Last week, listening to an early morning radio interview with a business leader, I heard an unexpected sound. A young child was speaking in the background and as the interview continued, their bid for attention was getting louder.

In closing, the interviewer said:

“Thank you for joining us, especially considering you’re at Euro Disney, which explains the background noise. No apologies needed.”

Now, you may think it’s good that broadcasters are tolerant of young children interrupting their parent being interviewed on live radio. During the pandemic, several high-profile examples of children walking into shot during video calls, were celebrated.  

For most of us then, our homes became our main place of work. The workplace occupied the family space and it was healthy to recognise it was a place where children lived too.  

But this is different. A family holiday is being interrupted by the father’s media interview.

It reminded me of a personal experience.

Several years ago, on a sunny September, Saturday morning, I got a shock. I couldn’t recognise my son. He was playing football for his new school team.  In the past two years, I had been travelling a lot on business and hadn’t seen any of his games. In that time, he had grown fast and it took me a moment or two, as I approached the football pitch, to make out who that the gangly teenager playing right back was. Realisinghow I had prioritised work over family life, I promised myself that I’d be at all his home games going forward, and I was.

Both these experiences are examples of boundaries getting blurred

Work leaks into personal and family time. It can be harmful to our wellbeing and our effectiveness.

Failing to manage the boundaries can be a major contributor to “burn out”, working long hours, rarely disconnecting from work. It’s easy to do in an exciting business venture.   

You and your teams need to be thriving to lead a vibrant, growing, resilient, business.

But in the UK, two thirds of employees say they have experienced burnout in their careers.

 Approximately 14m working days are lost every year in UK because of work-related stress, costing approximately £28bn a year. In US the estimated productivity loss is over $1trillion.  

 What can you, as a leader, do about it?

 Here’s some practical suggestions:

• Role model self- care e.g., taking breaks, taking time off, going to the gym, getting the right levels of support if you experience early signs of fatigue yourself.

• Spot burnout in your team and address concerns when you see signs such as increased fatigue, withdrawal, cynicism, under performance, irritability, conflict, and low morale.

• Set boundaries by encouraging employees to disconnect from work during non-work hours and set an example by informing your team that you will doing this yourself.

What practices have you found that are effective in creating the conditions to promote a culture where employees thrive and prevent burn out?

If reading this has challenged or inspired you to or you want to explore this some more arrange a conversation with me.

9th June 2023