Leadership seems to come with an unspoken rule: Be tough. Be strong. Stay composed, no matter what.
That approach can be valuable when your business is going through some hardship, such as a weak quarter, a key team member leaving, or a client going to another firm. In those moments, you must stay strong and calm to model that behavior for your team until you recover.
But what happens when the challenge in question isn’t business, but personal?
Too often, we overlook the toll personal challenges take on business and leadership. We’re meant to remain unbothered and laser-focused as leaders, but times of personal adversity are exactly when we’re hit the hardest.
I tell leaders facing professional problems to pull themselves up by their bootstraps and take it head-on. But when they’re hit with a personal challenge, I have the exact opposite advice: pull back.
Business problems, while stressful, usually have solutions. Personal ones don’t always.
When someone you love is seriously ill, battling addiction, or facing any life-altering challenge, there isn’t always a strategy to fix it. Often all you can do is show up, be present, and endure the uncertainty and the fact that there’s nothing you can do to make it better.
That kind of emotional weight follows you everywhere, including into the office.
Most leaders convince themselves that it doesn’t matter. That they can keep their business and their personal life separate, or bury themselves in work and not think about home for a while. That can work for a little while, but you can’t compromise forever.
Even if you appear normal on the surface, internally you’re distracted, stressed, exhausted, and drained. Eventually that starts to show.
Not only can you not keep those two parts of your life separate, but you start underperforming in both areas. Small mistakes become more frequent, important details get overlooked, and decisions that would normally be obvious suddenly feel difficult — not because you’ve lost your talents and capabilities, but because no one can give their 100% to two overwhelming battles at once.
That’s when the usual roles should flip, and the team you were there for during professional hardship should now be there for you.
You may feel like you’re weak and wrong asking them for help. After all, you’re their leader. But asking for help when you need it is a sign of strength and a strong sense of responsibility. Not to mention that’s exactly why you have a team in the first place. Growing an organization isn’t a one-man endeavor for a reason.
Strong leadership isn’t “pushing through” everything going on at home while barely surviving at work. It’s recognizing when you’re temporarily unable to operate at your highest level and creating a plan so the organization doesn’t suffer because of it.
No, don’t turn a board meeting into a therapy session. But be honest about what you’re going through and ask for help to alleviate some of your duties until things get better.
Life is unpredictable. Every leader eventually experiences seasons where their focus is divided. The businesses that weather those storms the best are ones that have distributed the weight of leadership throughout the organization.
You don’t have to — and you shouldn’t — carry everything alone. Instead, understand your limits, communicate, and allow others to help when it’s needed. You’ve (hopefully) built a strong, capable team of professionals. Trust them.
Personal storms eventually pass. When they do, you’ll return with greater clarity and gratitude, knowing your team was able to support both the business and you when it mattered most.
