I’m going to blame this title on all the medication I am taking, though. As I’ve sat home with the flu over the last few days, I’ve really been thinking about the leadership lessons we can learn from being sick. I’m generally a pretty healthy person, and the last time I was knocked out of commission was probably back in 2020, so this one threw me for a loop. Between medication, reading a good book, and watching my dog spend his days, I had plenty of time to reflect on leadership. Here are three lessons in leadership we can learn from fighting the flu (or any illness, for that matter).
Trust your instincts
Sure, doctors know what makes our bodies work less well. But in reality, the only one who really knows your body is you. You know when you aren’t feeling great, just like you inherently know when things are going well (or not so well) in your leadership work. As leaders, we have to trust our instincts, not because they are right all the time, but because they are wrong only a small amount of the time. I had a sense when I was getting sick, and I prepped myself to be out of the office. Though I wasn’t prepared to be out for as long as I was, I knew that I would need to take care of some things from home, so I got myself prepped to do so before I went home the night before. I also tend to know how illnesses are going to present when I get sick (a fair amount of coughing and congestion, usually a fever, etc.), and I made sure we had the proper medication I would need at home. Leadership works this way as well. The more prepped we are for a given situation, the better we can address the changes that we often know deep down are coming our way.
Go slow
Being ill is a sign that our bodies are fighting back against something that shouldn’t be there. It takes a lot of energy to fight those illnesses, and that often means the rest of our functions don’t operate as quickly as we’d like. Our thinking might slow, our movements become less quick and fluid, and it can take us significantly longer to get things done than usual. We find this to be the case with leading as well. For instance, in building out a new service to support districts regarding authentic learning experiences, I had hoped to design and present this opportunity much earlier in the year. However, with so much happening across our organization, and with everything taking valuable resources, I had to be patient with the fact that design and sharing might take longer than anticipated. While not the same as being sick in actuality, the idea is similar. We have to allow things the time they need to develop (or to get better); we simply can’t push and assume that everything will happen just because we want it to.
Align the body and mind
Ultimately, when we lead, we lead with both heart and head. Sometimes, those two worlds are easily aligned. In other cases, it can be hard to bring them into the same galaxy as the needs between the two are vastly different. When ill, there are times when our bodies feel great, and our minds feel cloudy, and others when we can think clearly, but not be able to move. In either case, the ultimate goal is to align body and mind so that our thinking and actions are truly connected. There are health benefits, of course, as well as leadership benefits. When we align thought and action, we are more likely to see the full impact of what we have planned. When our bodies and minds are operating effectively, we are much more likely to succeed in whatever we do.
These three lessons occurred to me while I was home with nowhere else to be. They also prove their value in our busiest and most intense periods of life and leadership. Being sick is never fun. It is, however, a good reminder that there is much we can learn from even the crummiest situations. After all, a virus is just doing what it was created to do, and as leaders, we should be able to do the same. Stay healthy!
Opinions expressed by SmartBrief contributors are their own.