How Great Leaders Support Work Life Balance

Last week on Leadership Chat we focused on how we, as leaders, can affect a move from Work Family Conflict to Work Life Balance.

This week we shift our focus to the micro level and ask the question, “Do great leaders support work-life balance and, if so, how do they do it successfully?”

I believe they do, and they do it by setting an example.

The Critical Importance of Setting an Example:

My personal experience in the corporate world was extremely positive from the work-life balance perspective for one main reason: I worked for people who set brilliant examples of how to lead successfully while balancing priorities.

• One of the first gentlemen I ever worked for, the Chief Financial Officer of our business division (yes, I started my career in finance!) would leave the office at 3:00 pm three days a week during the summer to get to his boys’ baseball games. Now, he got into the office at 6:00 am to get the work done, but he committed to his priorities and was always there for his boys.
• Harry Kraemer, former Baxter CEO and now Clinical Professor of Management and Strategy at Northwestern’s Kellogg Graduate School
  of Business, would preface all of his company-wide emails to employees with news about his young kids and their various activities he’d been attending. When he wasn’t traveling, he made being home with his family for dinner a priority, and he mentioned this in his communications to us. He was showing us, through his actions and his words, how to create and live a balanced life.
• The female executive I worked for in my last several roles at Baxter would get into the office at 9:00 am, having first seen her girls off to school and exercised. She’d leave the office at 5:00 pm so her girls would not be home alone for too long, and to get home for dinner and evening activities. She was running a business worth more than $1 billion in revenues, and we always over-achieved our plan. Why? We were wholly focused on our vision and supporting strategies between 9:00 a.m. and 5:00 p.m. She committed to a balance and required her team to do the same.

The Myth vs. the Reality of Face Time

Now, one thing that often comes up when talking about work-life balance in the corporate world is the concept of “face time,” the idea that it’s important to be visibly seen in this environment, and the more you’re seen the more you’re likely to advance. I think this is partly myth, partly reality. Let’s look at both sides:

The Reality

There can never really be a replacement for being present with
someone in order to create and nurture a relationship.

This was never more evident for me than when I was negotiating multi-million dollar contracts with teams from major pharmaceutical companies, most of whom were located in New Jersey and New York.

Traveling to meet them, spending time with them, getting to know them and learning about their lives and families made all of us work harder to achieve contracts that genuinely represented a win-win. There will always be a need for that in-person contact in the business world, the need for a skin-to-skin handshake. Not everything can be accomplished digitally from home.

Face time that encourages and deepens working relationships and that builds commitment and loyalty is good for business.

The Myth

The amount of “face time” is directly correlated with the value of the work, and can also denote the importance of a project.

(Cue game show buzzer!) Buzzzzzzzzzzzz. Wrong!

Smart leaders know you can be as productive and effective, if not more so, within focused hours as you can be in an extended work day. The example I used of the woman executive I worked for who limited her “face time” to 9-5 is a key example of this. More time spent in the office does not equal more value created for the company.

Smart leaders also know that the importance of a project does not, and should not, denote the need to “stay late and put in face time.” I recently heard an old-school executive state, “It’s expected to have to work late during the annual budget process.”

Really? You’ve been doing this now for how many years and haven’t figured out how to alter the process to get it done during regular work hours? Sounds like a leadership problem to me…

I believe that great leaders support work-life balance by setting an example and living it themselves, and by valuing relationships and impact over old-school practices and processes.

What do you think?

Please share in the comments and join Steve Woodruff and me tomorrow evening, August 9th, at 8:00 pm Eastern Time for #LeadershipChat on Twitter!

This week we’re hosting a Pre-Game Chat on Google Plus at 7:45 pm Eastern Time. You can find me on Google Plus at www.gplus.to/lisapetrilli and Steve at www.gplus.to/connectionagent – Find Us, Circle Us, and Join Us on Plus if you’re not on Twitter!

RELATED POSTS:

Leadership in the Age of Work-Family Conflict

Trust in Leadership: Is it Earned or Given?

Want to Inspire Followers? What it Really Takes

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Photo is Balance by ContentAction.