Editorial
The Gist
- Supportive leadership matters. Leaders who practice self-care are better equipped to manage stress and support their teams effectively during uncertain times.
- Embrace self-care for marketing leaders. Prioritizing self-care, like mindfulness and physical activity, helps leaders maintain emotional well-being and competence.
- Action over inaction. In uncertain situations, marketing leaders should adopt a proactive approach to learning and adapting, rather than remaining passive.
Pumpkin spice. Leaf peeping. Warm sweaters. Autumn is many people’s favorite time of year, including mine.
Yet, along with the orange palette and the smell of wood smoke, fall includes some scaries — and not just Halloween. Things get serious again after the summer lull. New policies come blundering into effect. Unknown new hires may arrive. We stare down the barrel at year-end deadlines. Add to this stew a tumultuous election, and you’ve got a lot of uncertainty for marketing teams to cope with. In times of uncertainty, your team will worry about the future, often exaggerating the bad parts.
Autumn is both spectacular and stressful. Bolstering teams through uncertain times is an important leadership skill for marketing managers. Ironically, supportive leaders pay a bigger emotional price for their diligence. Untangling from their own difficult emotions is a self-care practice that will help leaders be seen as more competent. Self-care for marketing leaders is something that can not only improve leaders’ own well-being but also the well-being of their team members.
Self-Care for Marketing Leaders: Prioritizing Your Well-Being
An important leadership skill is knowing how to encourage your team during times of stress, but there is a price for this responsibility. Leaders who display supportive behaviors are more likely to experience feelings of exhaustion and depletion.
There’s a solution, though. If leaders engage frequently in self-care, they are more likely to be seen as competent, according to a 2023 paper from the University of South Australia. Self-care is defined as “people's self-initiated activities to protect and improve their own health and well-being.”
Self-care for marketing leaders requires first untangling yourself from your own emotions. It’s the familiar directive to put on your own oxygen mask first. This action helps you as well as your team. You need oxygen for strength, focus and mental agility. You are no help to anyone if you pass out.
In uncertain situations, marketing leaders should adopt a bias towards action. In a changing environment, you don’t get smarter or happier by just sitting around. Instead, we learn by acting. Sometimes you can execute practical strategies that help you get ready for whatever surprises are down the road. Other times, information can be obtained by testing or research. But in many uncertain situations, there is no obvious action. Things just aren’t always knowable or under our control.
Related Article: Marketing Leadership Strategies: Lessons Learned in My First Year as CMOSelf-Care Tips: Strategies for Emotional Resilience
We don’t have to just endure stress in times like these, whether we’re waiting to see what the new organization is going to look like or sweating out election results. In these cases, self-care practices that untangle us from difficult emotions are just the ticket. The following untangling practices were offered by Donald Rothberg, one of the teachers at the Spirit Rock meditation center in Northern California, and I’ve added some from my own experiences as a marketing leader:
Mindfulness Practice
Mindfulness is a key starting point in self-care for marketing leaders. When we pay close attention, we learn that thoughts are typically fleeting. Feelings often last longer and are worth investigating.
Perhaps, like many high achievers, you prefer to be in control. In my own meditation practice, I’ve noticed discomfort around not having things “nailed down.” I enjoy novel situations, but they can start an anxious reaction as my brain tries to work through the specifics.
Mindfulness grounds us, and it helps us see what is happening more clearly and develop the extremely useful attribute of equanimity.
Physical Practice
Moving works as a natural stress reducer. Whether it’s yoga, hiking, walking the dog, dancing or pickleball, do whatever you like that gets you up and moving to release those feel-good endorphins. Sometimes just walking around the block before a stressful Zoom call settles us down.
Heart Practices
Spend time in nature. Write a bad poem. Author Kurt Vonnegut once said, “The arts…are a very human way of making life more bearable. Practicing an art, no matter how well or badly, is a way to make your soul grow, for heaven’s sake. Sing in the shower. Dance to the radio. Tell stories. Write a poem to a friend, even a lousy poem. Do it as well as you possibly can. You will get an enormous reward.”
Many marketers entered the field to be creative. Maybe that was you. Start again.
Empathy Practices
What is the source of your uncertainty? A CFO who is holding up the budget? A never satisfied sales team? A key team member who may quit at any time?
Empathy doesn’t require you to agree with or even accept other people’s views or actions; empathy is simply acknowledging that the other is a human being worthy of our respect.
Donald, who has worked extensively in non-violent communications, told a story about sitting in the cafeteria at Los Alamos, listening to people who worked on nuclear weapons. He found that these scientists and engineers held the deep value of security. Donald shared that deep value, even though he disagreed with their strategy for trying to realize it.
Take the Long View
One thing you learn from a long career is the truth of the mantra, “and this, too, shall pass.” Everything goes through cycles. Things that seem horrible today, (e.g., budget cuts or layoffs, poorly defined roles and conflicts) can open unexpected doors to innovation that takes things to a higher level.
Connect to Community
It’s useful to connect with others. Spend time with friends and family. Don’t just stew in the tangle. Participate in social activities. It’s okay to have fun even when times are rough. You can also connect with books or films that help supply you with the energy and momentum for the slog.
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Conclusion: Sometimes, You Just Need to Untangle
Jack Kornfield, also from Spirit Rock, reminds us that everyone needs to untangle sometimes. He says, “If you can sit quietly after difficult news; if in financial downturns you remain perfectly calm; if you can see your neighbors travel to fantastic places without a twinge of jealousy; if you can happily eat whatever is put on your plate; if you can always find contentment just where you are: you are probably a dog.”
This fall, when stress seems unbearable, inhale deeply, take a dog for a walk -– then get back on that dreaded Zoom call.
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