Coming Up in April: A Leadership Reset
You can help shape this topic right now.
Before we continue on with our Leading Multigenerational Teams series, I wanted to pause and share what’s coming up in April.
We’ll be exploring how to conduct a Leadership Reset based on your personality type – a topic that came directly from our Leadership Council, and one that seems particularly relevant right now.
This series will be all about understanding the dynamic between leadership, self-care, and your personality type. We’ll look at each of the 16 personality types individually and explore:
Where you might tip into overwork or self-sabotage
How to bring work and life back into balance
What self-care actually looks like for your personality type
To make room for all 16 personality types, we’re switching up the format this month. Instead of a challenge, we’re going type by type – one article for each of the 16 personality types.
I’m still shaping this series, but I’m thinking that together, we might explore:
How different personality types tend to self-sabotage at work
What “self-care” actually means in practice for each personality type, beyond the generic advice
How to find a sustainable balance between leadership and well-being that works for your type
Before I start writing, I’d love to get your input to help shape where this series goes.
If you feel comfortable sharing, you can respond in the comments using any of these prompts – or just speak from your own experience. I’ve opened up commenting on this post so anyone can respond.
What’s one habit or pattern you’ve noticed in yourself that makes leadership harder than it needs to be?
What does work/life balance look and feel like for you as a leader – and how often do you actually have it?
What self-care advice have you tried that hasn’t landed – and what, if anything, has actually helped?
I read every response, and what you share will help shape where this series goes in April.
And if you have a leadership topic you’d love to see covered in the future, all paying subscribers are invited to join the Leadership Council, where you can submit ideas directly.
I’m really looking forward to digging into this one with you come April.
But for now, we’re back to the Leading Multigenerational Teams series next with a look at how to lead Analyst personalities across every generation – see you there!
Until next time,
Carly from the 16Personalities team
What’s one habit or pattern you’ve noticed in yourself that makes leadership harder than it needs to be?
Not asserting my own needs and folding to "what the business needs me to do" - in truth, the business needs me to be at my best when I operate, and that means operating sustainably instead of working out how to make it work for me every time someone says they "need" something. When a company can't prioritise ("everything is important"), you have to prioritise for yourself within your own world/bubble, in order to be sustainable. That means some things need to get a "no" or "not today" in order to make space for me to operate at my best - with breathing room between meeting and downtime for completing tasks and doing preparation. If something is really important to them, people will find other ways to get it done that isn't taking up your time today.
What does work/life balance look and feel like for you as a leader – and how often do you actually have it?
Having the flexibility to start/end late (I'm not a morning person), finishing on time and not letting work spill into non-work hours. Also, while at work, not being in back to back meetings so that work doesn't steal all of the energy for the day, and I still have some left to enjoy my evenings and weekends. It's all too easy to let work take out "energy loans" from my personal life, leaving my work life in debt to my personal life, and then it never pays it back! I occasionally have days where it feels balanced, usually when I block out a team "virtual away day" where I can focus on a single purpose throughout the day, breaks are built into the day's itinerary so we all get to step away at the same time, and I feel energised from managing to achieve something in a short space of time.
What self-care advice have you tried that hasn’t landed – and what, if anything, has actually helped?
Say no to meetings that don't need you (social pressure and poor culture/communication mean it's hard to reject meetings that will help me stay informed about what's going to be happening around me or to a product I'm responsible for, but others are not necessarily respectful of my authority)
End meetings on time and book them to finish 5/10 minutes early (despite meeting end times, it's hard to justify a meeting ending on time if your next meeting isn't for another 5 minutes and you might be able to get somewhere with that extra time, and avoid having to schedule yet another meeting another time to finish up - this is a dark pattern though, I'm now of the opinion that meetings should finish when scheduled, and hopefully the consequences will be that people learn to prepare or get to the point faster over time)
What's actually helped - getting therapy and learning how to assert myself and my needs. Reframing life choices in terms of what I need, rather than what I expect of myself. As someone who grew up in an environment that taught me that the needs of others come first, combined with high performance expectations, there's been a lot of pressure I've been putting on myself to push hard for success at work, without considering whether that's serving me in my life overall.
Apologising - years of self-deprecation that undermines my potential leadership skills. “Sorry to interrupt”, “apologies for my late response”