Underrated leadership skill: preventing burnout in yourself and your team

ri10 personal lessons on self-leadership

???? Welcome, Leaders; this is Refresh. Rethink. Your weekly newsletter with insights and ideas to reinvent yourself as a next-generation leader.

?? Did you have a good rest last night?

I'm writing this newsletter in a coffee shop close to the center of Vilnius, Lithuania. That's where I have lived for five years now.

?? Changing workplaces often, energizes me. And energy is what keeps us going, right?

That thought inspired me to write a short story about what I experienced early in my leadership journey.

I to-tal-ly collapsed.??

It was January 2007. In the far distance, I heard something ringing. It sounded like my doorbell. Hang on; It couldn't be the doorbell; who would get to my door this early? I turned around and let my head sink deep into the pillow again.

But the ringing didn't stop, and it eventually woke me up. Weirdly enough, I noticed that it was light outside when I stumbled towards the front door. Getting to the door, I heard the voice of my friend, Leon! Leon! What is he doing here today?

What I realized then made me shiver. ??

You see, I went to bed on Friday evening, and when my friend rang the doorbell, it was late Sunday morning. I slept all through Saturday without realizing it. as if I lived in a distorted time-space continuum from a parallel world.

How could that be? How could I be so tired to sleep more than 30 hours?

Opening the door, my friend said I looked terrible and felt like a wreckage.

That weekend was the start of a 6-month long burnout. I pushed my engine too hard for years, neglected the smoke and sputter, and now my engine was broken.

I collapsed.??

The first burnout I experienced was hard as hell. While writing this, I still get shivers over my back. And you know what was the most challenging part? Rebuilding self-confidence and self-esteem after the burnout was gone.

Although I did have another hard burnout about 7 years back, that period changed me positively and taught me one crucial lesson about leadership.

" If I'm incapable of leading myself the right way, what right do I have to lead others?"

Being capable of self-leadership is just as important as leading others. I would even argue that it all starts with leading oneself first!

?? Before I give you 10 of my burnout leadership lessons, I want to share the leader of the week.

Leader of the week.

Neuroleadership coach: Ed Ley.

Ed Ley , a network friend, inspires me daily with his content on what he calls: "Neuroleadership" I love that term! According to Ed, we prevent burnout by controlling our inner state, and I couldn’t agree more!

Here’s what Ed says about that:

" Our state determines our actions. Our actions determine our state. Our current reality is a product of the state we are most consistently in."

Ed writes about 4 critical states for leaders in one of his latest LinkedIn Post.

I greatly recommend following Ed on Linkedin if you want to lead yourself better. His insights have helped me a ton!?

Now for my 10 personal leadership lessons on Burnout:

Read the full article, including the lessons, by going here:

https://refreshrethink.beehiiv.com/p/underrated-leadership-skill-preventing-burnout-tea

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See you on the other side!