Leaders need to ensure that they are safeguarding and maintaining their mental and physical health, which will help their emotional state and equilibrium and in turn their ability to be effective leaders.
What is a happy, healthy leader?
HR leaders take us into the future and build, with others, new paradigms. HR Directors are often central to well-being and mental health initiatives in an organisation. And so, their healthiness and happiness are necessary and vital, acting as a benchmark for others. Very few of us can be paradigm makers, but we can free ourselves to be happy, healthy leaders who are part of the cohort bringing the future alive. We do this best when we know who we are and have personal healthiness and contentment.
A happy leader is someone who has self-confidence and self-respect. They also have an optimistic and realistic outlook, aiming for contentment, but appreciate happiness when it appears. This leader looks after their mental and physical health constantly. This is especially important for HR leaders as part of their function is to look after others, either formally or informally.
They will value all parts of themselves, learn and grow. Such leaders are in tune with the incoming future openly and use this sense to guide what they think and do. They will trust themselves and go into freefall. They work with others and use their power, privilege, and position wisely and benevolently. It is important that they represent the best of leadership authentically.
Their personal assets and work qualities reflect these aspects. I have deliberately chosen the words, assets and qualities (very analogous in meaning), to emphasise the similarities and overlaps between what is personal and what is work-related. Because all assets and qualities live in the human leader.
Personal assets
- Core values and beliefs
These are a central pivot to being happy and healthy. Knowing what your values and beliefs are and doing your utmost to live and work for them leads to satisfaction and contentment. Mental health can only benefit from this.
But there will always be compromise. Work out what is your bottom line beyond which you will not go. And if you do or must, be ready to pause, reflect and make reparations. Learn from those small moments of compromise and uncomfortableness. For example, talking about the importance of world peace for all humanity, then going into a designer furniture shop to consider buying a bespoke coffee table.
Regularly evaluate the extent to which you are inhabiting your values.
- Self-regard and self-care
When we succeed in our careers, we can forget the importance of looking after ourselves, especially if we are driven. As we age, we don’t like to think of growing older and can ignore our frailties. The research is very clear. If we do not have a good, functional, and consistent self-care plan, our health and ability to be a leader will be detrimentally affected. And this goes beyond going to the gym and eating healthily.
Knowing about your mental health vulnerabilities, your stress responses, including triggers and reactions, understanding your emotions and how you cope with the current global uncertainties are all essential facets and precursors to building a care plan. Reviewing your habits and coping behaviours to identify what is helpful and what is not, are important. Think about your tendency, through self -sabotage, to feed the negative and hidden aspects of yourself. Look at your past, honour and heal. How can you self-analyse and then build and follow a good plan? Perhaps do this with a valued confidante.
- People in our lives
Our circle of support comprises people in our personal and professional lives. And sometimes there is an overlap. We can choose who we have in our personal life, but that is not always the case in our professional life. Whoever they are, they either feed or damage our mental health, well-being, and happiness.
Think about who nourishes you and who does not. How can you make these relationships healthier or, at least, less harmful?
Work qualities
- Living by your core values
Values are our roadmap, as leaders, for work. We must translate them into actions. Here are some suggestions. Understanding, fairness, and equanimity -create criteria for fairness and equanimity to understand situations and to make decisions. Treat others with dignity, kindness, and respect– regardless of that person’s seniority. Admit fault with humility– be willing to self-correct.
What else can you do to ensure you live and work by your values? Ask others for feedback.
- Knowing how to do the job
As Herb Lovett said, ‘An expert is someone with a different zip code.’ Key facets include communicating, being able to handle complexity and thinking strategically and operationally. Be willing to learn from anyone, both formally and informally.
- Creating a healthy and happy work environment
This isn’t something you can impose on employees. You can simply provide the arena within which discussions and subsequent actions take place. Talk about how you can address toxicity openly and sensitively. Encourage collective accountability by praising individuals and allowing them to approach, freely, their tasks, while also promoting self-care and looking out for one another. Create an environment where everyone knows, sees, and honours every difference. This will lead to contented and healthy staff and leaders.
Into the future
If we honour our own humanity, fallibility, and greatness, we can become happy, healthy HR leaders and fulfil our responsibility to ourselves, our people, the organisation, and the world.
Start by imagining a happy, healthy, you. Write a note to yourself and use it as a motivator and reminder.
