Does leadership lack if lifestyle is limiting?

Can your lifestyle and destructive habits be affecting your role in the workplace?

In short, YES and here is why:

There are some people who will be excellent leaders, excelling in their field, and running successful businesses, but the fact is that if their lifestyle is poor, they have the potential to go so much further if they adopted more positive habits.

What constitutes a conducive lifestyle?

In an ideal world, we would get adequate sleep, eat a balanced and healthy diet, we would exercise, would be well-hydrated, would avoid tobacco, alcohol and drugs and we would be living a mindful and stress-free life. Does that sound realistic? Probably not. Most of us lack in at least one of those areas.

Lifestyle is what we consider to be doing on a regular basis, so the odd night out here and there or the not-so-regular late night now and then will not impact your overall wellbeing long term, but lacking sleep regularly or drinking most nights will eventually have a negative impact on your performance at work. The results will either be that you lack focus, feel unwell, cannot concentrate, are too tired, have gut issues, are having energy dips throughout the day or feel emotionally drained; none of which are conducive to thriving in the workplace.

Just as there are leaders out there functioning highly while suffering from addiction or alcoholism, there are leaders running successful businesses while completely burnt out or suffering mental health issues such as anxiety, depression or stress. Similarly, leaders struggling with physical health conditions also face the same challenges as they battle with the ordeals of illness.

In all of my coaching programmes, lifestyle is the element we look at first because it is the one that is easiest to make changes to, consistently, every single day and yields clear and quick results. In order to give 100% to any task, we have to have the physical ability to do it and the mental clarity to focus on completing it, in a timely manner. Is it fair to come into work unable to do our jobs effectively because we made limiting choices the night before or are overdoing something on a regular basis?

I am not advocating for never venturing away from an early bed time or a daily gym session, but I do feel we all have a responsibility to show up feeling as fresh as possible. Having always been a night owl (now even more so since having a child as it is my time to focus without worry), I rarely get more than 6 hours sleep per night and hence, often go to work more tired than I should be. Would I perform better if I went to bed 2 hours earlier? Most probably! Does it mean that I cannot do my job? Of course not!

There is nothing to say that you can function effectively or be at the top of your game while living a poor lifestyle, but you have the potential to be so much more if your mind and body were well and healthy.