Who is looking after the leaders?

I spent more than 25 years in senior and corporate leadership roles across the UK and US. I traveled constantly, worked late nights, took the red-eyes, managed high-pressure environments and built my life around the demands of the job.

In all that time, not one organization asked me how I was doing healthwise. There were leadership development programs, personality assessments, 360 reviews, strategy offsites. Nobody ever asked if I was sleeping or eating on a regular basis.

And the research says my experience was normal.

The gap nobody is funding

Companies rightly invest heavily in developing better leaders. Executive coaching, emotional intelligence, communication training, change management. But the physical demands of senior roles; the long hours, constant travel, relentless decision making, rarely come with the same investment in the health of the leader being asked to deliver all of it.

• 71% of leaders say their stress has increased since stepping into their current role. Only 30% say they have sufficient time to properly fulfill their responsibilities. 
• 40% of stressed leaders have considered leaving leadership roles entirely to improve their wellbeing. 
• Burned-out leaders are 34% less effective than their peers and 3.5 times more likely to leave their position. 
• 60% of senior women report frequent burnout, compared with 50% of senior men. 
• 88% of C-suite leaders say they need more help improving employee wellbeing. 

Read those numbers together and the picture is uncomfortable. We are asking leaders to sustain a level of output that simply isn’t sustainable and are then surprised when the leadership pipeline thins or an experienced executive walks away.

Perhaps it’s time we stop treating this as a wellbeing issue and recognize it for what it can easily become: a business continuity issue.

Where leaders struggle most

It is almost never needing more knowledge or additional benefits. Most senior leaders know what they need. They know they should sleep more, eat a more balanced diet and exercise. The breakdown is always at execution, the demands of the role makes health the easiest thing to deprioritize. 

• Sleep is often sacrificed first, working late into the night to hit deadlines
• Travel destroys routines. Red-eyes, time zones, client dinners, airport food eaten on the run
• Meals happen sporadically. Missed breakfasts. Lunch at 3pm, dinner at 9, or often, not at all. 
• Exercise gets pushed to later, then tomorrow, then “when I can”
• Symptoms get ignored, doctor's appointments put off, because there is no time to spare

For many senior women, all of this happens during the years when perimenopause and menopause arrive. Sleep disruption, hot flashes, energy dips and anxiety can show up at the least convenient moment. Research consistently shows that senior women report burnout at higher rates than senior men, and menopause adds another layer to an already demanding stage of life and career impacting some of the most experienced and valuable women in your organization.

If you care about retaining your senior female leaders, this matters.

Access doesn't equal change

Most companies already have the benefits. Gym subsidies, meditation apps, employee assistance programs, health cover, maybe a nutrition platform. And yet the same leaders are still running on five hours of sleep and powered by coffee.

Sadly, access alone is rarely enough to create lasting behavior change. A benefit nobody has the time to use is no longer a benefit.

That's where personalized support comes in. 

What actually works

The levers are not exotic. They are the basic fundamentals, adapted in a way that supports leadership schedules:

• - Meal structure
• - Sleep performance 
• - Strength training 
• - Commiting time to prioritize health 

None of this is complicated, but it's the consistent, daily execution of these fundamentals that leaders find the biggest challenge.

What a company can do this quarter

• Ask your leaders how they are actually doing, creating a safe space for honest answers 
• Build health into leadership development, rather than running wellbeing as a separate, optional track
• Replace one more generic benefit with personalized, behavior-focused support for your most senior people
• Pay specific attention to senior women in midlife, who are carrying the highest burnout rates in your organization

You have already invested in making these people better leaders. The question worth sitting with is whether you are willing to invest in the health that keeps them there.

If you want to talk about what supporting the health of your leaders could look like for your organization, I'd be happy to have that conversation.