-indulgence, it is self-preservation, and it is an act of political warfare.” (Thank you to our Women in Leadership presenters for lifting up this quote.) Why is it political? Because who gets to rest is political. Who gets to acknowledge fatigue and step away without guilt is mired in cultural expectations of what a leader looks like.?

At Credo, we have a simple mantra. We are people first and professionals second. If you’ve spent any time in leadership, I know you see what we see: everyone is always carrying something. Our personal lives are complicated and wonderful and messy and busy and sometimes devastating, and making any claim that our professional selves can be fully separate from our personal lives is a fallacy. Our work is hard, and we ask a great deal of our team. Collectively, we log more than half a million air miles a year, and Hampton Inns all over the country know us well. In addition to the wonderfully generative and strategic work that we have the honor of playing a part in with our client campuses, we also navigate toxic cultures, dysfunctional teams, and deep resistance to change. Our people pour themselves into serving our clients and this marketplace, and in return, it is incumbent upon us as leaders who bear responsibility for this extraordinary talent to be as expansive as possible in our flexibility and support for them as individuals: as parents, caregivers, and scholars; as people with passions and commitments outside of their work with us. This is both a values commitment and a business imperative for us - we want our team to meet the needs of their personal lives, because if they aren’t, we know they cannot bring their best selves into our important work.?

I wish I had “five tips for self-care” or “three things you should know about self-care.” I don’t, though I do have some things I’ve learned over more than 20 years of business travel and a decade in leadership that I’ll share in an another post. What I have in this moment is a deep appreciation for all of the leaders who are vulnerably and authentically claiming space for their own self-preservation, and offering the same grace and freedom to the teams for which they bear responsibility.?