Heavy Lifting Required

Due to recent events in my personal life, it has recently crossed my mind that it is the responsibility of a leader to be a heavy lifter or to carry a heavy load when necessary. This doesn't mean that you should be carrying all the stress for your organization. An effective leader also knows when and where it is effective to hand stress off to their followers. Being a heavy lifter does mean that you carry a larger load of responsibility in terms of organizational goals. This also means that you need to maintain your own load of responsibility outside of the workplace and keep it there. This does not mean that you cannot discuss or share what goes on in your personal life with those that you lead. In fact, these types of discussions are effective in connecting with your people and finding what is important to those on whom you rely the most for success. There is a point when your personal burdens cross over into your professional world. It is important as a leader that you do not let this impact the way you lead or shatter the consistency that makes for effectiveness in a leadership position.

Leaders must strive to carry personal loads outside of the workplace and keep them there. The more a leader can separate the two, the more they will eliminate the perception that personal issues should be allowed to greatly impact performance. This is simply not true. There is a time and a place for everything. Effective leaders know when to switch gears from personal world to professional world. This is not cut and dry, and there is a dotted line between the two. Effective leaders know how to navigate the grey area minefield and utilize this as a way to better connect and ultimately lead their teams to higher levels of performance, no matter how great or heavy the load.

Have you ever felt the scales tipped between personal and professional life? If so, how did you deal with this issue effectively?