Work-Life Balance: An Impossible Destination for Leaders but a Worthy Process

If you’re willing to make sacrifices to achieve greatness, there’s going to be imbalance in your life.

Anyone with the ambition to become a leader in a professional field should understand this right up front: There is no “balance” between the demands of the job and your personal time.

In the somewhat fashionable quest to find the perfect “work-life balance,” most people end up sacrificing the full realization of their ambition to raise a family, or to pursue a heartfelt interest. There is absolutely nothing wrong with this scenario, nor is there anything wrong with acting on the drive to ascend to the highest level you can by dedicating yourself to your career at the expense of your free time.

Of course, this career drive should not come at the expense of others. A father or mother should not sacrifice family time for a paycheck if they can avoid it.

There is no “secret” to success. It’s hard work and determination. It’s sleepless nights, working weekends, constant travel, insane demands, and pressure to perform.

Leadership is a Struggle

Those who are determined to lead companies will be required to work beyond their immediate capabilities, to get out of their comfort zone and enter a new workspace that will challenge them mentally and physically. Not everyone is cut out to be the boss, and this process will weed out those who aren’t willing to do what’s necessary to be a leader.

Because that’s what it takes. Stress, exhaustion, and dedication of time are part of being a leader. To try and “balance” this is a noble idea but one that is simply not realistic if you are goal oriented and have a distinct purpose for becoming a leader. Nobody who achieved greatness ever had a perfect balance in pursuit of that greatness.

It’s been said that the “secret” of those who have been successful lies in the fact that they formed the habit of doing things the unsuccessful don’t like to do. That is true, so much so that if you have that ambition you need to be honest with yourself and understand what it takes to succeed.

Specifically, what are your priorities? What are you willing to sacrifice, personally and professionally, to make it to the top? And what then? Do you have what it takes to stay there, to continue the stress, the pressures, the demands, the investment of time?

There is a lot of regret and resentment associated with overwork. It is an insidious doom loop of poor health, bad thinking, relationship abuse, emotional instability, and questionable habits. As the boss you will experience all of this plus a degree of anger and loss of control.

A Personal Story of Work-Life Balance

At 36 years old, I became president of the U.S. sales office of a German electronics company based outside of Boston, MA. I was newly single, childless, and ambitious as hell.

I already had deeply ingrained habits around workload and acceptance of the long hours I felt I needed to devote to my work. Because I was relatively young, I was mostly ignorant of the harmful effects of working long hours; the stress, the exhaustion, the time spent away from friends and family, and the occasional feeling of helplessness and fears of failure.

Eventually, I had normalized the abuse I put myself through. At some point I had to recognize the toll my overwork had been taking on everyone in my orbit as well as the impact on my own physical and mental health.

The year I turned 50, I decided that I needed a better balance between executing my work and living a fulfilling life, and I would commit to making that happen. It wasn’t easy.

Raising my own awareness of this situation was very useful. I began to put things into perspective and determine how my priorities needed to be adjusted. I had been prioritizing work over loved ones, but for how much longer could I keep pulling this off, and was it really necessary? What regrets did I have over this, and what would I regret if I continued down this path?

The aspects of balancing my work and life rested solely on the priorities that emerged from determining what I would like to see changed. It took a lot longer than I wanted it to, but I was able to make change. It all started when I denormalized my habit of working long hours and restructured my time in ways that lined up with my priorities.

This is absolutely key to achieving life-work balance. If work is completely out of line with your priorities, such as being a parent, being a spouse, taking a vacation, or having a hobby, some tough choices need to be made.

Not Everyone is Cut Out to Be the Boss

Before we get to those choices, let me chime in on the notion that if you’re trying to find a work-life balance you’re not fully committed to your work goals. That there is no perfect balance in pursuit of something great. This is absolutely correct.

Becoming a successful leader is hard work. It takes determination, sacrifice, self-awareness, and careful planning. I learned at an early stage in my career that if you’re willing to make the sacrifices necessary to achieve greatness, there will be imbalances in your life.

Are those imbalances worth what you’re getting in return? The money, the experience, the power? If you’re relatively young and without anyone relying on you, the imbalances can be looked at as an investment in your future. Make the big money as early as possible, and sacrifice what you need to in order to haul in as much as you can. Live below your means, invest, and do the right thing (in other words, don’t screw up your life).

Today, I’m in a much better place. No more sixty-hour work weeks. No more monthly sprints chasing unreasonable sales targets. No more weekend report writing. No more two-hour round-trip commutes to a workplace alongside semi-competent managers who were more interested in taking people down than doing their jobs in a professional manner.

All of this for a paycheck – a really good one, but I was putting out entirely too much effort for the money. And once I exited, it was like a sixty-pound sack of cement was lifted from my shoulders.

That was my story. Yours will be a lot different, but it will be similar in one specific area: Self-sacrifice of life balance in exchange for the achievement of something great.

It’s not complicated – if you want something, you’ll need to defer your gratification and do what’s necessary for as long as it takes. It will be hard, frustrating, and challenging. And it could be the best investment of your time that you ever made.

If you do the right thing and don’t screw up your life in the process.