Leadership & The Art of Boundary Setting

Being a great leader requires you to have clear, strong boundaries – and also know when to be flexible and collapse or expand them. It’s knowing in any given moment where your boundary needs to be in light of:

1. What you want to accomplish
2. How you need to lead your constituents – what they need to hear and the way in which they need to hear it.

Having clear boundaries means knowing when to say no and when to say yes authentically. Everyone talks about being strategic but few really do it. Truly being strategic means there are more things you need to say no to, so you can say yes to the few things that truly matter. It means making forced choices and really not trying to do everything. It means being very discerning and making a commitment about what gets on the “yes” list.

Having clear boundaries means having downtime and not being on call 24/7. Downtime is where we re-create ourselves. It’s what enables our true creative juices to flow. If we have no separation between our work and personal lives, this leads to many undesirable outcomes: burnout, unhealthy addictive patterns, eventually a lack of creativity or renewal in mind/thought and body.

This week’s reflection question: where do you need to be clearer about your boundaries – what is okay and not okay for you? What is okay and not okay for your people to focus on? Where do you need to reset a boundary?

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