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216 HBR Leader’s Handbook

of the work that you love. Dominic Barton, even during his jam-packed
tenure as global managing partner of McKinsey, insisted on serving a few
clients “because it both kept me in touch with the heart of our strategy and
allowed me to keep doing challenging problem-solving that I really enjoy.”

Achieving broader balance
As much as these strategies can serve to improve a leader’s personal well-
ness and effectiveness, most executives also acknowledge that self-care in-
volves much more than just improving job productivity. Ultimately taking
care of yourself as a leader must also be about recognizing how your work
fits into the rest of your life. How do you prioritize between your differing
spheres of things personal, professional, and social? How can you best fit
them together and achieve some kind of holistic harmony among them?
As we’ve said, being clear about your personal priorities is always a
good first step. Understanding what really matters to you and how, on the
margin, you might choose to allocate different segments of your time is a
discipline that any leader should adopt. If you think and act as if everything
is equally important—work, family, personal growth or interests, spiritual
life, and so on—you are essentially saying you don’t have any real priorities.
As Ron wrote in the HBR article “How Trivial Decisions Will Impact
Your Happiness,” the inevitable pull of work once you start achieving suc-
cess in your job will constantly force you to keep making one small com-
promise after another versus your nonwork life—missing a child’s school
recital, forgoing a church or family event you had vowed to be part of, and
so forth. That’s OK, but only if that’s the way you want to intentionally
allocate your time on this earth. But maybe constant and shifting compro-
mises are not OK for you. Can you honestly answer what you believe about
such choices? Can you be more intentional about identifying and acting on
your most meaningful preferences?
Many leaders fail to be explicit with themselves about what their real
priorities are. As a leader, you have the right—and obligation—to choose
what kind of balance you have in your life. But you need to be clear about
what you want. Whether you’re looking in a mirror, talking with an execu-