Do you want to be a great leader? There is one skill you need to master that doesn’t get nearly enough attention: emotional fitness.
If this is not what you expected, I’m not surprised. Every day, there are dozens of articles talking about how leaders must focus on improving the well-being of their teams. The popular adage of “leaders eat last” has become the standard, suggesting to many new managers that, as leaders, they need to sacrifice their well-being for that of the people they lead.
To be transparent, I bought into this advice when I was starting out in my career. For the next 15 years as a leader in technology and finance, I cared deeply about the people on my teams and prioritized their health and success over mine. I was exhausted and overwhelmed and took that as a sign that I was doing things right. I adopted the mentality that being a great leader meant being a martyr, never pausing to process my anxiety or self-doubt. All the while, I did my best to put on a “confident and positive” act before my team.
But my pretend act didn’t work forever, and eventually, I completely burned out. I almost lost everything, including the company I had founded, my family, and my health. This was the darkest, most difficult time in my life, but it taught me a powerful leadership lesson: To be a truly impactful and caring leader, I had to put myself and my emotional fitness at the top of my priority list.
What is emotional fitness?
I define emotional fitness as the skill of creating a more supportive relationship with yourself, your thoughts and feelings, and other people. The way we treat others is rooted in how we treat ourselves. That means it doesn’t matter how much you care about the people you lead if you don’t lead yourself with awareness, compassion, and a consistent investment in fueling your emotional, mental, and physical energy.
The painful reality I discovered after I burned out is that I wasn’t fooling my team by pretending that I was doing fine when I wasn’t. Instead, I was causing them unnecessary stress and creating a culture that lacked psychological trust, which research has shown to be one of the top requirements for successful teams.
As human beings, we’re great at communicating our emotions using facial expressions and body language. It’s like we’re all wearing an emotional whiteboard on which our feelings are displayed. Other people can see them through slightly foggy glasses: They sense how we feel but don’t know exactly, and when you are in a position of power and influence, you can bet that your team is watching. If they sense that you are secretly struggling, they are going to waste time and energy trying to guess why. In my case, this led to a spiral of mistrust.
What’s more, human emotions are contagious. This is particularly true within teams and between bosses and the people who report to them. Your team members can literally catch your emotions.
What can emotional fitness do for you?
If you’re not already convinced that emotional fitness needs to be your number one priority, consider that it will allow you — and your team — to perform at your best. Greater well-being and happiness dramatically improves our productivity, creativity, and ability to make decisions and help others. Your well-being and emotional fitness are direct investments in you and your success.
Further, you can’t teach what you don’t do. You can tell the people you manage to take breaks or practice self-care, but if you don’t do it yourself, your efforts will not be taken seriously. When leaders carry out sustainable work practices, their team members are more engaged, have greater well-being, are more likely to stay at the organization, and have more trust. Your team will do what you do, not what you say.
How do you strengthen your emotional fitness?
Here are three science-backed practices to begin or to add to what you’re already doing.
Practice emotional awareness by checking in with yourself.
Get into the habit of asking yourself: “How am I feeling right now?” Do this each morning, and it will eventually become more natural to do it throughout the day.
Don’t judge your answers; the purpose of this practice is simply to become aware of how you’re feeling in the moment. Research shows that people who practice emotional awareness have greater well-being, because awareness gives you choices. Based on how you feel, you can decide to do something to support yourself or to share a bit about your emotional whiteboard with your team, loved ones, or support system. In fact, I recommend you do so if you know you’re feeling off or your energy is different than normal.
This is also a great practice to do with your team: Take a few minutes during a meeting to go around and check in, asking everyone to share a few words about what’s on their emotional whiteboard. This requires vulnerability and can be challenging, but by going first you give permission to everyone else to do it, too. I’ve witnessed teams build a greater sense of openness and connection through this exercise, which fuels everyone, including you as a leader.
Schedule mini fuel-ups throughout the day.
Begin by scheduling one 15- to 20-minute break, with the goal of having at least two. Put it on your calendar and when the time comes, ask yourself: “What can I do right now to refuel and reset?” Then do it! Even a short, 10-minute walk can boost your mood, improve focus and motivation, and reduce stress.
If you only have five minutes to spare, make the best use of that time. Quality matters more than quantity, as long as what you do helps you to disconnect from your work and fuels your mental, emotional, or physical energy.
Here’s a bonus idea: End your next team meeting 15 minutes early and tell everyone to spend the time doing something that fuels their energy. Ask them to report back and tell you what they did (this increases accountability), and make sure you participate.
Cultivate a daily gratitude habit.
Our brains have what’s called a negativity bias, which means that we are more focused on noticing what’s wrong than what’s good or positive. The negativity bias is useful in helping us survive (danger comes with negative stimuli), but not thrive, and constantly focusing on what’s wrong and ignoring what’s good depletes your energy, increases stress, and makes it difficult to gain clarity when making decisions.
The best way to counter your natural negativity bias is to practice gratitude and make it a daily habit. There is a mountain of studies that show how gratitude improves well-being and resilience.
My favorite practice is called Morning Gratitude Lens:
Before you grab your phone, read the news, or check social media or email in the morning, pause and think of three specific things you’re grateful for. Be specific and zoom in on small things: “I am grateful for having a few minutes to drink my coffee this morning” is better than “I am grateful for my health.” Specificity helps your brain pause and really feel the gratitude. Jot down what you are grateful for in a journal, on a Post-It note, or the notes app on your phone.
I also encourage you to become more intentional about expressing your gratitude to people you manage. Being on the receiving end of gratitude doesn’t just feel good, but also increases motivation and engagement, and can build a stronger sense of connection and trust within a team.
Remember: You can’t give what you don’t have.
This is the advice I would give to my younger self. If you want to be a great leader, which means you want to positively impact other people’s capacity to thrive, you have to begin by positively impacting your own capacity to thrive. Practicing your emotional fitness skills of awareness, energy management, and gratitude is a great way to start.
This article was first published on Harvard Business Review.
Nataly Kogan
is a leading global expert in optimizing your emotional fitness and elevating your leadership. She’s the creator of the Happier Method™, founder and CEO of Happier and Happier @ Work™. She’s the bestselling author of Happier Now: How to Stop Chasing Perfection and Embrace Everyday Moments (Even the Difficult Ones) and Gratitude Daily. Her latest book, The Awesome Human Project was released in February 2022. Nataly’s mission is to help millions of people thrive in work and life by improving their emotional fitness with science-backed skills and practices.
