“Balancing the Personal and Professional” is one of The Big Six Leadership Principles®, but what does that really mean?

Healthy cultures are cultures where people understand the importance of living according to their values. If you map out what you do during the course of a day or week and compare it to your personal values, you’ll probably discover a gap. Part of the problem is caused by those low-value meetings I wrote about last month, but the other part is because we, as individuals, aren’t focused on paying attention to the things we value the most. We’ll talk about them, but that doesn’t mean we’re living according to them in terms of where and how we spend our time, energy, and effort.

Across an organization, the culture should reflect your collective values. If your organization has gone through the process of setting the azimuth and hasn’t then operated within that framework, you can imagine people are going to be frustrated. If you notice your teammates or colleagues showing physical signs of stress, it’s probably an indication that something is out of balance. Balancing the personal and professional isn’t about time and it’s not about work. It’s about energy.

We essentially have four kinds of energy inside us. Those energies are physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual. All four energies need to be charged or maintained, almost like a set of internal batteries. If they aren’t maintained at a sufficient charge, you’ll see indications pretty quickly.

The four kinds of energy inside us are the best indicators of the balance that we have as individuals. Demonstrating these types of balance as leaders encourages them within our teams. In turn, these balance levels cascade across the organization and its culture through how everyone respects the four levels, nurtures them, and supports programs to sustain balance.

There are a number of efforts that you and your team members can undertake—engaging in healthier lifestyle choices, celebrating family activities (births, graduations, etc.), educating the workforce on the benefits of meditating—which will promote personal balance. If your organization respects and promotes these efforts, then you’re going to achieve a level of balance within the organization as a whole.

You’ll notice a collective effort across the organization to promote balance when your culture is moving toward a new level of excellence. Enjoy the journey!

This blog is based on material from my book “We’re All In.” You can get a copy of the first chapter for free here.

If you’d like a full copy of the entire book, you can get it here.

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