Take a Break to Lead More Effectively?

 Want to be more productive? Take a mini mental vacation. There is growing evidence that regular breaks from mental tasks enhance productivity and creativity. The inverse is also true: skipping breaks can lead to stress, exhaustion, and even a shorter lifespan. The most distinguished leaders in history, from Churchill to Mandela, took time out for stillness to tune their moral compass and lead more decisively. (By the way, if reading this blog post distracts you from your work and contributes to your stress level, my apologies. I hope your future times of stillness off the grid will richly compensate you for any anxiety, guilt or other pressures I have caused you here.)

Yesterday I gave myself a break. (Don't tell my wife or she might say I could have come home earlier to buy groceries and cook for the family.)

After a successful meeting with a client, I took two hours to go to the Kunsthaus, Zurich's main art museum.

As I wandered the hallowed halls, losing myself in the art of Böcklin, Hodler and Valloton, not to speak of the 15th-century Dutch masters, I was gradually filled with a sense of timelessness.

I don't know about your days, but mine are filled to the rafters with action. It lies in the nature of leadership: you always have more commitments than you can possibly handle.

And in all likelihood my inbox will still be full when I die.

I guess work has always been stressful. Just ask a Jewish slave in ancient Egypt or a serf in Tsarist Russia. Compared to them, who had to haul stones across the desert or toil in the fields of their overlords, most of us have no back-breaking jobs. Supposedly.

And yet, modern career pressures can threaten health and well-being just as much. Stress can even kill you, as you can see in this video.


What is the source of the stress in our lives?

Take the time crunch. Even a serf or a slave might have enjoyed a lax hour here or there while his masters were not watching. But today's smartphones, email and management by objectives grip workers like an iron shackle.

"The pressure to stay forever connected has taken a toll on the time we once instinctively devoted to renewing and recharging," wrote Tony Schwartz in The New York Times a few years ago, in an article aptly titled "The Personal Energy Crisis."

But breaks can induce guilt because you say No to the pile of work you could (or should) be doing at that time. Kristin Neff, an associate professor of human development at the University of Texas at Austin, said that "most people have gotten it wrong because our culture says being hard on yourself is the way to be."

So curbing your own self-criticism -- actually forgiving yourself -- can go a long way. A recent study found that those who score high on self-compassion have less depression and anxiety, and cope better with struggles at work.

Being the boss does not mean less stress, quite the contrary, at least if you are a baboon. A Princeton University study of monkeys in Kenya showed that alpha males suffered just as much stress as the lowest-ranking members of their primate societies. Surprisingly, "Beta males, who fought less and had considerably less mate guarding to do, had much lower stress levels."

A final factor that can shorten your lifespan is dysfunctional office politics. A study at Tel Aviv University found that people who felt little or no emotional support from their colleagues were 2.4 times more likely to die over the 20-year period of the study.

The ability to step back and gain perspective, and ultimately to come up with the right judgments, has been a hallmark of the most distinguished leaders in history. Great leaders, both Western and non-Western, regularly withdrew from the world to be still, reflect, or meditate, so that the right choice could reveal itself to them. 

Winston Churchill was born in a much slower century, when declarations of war still took months to arrive in diplomatic pouches. He used to sit outside his house most days after lunch, at the edge of the pond he had made with his own hands, thinking, brooding, and watching the ducks. 

He would not permit himself to be disturbed. He would sit there, sometimes for hours, and then return to Parliament in a decisive spirit. Churchill’s success in defeating Hitler in World War II stemmed at least in part from his courage to step back from the heat of the action.

Churchill’s contemporary (and adversary) Mahatma Gandhi sat, fasted, and prayed at his spinning wheel in order to see what was next in his mission to free India; “Freedom,” he wrote, “is often to be found inside a prison’s walls." 

And in the second half of the last century, Nelson Mandela spent twenty-seven years of enforced isolation in prison. During that time of isolation, he developed a resolve of steel. Upon his release, Mandela emerged with utmost clarity on what was needed to end apartheid and build a modern democracy in South Africa.

These leaders acted and took time to be still on behalf of countless people who depended on their wisdom and insight. Each had to find inner clarity in the midst of turbulence; each knew that his decisions would affect countless lives. 

Stillness allowed these leaders not only to rise above the fray, but also to get their priorities clear, and to say no to things that were urgent but not really important, even to pressing or popular demands for which there was loud clamor.

Just as they did, those of us who are leaders, whether in politics, industry, or daily life, have to find the silence within that is conducive to purposeful action. It is in stillness that you can find your way, your ethical compass as a leader. 

No person or book can ever give enough advice to cover even a fraction of all the challenges a leader might encounter. Unless you can be still and access the quiet power that stillness makes available, you miss out on one of the most valuable leadership tools.

So find the regular practice of stillness that works for you. It need not be a nap. It need not be a museum. One of my coaching clients in Hamburg used to take his BMW to the German Autobahn at night and drive at 220 km per hour. That was stillness for him.

What do you say? What is the source of stress in your life? And what are your regular practices to recharge your batteries and sustain your peak performance? I look forward to reading you on my blog:http://thomaszweifel.blogspot.com/.

Dr. Thomas D. Zweifel is a strategy & performance expert and coach for leaders of Global 1000 companies. His book The Rabbi and the CEO (with Aaron L. Raskin), a finalist for the National Jewish Book Award and the Foreword Book Award, explores business strategies for 21st-century leaders based on the Ten Commandments. Chapter 4  is "Commandment IV: Keep the Sabbath -- the Power of No."