10 thoughts on “A question for ya”

  1. I remember as an intern at a fortune 50 company having a Q&A with an executive.

    After all her talking about traveling, her hard work, her success, etc I asked her the question “How do you balance the demands of work with personal life?”

    Her answer:
    “If I knew that I wouldn’t be divorced”

    Success in business is not directly correlated to happiness or success in personal life.

  2. True in some places, false on others. I think it depends on the type and origin of the company, for example U.S. companies are more prone to this statement, also true for Latin American companies, where butt time means more than results. However, the trend is changing, specially on those companies who focus their results not on the profits only, but in the sense of trascendence.

    IMHO, I would only follow someone who values his and our work-life balance, because leadership is not about have a bunch of work-o-holics following you just because you are one, but to have the ability to know your own limits, the limits of the people you are leading, and use those limits and capabilities to achieve something extraordinary. Best leaders inspire by example, and those who are lead by great leaders want to become leaders as well.

    This happened to me in my last job, where the company was known for it’s “cruel” employee policies, but the leader of my department didn’t care about policies and put our work-life balance first. He defended us from upper management. I left the company when he left. His replacement didn’t make it as well.

    As for sacrifices… yeap, sure, it the depends on the point of view. For instance, having to travel to some is a sacrifice (not being home for dinner, not seeing your kids in 3-4 days). For me, it’s an opportunity to move outside of routine. (If travel becomes the routing, then it might be a sacrifice, but then I’ll seek something else).

  3. Define ‘succeed’. Define ‘major sacrifices’. I absolutely believe that you can balance the ambition to succeed in business and the ambition to succeed in your private life. Otherwise, I would opt out of leadership, which I haven’t. Here’s a notion (and you can call me na

  4. It all depends on what your definition of success is.

    If your definition is to get ahead in terms of job title, salary etc then yes.

    If your definition is to be happy and enjoy your time at work and with your colleagues as well as in your private life then…. well that’s pretty obvious.

  5. Yes, I’d say this is true. My Master’s thesis was on women in positions of leadership and I found this to be true with every person I interviewed as my research for the thesis.

  6. Disagree. You have to find a balance between work and time off. If you work too hard you’ll miss everything and end up with a pile of money and nothing else. I took that route with my first business and ended up fat, fatigued and alone. Not worth it.

    Cheers,
    Bryce

  7. There are many business leaders who are very successful and yet didn’t sacrifice they personal life. It’s a matter of how you would treat your employees, how would they react on it, how trustworthy your employees are to handle the jobs you gave them…

    If everything is in order, then you don’t have to sacrifice your personal life.

    I can see many business leaders who have great time in their personal life. The employees are either having work-life balance or are sacrificing their personal life.

  8. Disagree. I think that a “business chief” probably makes several sacrifices in his private live. but a “business leader” figure how to maintain his private live safe and secure.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.