The enthusiasm and drive within our teams should be amplified by us as leaders.
But in order to accomplish this, we must first be energised, therefore we must make the time to rest and re-energize.
As someone who is naturally energetic, this wasn’t something that I felt I had to worry about too much. But that’s not true, sure I had more energy than most, but my energy levels used to drop just as everyone else’s did, and when they dropped I wasn’t performing at the best level I could.
We do not always realise when our reserves are low, it’s something that can just creep up on us.
But others notice it, especially our teams; they are constantly looking to us for leadership and guidance, and they see these subtle drops in energy levels. If they become sustained then they can cause some concern in them, which is why we need to take care to keep our energy levels up.
The more energetic we are, the more energy we can generate within our teams, so a drop in our energy can result in an overall drop in the energy of the team.
What drains our energy is different for different people, and so is what re-charges us: for some people, it’s that stress drains them, but for others, they feed off of stress; some people recharge through rest and relaxation, whereas others recharge through sports.
We are all different, but the one thing we all share – whether we like to believe it or not – is that we all need to recharge, no matter how strong we would like to think we are.
We need to ensure that we include re-energising within our plans, we need to set time aside for it. For sure we can all put in a long shift from time to time, but it’s not healthy, what’s much better is to maintain a good energy level.
No matter what we think about how busy we are, there is always time to recharge, we just need to plan for it, and include it within our days.
We need to ensure that we do this, no one else will do it for us.
I know some people may see this as a weakness, remember Gordon Gecko in Wall Street saying ‘lunch is for wimps’. Well, in my opinion, maintaining our energy levels so we can operate at maximum performance is not wimpy, in fact, it’s the opposite. We are keeping ourselves strong.
As leaders it’s also important for us to monitor the energy levels of our teams, we are responsible for their health and well-being, as well as for their performance. There is a double benefit in this, as not only will we be able to take care of our teams, but if we notice a drop in their energy this might also be a sign that our own energy is dropping and that we need to recharge.
As I mentioned earlier, I am someone with naturally high energy levels, so this was a difficult lesson for me to learn, but having taken this advice and finding the time to recharge, I find that I am not only more effective, but more importantly, I find that when I get home I have more energy for my family.
Find the time to recharge and re-energise, it benefits everyone, your teams, yourselves and even your families.
How do you re-energise?
If you want to learn more about creating highly engaged teams or being a better leader click the link to make an appointment to talk about how I can help.
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