Leadership: The link between good sleep and good leadership
Manager performance, sleep deprivation, stress and burnout
Leaders are particularly vulnerable to poor sleep and burnout for many reasons. Tight deadlines, difficulties turning off from work stress and expectations to be “on” 24/7, or work across international time-zones all contribute to sleep deprivation.
Sleep well, lead better
When you sleep, your brain consolidates the previous day’s experiences, primes your memory, and triggers hormones regulating energy, mood, and mental acuity. This process takes about 7 to 9 hours to complete, hence the recommended daily dose.
Research reveals that getting this recommended amount of shut-eye supports a range of positive behaviours – all of which are critical to successful modern-day leadership including:
Be patient with employees and calm under pressure.
Be more creative and responsive to change.
Make more sound and ethical decisions, with fewer errors.
More accurately read social situations and reactions.
Be safer, healthier, sharper and more productive.
Boosting team performance while you sleep
Teams set their standards against leaders behaviour. Teams with leaders who value sleep tend to sleep longer and better, enhancing the general performance across the board.
Boosting leadership resilience to avoid stress and burnout
Sleep has been overwhelmingly linked to overall emotional wellbeing, emotional intelligence and mood. All of which have a significant impact on management capability.
Sleep deprivation has been proven to not only significantly impair judgement, but also make us overly emotional. Research shows that people who have missed a night's sleep become more stressed, anxious, and angry about feedback on task performance than people who have slept well. Even short-term sleep issues increase circulating stress hormones and associated physical responses.
