Setting Boundaries: The Traffic Light System

Discover how to reclaim control of your time with our unique 'Traffic Light' system for setting flexible work boundaries. Learn the art of boundary-setting that respects your personal life, professional ambition, and organisational culture, and say goodbye to never-ending workdays.

Setting Boundaries

Our ability to establish and maintain healthy boundaries can have a profound impact on the way we lead, our relationships, and our overall well-being. Yet women leaders, in particular, experience conflicting internal motivations about the boundary work behaviours they display. As with so many things, setting boundaries at work is complicated. How to say no at work seems to become more difficult the more senior we become.

At Hodology, we understand that one of the most challenging aspects of effective time management for leaders is striking the right balance between personal life and professional responsibilities. We've seen first-hand the struggles that our clients face, whether dealing with unending work commitments, managing relationships with colleagues, or trying to keep up with a back-to-back calendar that leaves little time for their own tasks. All too often, the consequence is late-night work sessions, missed family time, and a never-ending feeling of reacting. This is why how to set boundaries at work is often one of the first conversations we have with a new client.

To make it easier, we've created a unique, adaptable approach to help our clients regain control of their time and work-life balance. We call it the 'Traffic Light Boundary System'. It's a framework designed to help you set clear, flexible boundaries that respect your time, promote your well-being, and encourage a more effective and efficient working style. This system helps avoid the all-or-nothing trap of black-and-white boundaries, providing a more balanced approach tailored to the nuanced demands of leadership roles.

In this blog post, we'll be delving into what the 'Traffic Light Boundary System' entails, how it works, and why we believe it's the key to creating a leadership style that not only respects your personal needs but also drives professional success. If you have struggled to set boundaries at work, this post is for you.

Understanding Traffic Light Boundaries

The Traffic Light Boundary System was born out of our desire to support our clients in balancing their well-being and ambition. Our clients, often C-Suite women, needed a simple yet powerful approach designed to help them manage their time and resources more effectively yet provides the flexibility necessary for crisis management or to capitalise on unforeseen opportunities. The system consists of three types of boundaries: Red, Amber, and Green—each representing a different level of flexibility and negotiation.

Red Boundaries: These represent non-negotiable boundaries, actions, or tasks that you are committed to honouring. For example, if family time is paramount to you, you might set a Red boundary that you'll always be home for dinner by a certain time. Red boundaries are designed to protect your core values and personal well-being.

Amber Boundaries: Amber boundaries are semi-flexible and can be moved within certain limits - 'limits' is the keyword here. They offer a degree of flexibility for those occasions when work pressures demand a little more of you or when opportunities arise that align with your career goals.

Green Boundaries: These are your flexible areas, the places where you can adapt, pivot and accommodate without feeling overextended. They're not so much decisions you've made about how you want to work as they are the byproduct of your working environment. A 9 am start, for example. These boundaries are not about saying "no" but rather saying "yes" in a way that suits you.

The Traffic Light Boundary System works because it acknowledges that life and work are complex, fluid, and often unpredictable. Unlike black-and-white boundaries that provide no room for manoeuvre, this system allows you to adapt and respond to changing circumstances while still maintaining a sense of control and respecting your core values. It's a system that flexes with you, helping you to manage your time effectively, reduce stress, and avoid burnout.

The Benefits of the Traffic Light Boundary System

The Traffic Light Boundary System isn't just about setting boundaries - it's about creating a personalised framework for success that recognises the multifaceted nature of leadership. As leaders, it's imperative that we honour our commitments, but flexibility is also a crucial aspect of sustainable leadership. The Traffic Light Boundary System offers several key benefits:

Flexibility without Compromise: The system recognises that not all boundaries are equal. Some areas require firmness (Red), others benefit from a degree of flexibility (Amber), and some can adapt as needed (Green). This flexibility is crucial for leaders who operate in fast-paced, ever-changing environments.

Promotes Ambition and Over-Delivering: Green and Amber boundaries allow for periods of intensive work when it's genuinely beneficial, enabling you to seize opportunities and go the extra mile when it counts without feeling like you've failed by constantly overstepping your boundaries.

Reduces the Risk of Perfectionism: By acknowledging that some boundaries can be flexible, the Traffic Light System prevents the all-or-nothing thinking that can lead to perfectionism and burnout. If a Green or Amber boundary is tested, it's not a failure; it's an acknowledged part of the system.

Encourages Self-Care: Red boundaries safeguard your well-being and ensure you maintain a balance between work and personal life. They remind you that self-care is non-negotiable and integral to sustained leadership. Leadership self-care is essential for both your personal well-being and productivity.

Boosts Productivity and Satisfaction: By gaining control over your schedule and responsibilities, you'll be better positioned to focus on tasks that align with your goals and values. This sense of control can lead to higher levels of job satisfaction and productivity. You finally feel like you're getting somewhere.

In the next section, we will guide you on how to implement the Traffic Light Boundary System in your daily leadership role.

Implementing the Traffic Light Boundary System

Now that we've established what the Traffic Light Boundary System entails and the benefits it brings let's delve into how you can implement it in your everyday leadership.

1. Identify Your Boundaries

Start by listing out the aspects of your professional and personal life where you need boundaries. Think about when you are available for work conversations, what kind of physical space you need to feel comfortable, the kind of information you are willing to share with others, and the language you expect others to use with you. Don't forget to include financial boundaries, like how often you're willing to pick up the tab. The more trivial it feels the more like it is to wind you up.

2. Assign Colours to Your Boundaries:

Let's use a real-life example of a leader setting Traffic Light Boundaries around her availability to illustrate the activity:

Red Boundary: This leader decided her red boundary would be not replying to emails over the weekend. This boundary is non-negotiable, as she believes it's essential to have two days completely free from work-related communications to recharge and spend quality time with her family. She sets up an automatic response in her email that gently reminds others of this boundary when they email her over the weekend.

Amber Boundary: Her amber boundary is working past 6 PM more than twice a week. While she is generally committed to ending her workday at 6 PM, she acknowledges that there may be some instances where working a bit later is necessary. However, she's mindful to ensure this doesn't happen more than twice a week. If it starts happening more often, this boundary has flipped from amber to red.

Green Boundary: Early mornings are her green boundary. As she doesn't have a school run to deal with, she finds that starting her day early is often beneficial. It allows her to get a head start on her tasks before the bulk of her team logs on, resulting in fewer interruptions and a more productive morning. A 9 am start wasn't her idea, and so the "rule" means nothing to her.

3. Maintain Your Boundaries

There are two schools of thought here. One is to make those around you aware of your boundaries, and so share the responsibility for them remaining intact. Unfortunately, this often doesn't work as well as we might hope. It can also bring an unwanted dynamic to a new relationship if you start by outlining the behaviours you deem unacceptable. Instead, it is more effective and politically savvy to gently reinforce boundaries only when they are tested.

To make this as simple as possible, it is a good idea to know in advance what you will say when a boundary is tested. For example, "Let's be respectful of each other's commitments outside work. Thank you." or "I'd appreciate if we could stick to professional language". Perhaps for an amber boundary, something like, "I am willing to put in the extra time when necessary, I believe it's essential for both my personal wellbeing and my productivity that this is the exception not the rule."

This article was originally published on hodology.com and is republished here by the author for the benefit of the LinkedIn community.