By Kevin Eikenberry
You’ve got questions and we’ve got answers. Hi, I’m Kevin Eikenberry, answering the questions that new leaders ask us. Actually, it’s our goal to help all leaders become more productive, successful and confident. Today, I’m answering a question about how important vacations are for leaders. Are you ready? Let’s go.
The question I get is this: How important is it that I take my vacation?
What’s underneath that is? You know, Kevin, I’m really busy as a leader. I got a lot going on. So do I really need to take my vacation? Like, I want to be working hard. I got a lot to do, but if I take my vacation. You get the whole picture, right? Listen, not everyone needs to hear this video, but some do.
And for those that do, let me answer the question. It’s 100% important that you take your vacation. I want to give you three important, valuable, useful reasons why you, Mr. or Ms. Leader, need to take your vacation.
Number one, it will make you a better leader. See all those people who are saying, Well, I got so much to do, want to be good leaders. I mean, they want to get great results, right? But when you take your vacation, you will become a better leader because you need to take care of yourself. Self-care matters, and we all need a break, regardless of what we want to say to ourselves. Self-care matters, and we can’t be our best for our teams unless we’re at our best for ourselves.
Second, when we go on vacation and change our routine, perhaps be in a place, it gives us a chance to think. It gives us time to think– super important. And in the daily rush, in the looking at the to do list, we may not take the time, make the time, to stop and think.
And third, being on vacation gives us new experiences, which gives us new connections to hook things together and to make new connections, to make new observations, gain new perspective.
So taking your vacations will make you a better leader. Taking your vacations.
Also, models the right behavior. Like you want your people to take their vacations. Right? You don’t want all that PTO backed up at the end of the year and have people using it just to use it so they don’t lose it. You really want them to take their vacations, right?
So by you taking it, you’re encouraging others to do the same. And, oh by the way, when you take yours, it shows your trust in your absence, right? Like if you’re gone and you really leave virtually as well, then you’re trusting your people to take care of things. And so you’re modeling a behavior, not only of the vacations, but you’re modeling, the behavior of trusting your team to do good work.
And the third reason that you should take your vacation is it improves your work life balance. Few people who I talked to you that don’t want to think about having a better work life balance. And one of the ways we can do that is to make sure we take our vacation.
And listen, don’t care where you go. I don’t care what you do. but you got to take your vacation and you need to really take it. Turn off the devices. Be with the people that you love. See new things. Don’t just spend the whole day checking your email. All right.
So I hope you’ll do that. I hope you’ll remember that you should take your vacations and let me close with today’s tweet:
If you want to be a better leader, use your PTO. Make sure you take your vacations.
I hope you liked my answer to that question. How would you like me to answer your questions? Well, all you’ve got to do is put your questions in the comments here, and then the chances of me answering them are much higher because I know what they are.
We’ve got plenty of resources to help leaders, and there are links here to help you find where to find those free resources, to help you as a leader. As I promise, become more productive, successful and confident. I hope you’ll do that. And I hope you’ll subscribe so you can get future videos in this series.
Remember that taking a vacation is helping you and your business. By enjoying travel, time with family or bicycling on a stay-cation, you are bringing that re-found energy back to your clients.