Commonsense Leadership

Chapter 14Help Your Team to Achieve Balance

Balance is more than just a physical parameter impacting performance. Winners interpret balance to mean much more than physical equilibrium. Balance is a concept that has become a major issue in the lives of most people. It's a topic at many conventions and is especially relevant to employees who are married or have families. Most of the time, the two sides of the scale are work life and personal life. For leaders, this is perhaps the most important chapter in the book because without balance in your own life, it's very difficult to help your colleagues achieve it in theirs.

There are also very specific issues of balance within your personal life. If you're a parent, how do you balance time with your spouse and your children? How do you balance time between the children? How do you find personal time for yourself?

If you are a management professional or a leader in the corporate environment, your work life can also be a juggling act. How do you balance your job within the parameters of your environment? Do you push some employees too hard while neglecting others? What if you have one person who's not motivated and five people who are self-motivated? Do you spend more time motivating the one person or should you be more concerned with the five good people?

It's critical that a manager understand balance in order to deal with employees successfully. Many companies have committed a fatal error in thinking that everyone can be motivated ...