Great Leadership Starts With Sleep
Lack of sleep is not the problem, instead it is a symptom of bigger leadership and personal development challenges that many people have. I know this is an unexpected assertion, so hear me out. If you want a window into what your biggest leadership gaps are, look at your sleep!
First things first, exhaustion is often worn as a badge of honor in our society. It indicates a kind of significance for many. We have so many important things on our plate because we are up to big things in the world, and this is why we don’t have time to sleep. It gives us a sense of importance, mistakenly feeling that we are important due to our busy “busy” schedule.
Let’s not mistake busy-ness for impact.
We will never get to the root cause of this issue and wholeheartedly take the steps to resolve the a lack of sleep if we are attributing our sense of significance or importance to having an unrealistically packed schedule.
Now that we have addressed this innocuous deception, let’s look at what sleep patterns tell us about our leadership growth areas.
4 Things Your Sleep Could Be Telling You About Your Leadership Growth Opportunities
1. Not enough planning ahead
Whenever I take a look back at my lack of sleep in a specific time frame, there is one root cause that consistently shows up. I didn’t take enough time to plan ahead. Does this resonate with you? It normally goes like this. I am super excited to take on a project, and if it is one that really stretches me (those lovely growth opportunities), some nervousness about the outcome typically ensues. How do I deal with this apprehension? PROCRASTINATION. I hold off, because of not wanting to confront a difficult task or wanting to push off this uncomfortable feeling for as long as possible. When I can’t hold off anymore, I finally dive in. The problem is, often it is too close to the due date and then I spend many hours working on it in a compact time frame, subtracting time from the eight to nine hours of sleep I should get (yes I put 9 hours there just for us to reflect on the visceral reaction we may have … like who gets 9 hours of sleep anyway?? I know this is what I know you are thinking!).
Do you often approach projects in the same way?
What if we took immediate action on tackling a task? Would we get those those 8 hours of sleep, and be able to forfeit spending restless nights worrying about the outcome? I can tell you, this is what happens for me. I rest better knowing that I am well ahead of the plan. What if you tried this? I invite you to consider this, excellent work can be done with grace, ease and not a lot of drama, who would have thought?
2. NOT SAYING NO AND SETTING BOUNDARIES
Here comes the nice girl syndrome!
I don’t know about you, but sometimes I still suffer from nice girl syndrome. The nice girl wants to make everyone to be happy, to fulfill all requirements, and to keep the peace. However, what I know is this, saying yes to everything comes at a cost and makes no one happy especially not myself and my sleep health. When we overcommit, we stretch ourselves too thin, resulting in less than ideal work and outcomes. In addition to robbing us of precious sleep which would allow us to perform better on the work we should actually be doing, saying no is an act of self love, a commitment to focusing on the most important thing and a liberator from living according to the agenda of others.
Here’s a mantra that you may find helpful.
“Say yes to less, and you will perform at your best with less stress!”
3. Leading from ego
Trying to do too much can also comes from the EGO. The ego that tells you that if I don’t do it, it won’t be done well. The ego that says, I don’t need anyone else’s help, I can do this ALL by myself. The ego that says I need to control every aspect of this project/person/place in order for it to have the outcome I want. This results in not delegating well, not empowering others to contribute and operate in their zone of genius and not actually leading since this requires building the ability to execute through others not just doing it ourselves because it is easier, and quicker.
Doing our part, and releasing the outcome is a spiritual practice. It is not something we do just once, especially if you are a control freak (like me!). It is something that we do daily like yoga or meditation. This is why I call it a practice of releasing or a practice of letting go. It is acknowledging that we have limits, that the world will continue to spin on its axis even when I am not involved, so because of this I can release, rest and trust.
We can sleep at night because it is not all up to us or just about us. We are part of the circle of life, part of the system that makes everything run well, part of the process, but WE 👏 ARE 👏 NOT 👏 THE 👏 ENTIRE 👏 SYSTEM! 👏
4. Lack of prioritization and focus
The final leadership skill that I will address today that your lack of sleep maybe showing you is an inability to prioritize the most important thing and then to focus on that ONE thing.
Steven Covey says to put the first things first in his book Seven Habits of Highly Effective People. The problem is, as leaders, many of us have not actually taken the time to truly decide what the most important thing is. If we have already decided what the priority is, we may not be disciplined enough to focus on this ONE thing consistently. If you are challenged to prioritize the most important thing and then focus on it constantly, I highly recommend the book Just One Thing by Gary Keller or my favorite book for 2021, Essentialism by Greg McKeown.
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