work/life balance

It’s essential that people work a sensible number of hours. If you’re putting in 50, 60 hours a week or more, then there will be people in your organization who will feel that they should, too. But that will create inner turmoil, because they will be torn between what they perceive as your expectations for them and the responsibilities and, indeed, desires they feel towards their families, and even their personal health.

Don’t force your employees to make a choice. Show them that work/life balance is so important that you practice it as well.

Morag Barrett

6 steps to great leadership. CIO. 8/10/2015

servant-leaders exercise the following traits

Servant-leaders exercise the following traits and practices in their roles. They:

• Understand the value of every human soul.
• Have an inborn or developed sense of caring for others.
• Are quick to volunteer to take pressure off someone else.
• Rush to the aid of someone who is going through an embarrassing or humiliating experience.
• Treat all people on a basis of equality.
• Do not feel that tasks they expect others to do are too demeaning for themselves.
• Are not offended by disruptions of people who are themselves going through emotional traumas or stress.
• Expect more from themselves than they do from anyone else.
• Are quick to compliment, give credit, and build up those who perform a given task.
• Judge people by their potential, not necessarily by one single negative experience.
• Do not take credit for someone else’s achievements and love to share credit for any of their own accomplishments.
• Get the facts before finding fault or criticizing another person.
• Help all people feel they had a real part in the success of a project.
• Detest practical jokes or statements that focus humiliation or attention on one soul.
• Always constructively criticize in private and compliment in public.
• Are absolutely honest in their work.
• Are equally fair with all under their direction.
• Are always willing to listen to both sides of a quarrel, discussion, or issue. They know it is a pretty thin pancake that has only one side. . . .
• Make themselves accessible to all, not just those with position or power.

True servant-leaders do not need a checklist of these character traits, for they live them daily. . . .

Vaughn J. Featherstone

The Incomparable Christ: Our Master and Model (1995)

As quoted in Principles of Leadership Teacher's Manual. The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Salt Lake City. 2001

the leadership benefits of reading

Broad reading habits are often a defining characteristic of our greatest leaders and can catalyze insight, innovation, empathy, and personal effectiveness.

Note how many business titans are or have been avid readers. According to The New York Times, Steve Jobs had an "inexhaustible interest" in William Blake; Nike founder Phil Knight so reveres his library that in it you have to take off your shoes and bow; and Harman Industries founder Sidney Harman called poets "the original systems thinkers," quoting freely from Shakespeare and Tennyson. In Passion & Purpose, David Gergen notes that Carlyle Group founder David Rubenstein reads dozens of books each week. And history is littered not only with great leaders who were avid readers and writers (remember, Winston Churchill won his Nobel prize in Literature, not Peace), but with business leaders who believed that deep, broad reading cultivated in them the knowledge, habits, and talents to improve their organizations.

The leadership benefits of reading are wide-ranging. Evidence suggests reading can improve intelligence and lead to innovation and insight. Some studies have shown, for example, that reading makes you smarter through "a larger vocabulary and more world knowledge in addition to the abstract reasoning skills." Reading — whether Wikipedia, Michael Lewis, or Aristotle — is one of the quickest ways to acquire and assimilate new information. Many business people claim that reading across fields is good for creativity. And leaders who can sample insights in other fields, such as sociology, the physical sciences, economics, or psychology, and apply them to their organizations are more likely to innovate and prosper.

Reading can also make you more effective in leading others. Reading increases verbal intelligence, making a leader a more adept and articulate communicator. Reading novels can improve empathy and understanding of social cues, allowing a leader to better work with and understand others — traits that author Anne Kreamer persuasively linked to increased organizational effectiveness, and to pay raises and promotions for the leaders who possessed these qualities. And any business person understands that heightened emotional intelligence will improve his or her leadership and management ability.

Finally, an active literary life can make you more personally effective by keeping you relaxed and improving health. For stressed executives, reading is the best way to relax, as reading for six minutes can reduce stress by 68%, and some studies suggest reading may even fend off Alzheimer's, extending the longevity of the mind. 

John Coleman

For Those Who Want to Lead, Read. HBR Blog Network. Harvard Business Review. August 15, 2012

swallowed up in the joy of Christ

Consecration is... both a principle and a process, and it is not tied to a single moment. Instead, it is freely given, drop by drop, until the cup of consecration brims and finally runs over.

...Jesus declared, we must “settle this in [our] hearts”: that we will do what He asks of us (JST, Luke 14:28). President Young further counseled us “to submit to the hand of the Lord, … and acknowledge his hand in all things, … then you will be exactly right; and until you come to that point, you cannot be entirely right. That is what we have to come to” (in Journal of Discourses, 5:352).

Thus, acknowledging God’s hand includes, in the words of the Prophet Joseph, trusting that God has made “ample provision” beforehand to achieve all His purposes, including His purposes in our lives (Teachings of the Prophet Joseph Smith, sel. Joseph Fielding Smith [Salt Lake City: Deseret Book Co., 1938], p. 220). Sometimes He clearly directs; other times it seems He merely permits some things to happen. Therefore, we will not always understand the role of God’s hand, but we know enough of His heart and mind to be submissive. Thus when we are perplexed and stressed, explanatory help is not always immediately forthcoming, but compensatory help will be. Thus our process of cognition gives way to our personal submission as we experience those moments when we learn to “be still, and know that I am God” (Ps. 46:10).

Then the more one’s will is thus “swallowed up,” the more his afflictions, rather than necessarily being removed, will be “swallowed up in the joy of Christ” (Alma 31:38).

Neal A. Maxwell

“Swallowed Up in the Will of the Father”, General Conference October 1995

stagger not through unbelief

As one’s will is increasingly submissive to the will of God, he can receive inspiration and revelation so much needed to help meet the trials of life. In the trying and very defining Isaac episode, faithful Abraham “staggered not … through unbelief” (Rom. 4:20). Of that episode John Taylor observed that “nothing but the spirit of revelation could have given him this confidence, and … sustained him under these peculiar circumstances” (in Journal of Discourses, 14:361). Will we too trust the Lord amid a perplexing trial for which we have no easy explanation? Do we understand—really comprehend—that Jesus knows and understands when we are stressed and perplexed? The complete consecration which effected the Atonement ensured Jesus’ perfect empathy; He felt our very pains and afflictions before we did and knows how to succor us (see Alma 7:11–12; 2 Ne. 9:21). Since the Most Innocent suffered the most, our own cries of “Why?” cannot match His. But we can utter the same submissive word “nevertheless …” (Matt. 26:39).

Neal A. Maxwell

“Swallowed Up in the Will of the Father”, General Conference October 1995

stretch - don't stress

"Stretch - Don't stress" Is what Sister Sabin wanted us to understand and try to input that into our lives. If you are obedient, keep your covenants, and love God you are going to be fine, so don't stress. 

And if you aren't, simply repent and start doing them, and keep on repenting over and over and over and over and over and over... You can't ever give up. That's the only thing. If you give up, then give up on giving up, and start back up again! If you throw your hands up in the air and say "this is impossible! This just can't be for me, maybe other people, it's not my thing" you're wrong. And that's the truth of the gospel. I mess up so many times it's not even funny. The amount of times I've needed serious repenting in my life is not what I would like, but it's better that I did, than give up.

So, as long as you don't give up you can do it. 

Elder Liam Wiscombe

Letter from his Oregon Salem full-time mission. May 20, 2024

improving emotional resilience

Improving emotional resilience, one’s ability to respond to and recover from stressful situations and crises, is critical to gaining greater mastery of our physical and psychological states….

Resilience is all about learning to process and then move past the inevitable occasional jolts of negative emotion at work – acute anger, anxiety, fear, and so on – and return to one’s emotional normal, ready once again to tackle a job’s everyday challenges.

Anne Kreamer

It’s Always Personal: Navigating Emotion in the New Workplace. 2011. Random House.