Part 3: Keeping breadth and balance in work-life integration
Work-life balance is an appealing idea and a commonly used term, but not one that withstands too many questions. How can ‘work’ and ‘life’ be separated when work is a part of life? How can they therefore be ‘balanced,’ which implies equal amounts of time and energy to applied to both? And in any case, is balance meant to signify time allocation, personal priorities, or something else?
Recognising that our lives are complex, it is not necessarily helpful or realistic to pursue a goal for some kind of ideal or equal work-life balance. Researchers at The Center for Creative Leadership suggest that ‘work-life integration’ is a better way to acknowledge and work with the complex demands of everyday life.
Teachers and leaders work in an environment that is dynamic and challenging. At the same time, we are all going through various important life stages: significant relationships that might be new or breaking down, starting a family or reconfiguring family life, raising children, or taking time to care for friends and family, who themselves might face ill-health or ageing. Life is complex and our work is a dynamic part – one that we want to be meaningful but not overemphasised such that other part so of life are ignored and undeveloped.
What this means for professional and leadership skills
Though work occupies an immensely important place in our lives and we need to be well for it, paradoxically that means keeping working life in perspective.
The idea of ‘breadth’ is helpful here, as a way to think of achieving balance. Work has to fit in with the other things that support us to be healthy and able to keep going feeling energetic and engaged.
Thinking of ‘breadth’ as part of the work-life equation is a way to conceive of – and achieve – a healthy balance or integration. Research has shown that a tending to a range of aspects and areas of our lives and wellbeing is helpful, specifically:
Mental health
Physical health
Relationships
Engagement and satisfaction at work
Managing stress
Being able to transition into non-work activities, during breaks and holidays, as well as into retirement, because we have developed wider interests and skills
Most significantly, a broad range of activities that support wellbeing helps to prevent burnout.
Improving work-life balance and integration
Different parts of life inevitably come into sharper focus or take up greater proportions of energy and resources at different times. Studying for a course or qualification, starting a family, or working towards a promotion or new opportunity are examples.
Work and career development do not have to come at the expense of nurturing strong social connections with family, friends, and community, or caring for our health. All these things are good for wellbeing in general.
The Holistic Leadership Model
The Center for Creative Leadership has used a holistic model of leadership in professional development programs since 1974. The four aspects of taking a ‘whole’ approach to the aspects of life are: Self, Family, Career, and Community. These are self-explanatory.
Self – is about awareness and attention to the things that energise you, bring you joy, meaning and purpose.
Family –is about the family and friends in your life and nurturing these important relationships and your other support networks.
Career – is about growing awareness and intention around how your work allows you to engage and be intentional about how you want to direct and shape your work and career.
Community – has a broad meaning, which might be different things to different people. In general, this refers to a space, place and range of social connections and relationships beyond your friends and family or your workplace.
Improving breadth and balance
Identifying the four areas helps to develop our awareness of how breadth and balance show up in our own life, and re-balance (re-orient or re-integrate) them if you need to. It might also show you what you’re already getting right!
Start by listing one to three things you do in each of these domains. None of this will be right or wrong, and the aim is not perfect balance. This exercise is simply to bring to mind what makes up the various domains in your life.
Self
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Family
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Career
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Community
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Reflect on what you have written to consider whether some domains are taking up a lot of your time and resources. Is there something you want to attend to more? Is there one domain that is taking too much of your energy and resources? What could a slight re-balancing look like? As discussed in our article Creating a personal action plan for self-care, the work is in setting a goal and then designing small steps toward it. This doesn’t happen overnight, rather it is setting an intention, and finding small ways to bring it to life over time.
Our time and energy are finite so we won’t necessarily do everything we want to, but the exercise might help to review and re-shape your intentions and goals for a more satisfying balance and integration of work and life.
The benefit of finding breadth and balance
This advice is intended to develop your personal and professional skillset to be more conscious of how you live and work in ways aligned to your purpose and values. It might also serve as a guide for ways to understand when work ‘isn’t working,’ and what you might need to do to recharge.
References and resources
How to practise holistic leadership - CCL https://www.ccl.org/articles/leading-effectively-articles/how-to-practice-holistic-leadership-even-during-uncertain-times/
Why work-life balance is a faulty metaphor - CCL https://www.ccl.org/articles/leading-effectively-articles/balance-is-a-faulty-metaphor/
Next in this series: Part 4: Are you okay? An essential question for every workplace
