Lately, VIM Executive Coaching has observed and heard a great deal of chatter about the “Work/Life” balance, as though the phenomenon of an unbalanced life is a recently discovered area of interest. We hear about “Work/Life” from clients who visit our Denver, Colorado office as well as our many clients in the Bay Area.
Our Roots
The roots of VIM Executive Coaching are as deeply entrenched in Asian as well as Western philosophy and business practices. It is why we believe in mindfulness meditation with an equal weight that we might give to the latest management, communications and software tools.
It was literally thousands of years ago when the Tai Chi and Gung Fu masters. It was Bruce Lee, no less, who defined Gung Fu as: “a pathway toward mastery and a deeper understanding of yourself and life.”
The well-known symbol that is usually ascribed to all martial arts and Eastern Philosophies in general is the so-called “Yin-Yang” symbol, the circular symbol with the “S-shaped” curve (or tear drops if you prefer). It is much more than a decoration. The symbol, with its opposite colors and continuous and gentle pattern, is a path that anyone, regardless of faith or belief or background can follow.
At it core, the symbol talks to balance and a striving for inter-dependent lives. The ancients knew all too well what far too many have forgotten: being out of balance invariably results in failure. Sometimes that failure can lead to catastrophe.
In Executive Leadership
Classic examples abound of failures in the work and life balance. I am certain we can all name several.
However, in a strict executive leadership sense, the executive who becomes so fixated on AI, for example, and disregards a serious human resources problem in her department or an executive leader who is a biotech leader in the area of healing and on the other hand has allowed a toxic work environment, are guilty of imbalance.
The unbalanced executive leader may be driven or arrogant or simply clueless as to how he or she is perceived with their organization. The greater the unbalance, usually the greater the chances for an unsuccessful career.
Fortunately, there are many tools and techniques to gently re-align a lack of balance. Unfortunately, taking this path on one’s own solely (by reading books, listening to podcasts or incessantly taking to social media) is often like talking to oneself in a mirror.
The greatest of all executive leaders, coaches, athletes, ancient warriors or philosophers have been mentored. The idea of “I don’t need help,” or “I can do it all myself,” is fallacious. However, and to go back to an earlier point, it must start and end with a knowledge of oneself.
The most ancient tool of all, as relevant now as 1,000 years ago, is mindfulness. If we truly know ourselves, we can truly learn to be better leaders. However, with the knowledge that comes from mindfulness training and meditation and other executive leadership tools, we must be prepared to accept the bad as well as the good.
The value of mentoring is not to tell us what we’re good at, but where we are weak. Weakness, in and off itself, is not a “crime,” but refusing correction or believing that correction is only for other people is where the lack balance leads us to problems.
The unbalanced executive is not a new phenomenon in leadership, but a failure to address it is the saddest outcome of all.