Emotional, physical wellbeing crucial for leader in tough times

As a business owner or a manager, leading in this era of change, disruptions and plummeting fortunes there is a big burden on your shoulders.

You need a good measure of energy and stamina to give hope and guidance to your team even though you may be in greater need of the same. You need understanding and patience to be empathetic when facing resistance and demands from your clients and employees.

Although words such as stamina, self-control, courage, patience, and endurance are important attributes of leaders, few make adequate investment to boost them at a time like now.

It is worthwhile to invest in self-care to boost your health and efficiency as a leader. The basic definition of self-care is any activity that we do deliberately in order to take care of our mental, emotional, and physical health.

As a leader perhaps more than any other time you need sufficient sleep, proper nutrition, physical exercise, human connection, and time to relax in order to boost your fortitude.

The same treatment should be administered to your employees. Employees are the greatest asset in any enterprise. This being the case you should not deprive, devalue, and depreciate that asset by running it in harsh conditions, powering it with improper fuel, and neglecting routine maintenance.

If like many organisations you are operating with reduced employees, it is possible most of them have to work harder than before, multitask and probably learn how to perform new roles that previously were done by others who have been laid off. This is also demanding for them and they need care.

Take for example something like sleep that many people take for granted. Without exaggeration, sleep loss hinders your cognitive capacity by degrading your alertness and attention.

Studies show that stimulants like coffee, though reasonably effective at reducing the effects of sleep deprivation, are not helpful when it comes to tasks that require creativity or divergent thinking.

Adequate rest is another investment you need to make to keep yourself in health and productive at work.

Another important investment is food. You need to eat health food ant the right time and the right potions in order to fuel your body and give it the energy required to think and make the right decisions.

Mental and emotional wellbeing is largely determined by your thoughts and attitude you have towards your environment and world in general more than facts on the ground.

Making conscious effort to focus on the bright side of life in challenging times is the foundation of mental and emotional wellbeing.

Your heath and that of your staff is a high-priority business issue if you want to navigate the modern challenges. When you invest in proper sleep, nutrition, exercise and emotional you will boost your capacity to deal with challenges of life. You will better manage your reactions, be patience to listen and empathise, make good decisions and provide leadership that is required to steer your business and life through any storm.

Mr Kiunga is a business trainer and the author of The Art of Entrepreneurship: Strategies to Succeed in a Competitive Market. [email protected].