In today’s world, business leaders have so many responsibilities to fulfil that they always feel like running short on time. Therefore, they keep adding more hours to their professional lives, neglecting their personal lives entirely. While it makes sense that business leaders will always have their plates full as they are responsible for meeting their workforce, clients, and shareholders’ expectations, they still are human beings that need time to relax and calm their senses.
The desire to succeed professionally has pushed many business leaders to set aside their wellbeings. However, did they succeed? Absolutely not. Over time, their physical and mental health deteriorated, making it impossible for them to execute any of their business plans. Are you making the same mistake? Well, stop right away.
Creating a healthy work-life balance is crucial for business leaders and the business itself. Overwhelmed and frustrated business leaders can never make good decisions for the business. Not sure how to improve your work-life balance? Consider taking executive coaching. Scroll down to find an answer to your question, “How can I achieve better work-life balance through executive coaching?”
Top 5 Tips for Improving Work-life Balance By an Expert Executive Coach
From Eric Schmidt (Former Google CEO) to Bill Gates (Microsoft Founder), many popular business leaders have taken leadership coaching to improve their leadership and management skills. If it worked for them, it would work for you too. However, if you are struggling with poor work-life balance but have no time and resources to take executive coaching, we are here to help you.
Here are a few tips on how to achieve better work-life balance given by Simon Ellson, an expert executive coach at ActionCoach:
Executive Coach Can Help You Develop Clear Guidelines
Many organisations often have no guidelines for where work begins and ends, especially in small startups. Therefore, a 24/7 culture gets automatically set where everyone is expected to be working and responding all the time, leaving no room for anyone to relax and enjoy quality time with their loved ones. When a business leader takes executive coaching, the executive business coach observes the work culture and helps the business leader set the guidelines required to improve it.
However, if you don’t have an executive business coach to help, you can set the guidelines yourself. To improve your work-life balance, you will have to set some guidelines on acceptable response times, whether weekend meetings are acceptable and much more. However, a business leader should also strictly follow these guidelines. Otherwise, a healthy work-life balance cannot be achieved.
Executive Coach Can Help You Build Reliable Teams
Business leaders can only take time off to focus on their personal lives when they have reliable teams to depend on. Therefore, you must hire the right candidates capable enough to handle work affairs on your behalf. However, hiring the right employees and building a reliable team seems like a daunting task that many business leaders cannot fulfil without the help of an executive business coach.
When you have a reliable team, it will give you peace of mind to focus on your own work-life balance. If your team has a bunch of irresponsible members refusing to show any improvement despite being given multiple warnings, you should consider replacing them. They are not only wasting your time and resources but also becoming a major hindrance in you achieving a better work-life balance.
You Can Start Delegating with the Help of Your Executive Coach
To improve your work-life balance, you should start trusting your team members with some of your responsibilities. By doing so, you will not only be able to challenge them to perform better but also reduce some burden from your shoulders. However, delegating tasks to irresponsible and inefficient employees will only give you stress instead of peace of mind.
Therefore, a business leader should only delegate tasks to reliable employees. It will give that employee a sense of accomplishment and remove things from a business leader’s plate. A win-win for both employees and a business leader!
Executive Coach Will Teach You How to Normalise Taking Breaks
Business leaders often get so involved in work affairs that they avoid taking breaks unless they are sick or have a family emergency. However, it is not how things should work. If projects are right on schedule and work is getting done, business leaders can take a break to relieve their stress and spend quality time with their loved ones.
When business leaders work with an executive business coach, they encourage and, in some cases, force them to take breaks. If your organisation does not have that culture where people can take off for a spa day or a family- vacation, it is time to challenge that culture yourself. Self-care is something that should be prioritised. A business leader should allow the employees, as well as themselves, to take breaks when stressed.
However, you should have set a great example for your workforce before that. Otherwise, your employees may think of you as a careless and irresponsible leader.
You Will Invest in Yourself With the Guidance from Executive Coach
It is expected from a business leader to focus on employees and clients. However, an executive business coach helps business leaders understand that they must invest time, energy, and resources in themselves. They can pick new hobbies, make time for old ones that have been pushed aside, and learn new skills.
Investing in yourself might seem selfish to a business leader. However, it can turn into a competitive edge for your business. The more you invest in yourself, the better you become for yourself and your business.
Conclusion:
Work-life balance is becoming an important issue in the business world. The competition has become so high that business leaders have no choice but to spend all their time on work affairs. However, they are definitely not making the right move by compromising their personal lives. If something is taking time to produce results, it does not mean you have to put in more time. Instead, you need to wait patiently, as all good things take time to happen.
A healthy work-life balance means different things to different business leaders as they have different priorities and commitments. If one business leader enjoys free time at the club, the other might prefer to spend it with their loved ones. However, the tips we have mentioned will work for all kinds of business leaders.
If you are still unable to achieve a better work-life balance despite following all the tips mentioned above, you need a leadership coach to help you identify your wrongdoings and set you on the right path.
