Self-care for Leaders
It’s not just you. Everyone is feeling the stress of the financial crisis. If you doubt it, take a look at the latest public opinion polls or this post yesterday from PsychCentral.com. As Rick Nauert reports, a just released study shows that 47 percent of U.S. adults feel more stress than they did six months ago.
A recurring theme lately in this blog has been the impact of your leadership presence on the people you lead. If you’re showing the stress, so will they. Let’s take a moment, though, to talk about the impact of stress on you and what you can do about it. As this report from the American Psychological Association (APA) points out, stress is linked to the six leading causes of death including heart disease, cancer and accidents. It’s more than a leadership issue, it’s a health issue.
So what can you do to keep stress in check? My personal favorites are meditation, deep breathing and limiting my exposure to CNBC. On the business front, I do my best to focus on the things I can control and ignore the things I can’t. Looking for other ideas? The APA offers some good ones in this informative article.
You can’t lead if you’re not healthy. What are you doing to manage stress and practice self-care? Please share your good ideas with us.