Why putting yourself first, also puts your staff First.

You woke up one day and suddenly realised you couldn’t do it anymore.  

You’re exhausted.  

You’re to do list is never ending. 

You feel responsible for everyone and everything. 

And you can’t remember the last time you enjoyed work. Or the last time you did something for yourself. 

You chose a career in the voluntary sector because you wanted to make a difference. The first few roles were full on, but you loved them because you could see the impact of your work. And whilst it wasn’t always easy, you were excited about the work, and you were full of enthusiasm for life. 

Soon enough you were ready for the next step, you moved into management. You loved the challenge, and whilst you found yourself staying late, you felt you had a pretty good balance. Your next management post was tricker, the service was failing, and those occasional late nights, became a regular occurrence.  

It’s been a steady progression from there, staying late became checking your emails at home, to cancelling your evening plans, to finishing projects at the weekend, to replying to emails when you’re on leave. Your boundaries have been erased to the extent that you always feel ‘on’, that you always need to be available. 

You thought each step up would enable you to make more of a difference. You’d be able to improve the organisation so that it worked better, so staff could achieve more, so the communities you serve would have better outcomes. To really challenge the inequalities in society. 

But you’re exhausted, you’ve worked yourself to the bone, and work and everyone else comes before you, and you wonder what it’s all been for. The problems you wanted to solve when you started your career are still there, in fact they’re even worse. 

And here’s the thing, it’s not only you who’s working all those hours. Your team see you working at the weekend, replying to emails late at night, sacrificing your evenings. They think this is the norm, that this is the expectation. So, they do the same. This trickles down to the teams below, and so it goes on.  

All your staff are working hard, your frontline staff stay late, you managers answer emails when they’re at home, your middle managers work over the weekend. They all do this despite not being asked to. Despite the fact that they’ve been told it’s not the expectation. 

The thing is, the working culture is set at the top, what you and the rest of the senior leaders do sets the tone for everyone else. If you’re exhausted, and approaching burnout, there’s a good chance your staff are too. 

Changing working practice isn’t easy, and it isn’t a quick fix, but by you putting yourself first, and thinking about your wellbeing. By putting this into practice and making the commitment to yourself to put healthy work boundaries in place, you will be taking the first step to enabling your staff to do the same.  

Remember, you need to put on your own life jacket before you help others with theirs. 

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