The failure of self-care and creation of a workaholic cultur

The failure of self-care and the creation of a workaholic culture

People who feel like imposters tend to neglect their own needs. If they’ve achieved any degree of success, “excessive” self-care seems especially self-indulgent and risky. Leaders on the political Left feel particularly undeserving of the help, service, support, deference, or any of a number of “perks” that our culture affords those who are powerful, successful, or otherwise important. They are supposed to be champions of the underdog, those victims of inequalities who are trapped and held back by an oppressive social system. So the champions of the poor are uncomfortable about paying themselves too much, taking care of their own needs for leisure and pleasure, or expecting others to defer to and serve their interests. Who are they to be worthy of these things?

 The logic—or illogic, I should say—goes: “I shouldn’t expect or take more for myself than the people whom I’m trying to help or serve.” And that “more” includes the wide range of self-care activities necessary to doing a good job at serving those people. Over and over, we’ve seen leaders burn out, take their smartphones on vacation so as to be available 24/7, and fail to afford themselves time to reflect on their jobs and their lives.

 In working with one organization around issues of time-management, my colleagues and I made the argument that the first thing a leader should do when scheduling the week is to block out personal and reflection time. Everyone agreed and promised to move in this direction during the next week. Several people returned excited at the progress they’d made. One person proudly stood up and said that he had succeeded in letting his phone ring four times before answering it. Another announced that she had stood her ground: during a four-day vacation, she had set a limit and did not participate in her team’s obligatory 7 a.m. senior staff meeting! One small step for the individual; one even smaller step for their organizations.

In fact, failures of self-care radiate throughout an organization. Over and over, leaders report that their organizations are unable to retain young people precisely for this reason. Marriages were on the rocks. Kids were acting out because of parental absence. Health conditions were worsening, obesity increasing. Feelings of fraudulence were invariably an important underlying dynamic force in these cultures. We heard many people express guilt and worry if they dared privilege their own needs over the needs of their clients, members, or contributors. They feared, sometimes correctly, that their peers would see such ordinary benefits as vacations, sick leave, or reasonable work hours as indicators of an absence of true commitment to “the cause.” Equally compelling, they wondered if their own professed commitment was fraudulent, and that treating themselves kindly was proof. For leaders like these, the only way to prove they are not fakers or slackers is to behave like martyrs—and force their staff to be martyrs, too, by creating cultures of sacrifice and workaholism. One of the reasons that many organizers eventually left the United Farm Workers Union was that UFW President Cesar Chavez paid them so little and expected them to work and feel compensated by their “mission.” This was a dysfunctional leadership “style.” People don’t admire, or want to work with, martyrs who deprive themselves.