Key Takeaways
The thing you do outside of work isn’t a break from leadership. It’s part of how you get better at it.
Start by naming what fulfills you. Most leaders have gone so long without asking that the answer takes real work.
A change to the job can feel like a change to who you are. It doesn’t have to, if part of who you are lives in something you’ve built outside the 9-5 job.
This month, I said yes to an opportunity that isn't my job. It's a small commitment, just a few hours of my time, a few weeks a year. It doesn't pay much (and the truth is I assumed it was an unpaid, volunteer role when I accepted it). It won't exponentially expand my network or impress potential clients. But it will let me take the parts of my job I'm most passionate about and make an impact on the next generation of corporate leaders.
This opportunity came through someone in my personal network, who knew what I cared about and made one quick introduction. I followed that lead, made a new connection, learned about ways I might be able to serve, and told the organization a little about myself. Several months later, when the time was right for both the organization and for me, I was eager to say yes and join this important (and fun!) work.
I'm not going to go into details here, because the specifics of this opportunity aren't the point of this post. What I want to talk about is why it was important to me to say yes. I’ve spent more than 25 years watching what life outside the job does for a leader, in myself and in the people I’ve worked beside, and I think it’s an often-overlooked part of being a strategic, effective leader.
The leaders who had something of their own
At some point in my career, I started noticing something about the executives and leaders I most wanted to be like. They weren't the loudest voices at the table or the people with the biggest titles. They were the steady ones, who could consider, and bring, different perspectives to a discussion. The ones who could weather a hard quarter without it changing how they showed up. The ones whose teams felt both supported by their leader and driven to live up to their leader's expectations.
Almost all of them had something of their own outside the office.
One coached a youth team and built their work calendar around their commitment to the kids.
One sat on a Panhellenic alumni board and would leave at 4:30 on the second Tuesday of every month, no exceptions.
One had a standing dinner with the same four friends going back to college.
None of those things were directly related to their 9-5 jobs. But every one of them shaped how that leader showed up for their 9-5 job.
The leaders who didn't carve out time for something of their own were often just as talented. But they were more brittle. When the work went sideways, there was nothing else holding them up, so the work got all of their fear. And their teams could feel it.
When your whole identity runs through one role, every threat to the role becomes a threat to you. You get defensive faster. You hold on tighter. You stop being curious, because curiosity requires a little slack, and you don't have any. I know because, until about ten years ago, I was the leader who didn't have something meaningful outside the job. And I felt it, my executive team felt it, and my team felt it.
The people with a life outside the job had slack. Some part of them lived somewhere else, and that part came back to work rested, with a wider view of their own lives and a clearer eye for the work problems actually in front of them.
It isn’t a break from the work
The leaders I'm describing weren't working less. They carried the same load as everyone around them, and often more. What was different was what they were carrying it with.
Having something of your own outside of work makes you better at leading, in ways that are specific and observable
You get to see similar patterns play out in different environments. The dynamics don’t change much from one group to the next. A youth sports league, a non-profit board, a social group, and an executive team run into a lot of the same struggles: priorities, who to trust, who owns the next decision, and where to go from here. Seeing those dynamics somewhere it isn’t your job to solve them is remarkably clarifying.
You have something to bring back. The best conversations I've had with coworkers at all levels usually started with something one of us was doing that had nothing to do with work. That's not small talk. That's how people decide you're a person before they decide you're a boss.
In some cases, you practice being a beginner again. Most senior people haven't been new at something in years. Putting yourself in the uncomfortable position of being a “newbie,” on purpose, with the stakes low, keeps you in tune with how it feels for the person on your team who's new to a role.
The fear has somewhere else to go. Earlier I said that when a leader has nothing meaningful outside the job, the job gets all of their fear. The reverse is also true. When you have a place where you the measure of your contribution isn’t related to your job performance, a bad week at work stays a bad week at work. It doesn’t become a referendum on who you are. You can sit in the hard conversation at work without needing it to go your way, because not everything is riding on it.
And you have something of your own. Something that's still there if the job changes, or ends, or stops being what you wanted. I've been through enough reorganizations and leadership changes to know that a change to the job (which is often further outside of your control than you may think) can feel like a change to who you are. It doesn’t have to, if part of who you are lives in something you’ve built outside the job.
Where the yes came from
The opportunity I said yes to didn't come from a job board. It came from a person I'd stayed in touch with for years, not because I needed anything from her, but because I liked her and had a tremendous amount of respect for who she is as a human and as a professional. I noticed she was involved with an organization I wanted to learn more about, so I asked. She made one introduction. That conversation turned up several ways to get involved, and one of them opened up at the right time.
I'm not a networking expert, and I won't turn this into a lecture on networking. I'll just say that the yes came through a relationship I'd tended when there was nothing to ask for, and in my experience, that's how the good opportunities usually arrive.
Nobody finds the time
Here's the part I've had to learn more than once: there is no point at which the calendar clears and the thing you want to do becomes possible. I waited for that point for years. Through a company I loved, growing from 26 locations to 250. Through becoming a mother on my own. Through a career change I thought would give me more margin. The calendar never cleared. It never does. Whatever room you leave, the job will take.
So you have to be deliberate about it, in the same way you'd be deliberate about any priority you actually mean.
What that looks like in practice, at least for me:
Name what fulfills you. Not what would look good, not what connects neatly to your 9-5. What scratches the itch. What you'd do on a Saturday if nobody was watching and nothing was riding on it. If you can't name that, you can't make room for it, and a lot of leaders have gone so long without asking that the answer takes real work to find.
Then say it out loud. Vague wanting doesn't get calendared. “I want to do something outside of work” is a feeling. “I want to mentor” or “I want to sit on a board” or “I want to play music with other people again” is a decision.
Put it on the calendar before the week fills. I block my calendar for top priorities weeks and months in advance, and then I do my detailed planning by hand, on paper, every week. The things that go on the calendar first are the things that actually happen. If you wait until the week or month is already built to find time for your non-work priorities, they’re competing with “work work” (or other people's priorities), and they will lose every time.
Make it smaller than you think it needs to be. I avoided pursuing versions of this for years because I imagined it as a second job. It isn't. It's a sliver. Almost every worthwhile outside pursuit can be sized down to something that fits, if you let it be less than the fantasy version.
Protect it the way you'd protect a meeting with your boss. The executive who left at 4:30 on the second Tuesday wasn't being precious. She'd decided that commitment was real, and she treated it like one. People adjusted, the way people always adjust to what a leader consistently does.
Tell someone. The moment another person knows you've committed, the commitment gets heavier in a good way. It's harder to quietly let it go. And that someone may just be the one to help you open the door to the opportunity you’re looking for.
Whatever room you leave in the calendar, the job will take. The time for the thing that isn't your job has to be taken on purpose.
What shows up at work
I've been building a practice for a few months now, and it's the most consuming and rewarding work I've done. It would be very easy to let it be the only place I focus my energy.
I said yes to this side project anyway, partly because I wanted it and partly because I know what I'm like without one. I get narrower. I get more anxious about outcomes I can't control. I start treating every conversation like it has to produce something.
The version of me that has something going on outside the 9-5 is more patient with the 9-5. She asks better questions. She is more open-minded. She is more decisive. She's less afraid.
That's the leader I want my clients to get. I suspect it's the leader your team wants to get, too.
So if there's a yes you've been putting off until the timing is right, I'll tell you what I wish I had understood a decade earlier. The calendar isn't going to clear. Say yes anyway, and then go make the room.