A study published in the journal Frontiers of Psychology, explores several drains on leaders’ energy. While the energy drains (leader self-control, emotional labor and emotional dissonance, lack of job control, counterproductive mindsets of others, and isolation) are common to all leaders, there are additional considerations for women leaders.
Learn to recognize the drains in your own work and take steps to mitigate the impact.
Leader Self-Control Energy Drains
Think of leader self-control as all the ways you modulate or carefully craft your behavior while acting in your capacity as a leader. It’s entirely reasonable to do so, but comes at a cost to your energy.
As a woman in business, you likely feel pressure to comport yourself in a certain manner. Maybe you choose your words more carefully because you know they might be misinterpreted as a directive, critique, or something else you didn’t intend. It could be that in order to be taken seriously, you’ve have had to cultivate a reputation as being more hard-nosed than you actually are. Or perhaps on the flipside, you’ve adjusted your demeanor to be perceived as more open and approachable.
While aspects of leader self-control are useful for success, it always comes at an energy cost.
If you’re experiencing self-control fatigue as a leader, start with a check-in on whether you’re getting the necessary recharging time that comes from disconnecting from work. If you’re answering emails at night or on the weekends, you’re having to maintain leader self-control even during your downtime. That is a recipe for continued fatigue – you need time and space to be your unfettered self. Unplug from work during your nights and weekends (and certainly while on vacation).
When the self-control fatigue persists even with healthy work-life boundaries, you may want to explore the underlying mindsets and beliefs in play as well as whether your role (or the organizational culture) is a good fit for you.
Emotional Labor and Emotional Dissonance Energy Drains
Leaders typically do an enormous amount of emotional labor, day in and day out. It’s the inner work you do (e.g., effort, control, anticipating, etc.) that allows you to express emotions that are in alignment with the organization’s objectives and needs. Emotional dissonance is when the displayed emotion differs from the true emotion they feel inside.
Many leaders perform emotional labor and experience emotional dissonance when they’re feeling negatively charged (e.g., angry, disappointed, upset, sad, frustrated, stressed) and they don’t want those temporary feelings to negatively impact their staff. This can be especially true for female leaders, as they’re more harshly judged for displaying any kind of negative emotions at work.
This again comes at an energetic cost to the leader.
Physical movement can be helpful for managing emotional labor and emotional dissonance. The essence of emotion is motion. That is, pure emotions flow and ebb pretty quickly. When we suppress them for too long or attach stories to them, that’s when they stick around. So do something to get moving; even a 5-minute walk can help.
And if it’s not appropriate to let the emotion flow during the workday, make sure you’ve take some time to process and move once you’re back home.
Lack of Job Control Energy Drains
If you routinely sit in back-to-back meetings (some of which could have been an email!), must deal with unexpected issues and unforced errors, feel like you’re pulled in a million directions, and have an overflowing inbox or chat, you know all about lack of job control. You don’t feel like you’re actually in the driver’s seat of your workday – even though your job title suggests you should be.
A major drain on leaders’ energy is this loss of control over how they spend their time at work. And for women with households to manage, the feeling often carries over to their “downtime”, with personal responsibilities filling their nights and weekends.
It’s useful to pause, step back, and see where you as the leader are contributing to or perpetuating the problem. You’re likely complicit at least partially by not setting, holding, and modeling appropriate boundaries for your own time or by tasking your team with too much work (perhaps not pushing back to the leadership levels above you or by being overly ambitious on the work you select for your team).
While there is no quick fix to reclaiming your workday, as a leader you set the tone and cadence for your staff – even if there are leaders and teams above you. Start small by scheduling meetings to end 5-10 minutes earlier than usual and enforce the stop time. Try timeboxing for your own work. Experiment with no-meeting days or afternoons in your division. Ask your team for their suggestions.
Counterproductive Mindsets of Others Energy Drains
Leaders commonly report that they get drained having to deal with the counterproductive mindsets of their peers, leaders above them (or the Board itself), their teams, and other staff. The mindsets include pursuing one’s own agenda (instead of acting for the good of the organization), being rigid or stuck in the past, and overwhelming negativity (e.g., pessimism, manipulativeness, dishonesty).
Women can experience an additional energy drain in this situation, as sadly it is still the case that their ideas are discounted more often than men’s and they have to deal with tall poppy syndrome. Additionally, when they have a leadership style of (or strong values around) collaboration, harmony, and honoring differences it can be especially challenging to routinely work with people with counterproductive mindsets.
While this reality is incredibly frustrating, it’s not without hope. One course of action is to reflect on what is within versus outside your control. Make changes where you can and move into acceptance with what you can’t (assuming you want to stay in your role at the organization). Holding healthy boundaries can be important as well.
Isolation Energy Drains
The higher leaders rise in an organization, the fewer peers they have. This is especially true for women leaders, since they’re still vastly outnumbered by male leaders in many organizations and industries. Sometimes, even with the existence of peers, there isn’t a deep, supportive connection. And while many leaders have great relationships with their staff, there are some things that are inappropriate to bring across those org chart lines. When leaders feel isolated or lonely, it’s a drain on their energy.
If you’re feeling isolated at work, reflect on whether there are opportunities to cultivate deeper relationships with existing connections or to seek out new connections within your organization. You can also look outside of your organization for an affinity group within your industry or geographical area. If nothing exists, consider starting one yourself.
