Self-Care For Leaders: How to Be More Effective
Self‑care for leaders isn’t the occasional spa day or pampering - it’s a deliberate, ongoing practice of tending to your physical, emotional, mental, and relational needs so that you can lead others effectively and sustainably. As a leader, your role carries added weight: you hold responsibility not just for yourself, but for people, projects, and ultimately organizational outcomes. Neglecting your well-being doesn’t just hurt you - it erodes the quality and effectiveness of your leadership and pursuit of success.
To lead well, treat self‑care as part of your leadership infrastructure - not optional, not extra, but foundational. The way you care for yourself sends signals to your team and sets the tone for what is acceptable and healthy. Studies show that self-care is a leadership competency: something leaders must cultivate if they want resilience, positive influence, and longevity.
In my own journey as a successful changeworker of over 16 years, I’ve seen how leaders often feel like they have to carry everything, always put others first, and show up strong even when they’re feeling depleted. But that leads to fragile and low-quality leadership. Fatigue, reactivity, diminished vision, and even burnout are all found on that path. Conversely, the path to more grounded leadership lies in integrating self-care into your identity as a leader - not seeing it as a distraction or a frivolity, but as a necessity.
Why Is Self‑Care So Important for Leadership Teams?
Creating The Culture
If you, as a leader, show that self-care is important, you give your team permission to do the same. That’s critical because studies show that organizational culture is set at the top. And when your employees or team isn’t prioritizing self-care, it’s ultimately the work that suffers. Silence on self-care often becomes toxic: people overwork, sacrifice boundaries, and feel shame for needing rest. Leaders who normalize rest, boundaries, and regeneration foster healthier cultures and better work.
Capacity & Resilience
Leadership roles demand vision, adaptability, flexibility, decision-making under pressure, conflict navigation, and more. These inherently drain your reserves. Self-care is how you refill, protect your competency, and stay resilient in the face of inevitable challenges.
Emotional Intelligence & Relational Depth
When you're exhausted or overwhelmed, your empathy, patience, and listening capacity drop dramatically. Decisions become more transactional, responses more reactive. You lose the sharpness of your relational skills. Self-care supports your ability to hold space for others and approach meetings in a cohesive, collaborative way.
Trust & Credibility
Not engaged or actively disengaged employees account for about $1.9 trillion in lost productivity nationally (U.S.). A leader who regularly crashes, withdraws, or shows burnout without reflection loses valuable trust with the people they’re meant to lead. But a leader who can pause, adjust, repair, and lead from integrity builds deeper respect and trust over time. This dynamic leads to more engaged and motivated team members, which leads to better work!
Longevity & Sustainability
Many leaders burn hot and run out of fuel fast. Self-care is how you stay in the game over years or decades. It’s not heroic to drive yourself into collapse; it’s strategic to build rhythms, routines, and self-regeneration. Research even shows that leaders who practice self-care positively influence their team’s well-being, health, and commitment - leading to better team health and outcomes.
Better Decisions, Creativity, & Innovation
When you’re well-rested, mentally spacious, and emotionally clear, your decisions are more thoughtful and more strategic. Complex thinking and creativity emerges from space, not pressure.
Given all that, self-care is not “nice if you can” but “critical if you want to lead well”.
How to Take Care of Yourself as a Leader
Below are practices and shifts I recommend beginning to weave into your life. They’re not one-size-fits-all prescriptive checklists - choose what fits your context, personality, and constraints (and then iterate).
Meet Yourself Where You Are
Before you do anything, make sure to meet yourself where you currently are. You don’t need to rush into ideal routines. The starting point is awareness: notice your state, what’s draining you (and why), and your physical, emotional, and mental needs. If you try to leap into 90-min daily meditations when you’ve been surviving on 4 hours of sleep, you won’t see any meaningful benefits. Begin at your current energy, attention, and capacity. And most importantly, forgive yourself if it’s somewhere you’re not happy with.
Repeat 3 to 5 Affirmations Every Morning
Affirmations are small anchors that can help set your day’s tone and orientation. It can definitely feel weird to say these aloud to yourself, but meaningful change only happens outside of your comfort zone. Science tells us that implementing affirmations into your morning routine makes a big difference over time - the key is daily consistency.
For example:
“I lead from presence, not urgency.”
“I deserve care and rest as much as I give.”
“I will do less but better in alignment with my purpose.”
They aren’t magic, but consistently repeated gentle reminders help rewire internal stories over time.
Give Yourself Grace
Leadership is messy. You will stumble. You will need to rest. You’ll get overwhelmed. Giving yourself grace (i.e. permission to be human) is part of self-care. You’re not a robot, no matter how much society pushes you to be. Resist the internal voice that says “I should do more” or “I must never slow down.” Practice regulating your nervous system when discomfort around giving yourself grace shows up - that’s how you make this a practice that sticks long-term.
Avoid All‑Or‑Nothing Thinking
Many leaders swing between extremes: overwork or collapse. All-or-nothing is dangerous. When I experienced burnout back in 2022, I had found myself in this cycle (to my detriment). Aim to embrace flexibility: some days you rest more, some days you push more. Nothing is blank and white - everything has nuance. The goal is steady rhythm, not perfection.
Emphasize Kindness, Joy, & Laughter
Leadership can feel heavy sometimes - you’re carrying a lot of responsibility! So, joy is a radical act. Make space in your day for lightness, humor, and human connection. Bring fun into your team. Laugh. Celebrate. Crack jokes. These aren’t fluff or strange - they help renew your energy, breathe life into the energy and culture of your team, and help bring everyone together.
Seek Advice From People You Look Up To
No leader should go it alone. Reach out to a potential mentor, elders, or peers you admire. Even if it feels a bit scary, don’t hesitate to reach out even if you have to send a cold email - you’d be surprised how many people are happy to help! Ask how they maintain their well-being, and ask for perspective for when you're stuck or hit a wall. Their lived wisdom can guide you beyond generic advice.
Observe the Habits of People You Admire
Notice how the leaders you trust manage their lives. What boundaries do they hold? How do they schedule and plan rest or their hobbies? How do they recover when overwhelmed or stressed? Let their patterns inspire you, and start adapting resonant bits into your own life.
Prioritize Your Physical Health
Your body is your operating system = health is wealth. Because if your health is bad, it’s impossible to do well in other areas of life. And not only that. As humans, the reality is we hold more sway when we look and feel our best. All of those reasons combined is why the best leaders prioritize their physical health (they know how valuable it is).
Some practices:
Sleep consistency and quality
Nutrition that supports energy (not crash diets)
Movement: creative movement, daily walking, stretching, or moderate exercise
Enough hydration (~90 oz a day for women, ~120 oz a day for men)
Mind-body practice: breathwork, yoga, or somatic experiencing
If these practices slip, everything else suffers. I know from personal experience of neglecting these just how bad it can feel! You’re not alone.
Start Small & Steady
You definitely don’t need to overhaul your life overnight. Pick one small practice - a 5-minute morning ritual, affirmations, a nightly wind-down, or a mini-break in the day to get started. Do that consistently. Once that feels stable, add another. This respects capacity and makes self-care sustainable. For more on building better habits, read Atomic Habits by James Clear.
Celebrate Your Smallest Achievements
Leadership often overlooks small wins because you're oriented to big impact. But that means progress feels incredibly slow. That can wear down your sense of purpose, motivation, and drive. Try to briefly pause daily or weekly to note small victories: a conversation that landed, a team member you supported, a moment of clarity you gained, etc. Let these fuel you.
Create & Enforce Boundaries
Boundaries are essential:
Time boundaries: fixed start/end work times, no after-hours email windows, no-work weekends, no-work vacations
Availability boundaries: decide when you’re “on” and when you’re off
Emotional boundaries: resist absorbing others’ emotional weight
Scope boundaries: you don’t need to solve every problem
As a leader, delegation is also part of boundary-making. You don’t need to and shouldn’t do everything yourself. Trust others, hand off work, and share the load. I know some leaders struggle with giving up control, but trusting others to do their work well benefits your leadership in the long-run. With that space freed up, you’re able to focus on higher priority goals and tasks that only you can do.
Start & End Your Day With a Replenishing Routine
How you begin and close your day sets the tone of your entire life. It not only affects your day, but it also affects your sleep!
For example:
Morning: quiet, intentional, gentle movement, journaling, or stretching
Evening: digital shut-down, body scan, gratitude, meditation, or reading
These bookends help you shift in and out of leadership mode with more ease, clarity, grace, and relaxation. But don’t just take it from me - leaders like Oprah have very intentionally planned mornings. They know that how you start your day sets the stage for better (or worse) days.
Create a Regular Reflection Practice
Regular reflection is critical! The most effective and strong leaders prioritize reflecting on their days, weeks, quarters, and years. Because in order to learn and grow, you have to look back at your journey thus far. A tool some people like to use is Notion and there are free templates you can use to get started.
I recommend starting with reflections at the end of each month, staying consistent, and asking yourself:
What gave me energy this month?
What drained me?
Where did I overextend?
What needs letting go or rebalancing?
Try Different Self‑Care Experiences
Don’t get stuck in one mode - you never know what activity will bring you immense joy and excitement! Try art-based, sensory, somatic, or community practices: dance, painting, nature walks, journaling, knitting, retreats, silence, embodied breathwork, meditation, scrapbooking, stretching, etc. Mix modalities so your nervous system can reset in different ways.
Lean Into Your Best Friendships
Leadership can feel isolating. You may be feeling like no one around you understands what you’re going through. And that’s why deep friendships are lifelines. Laugh, heal, and be your authentic self outside of needing to lead or fix. Let others see your vulnerability. These relationships replenish what leadership often demands and depletes from you.
Get Out Into Nature
Nature is a scientifically proven deep healer. Walks in nature, sitting by a body of water, noticing the clouds or the wind - these practices help ground you, shift perspective, and recalibrate your nervous system. Even short nature breaks offer restoration - something as short as 20 minutes has been shown to have health benefits.
Turn Negative Thoughts Into Neutral or Positive Thoughts
We often carry harsh internal narratives: “I’m failing,” “I’m not enough,” “I must do more.” Self-care includes reframing these into gentler, truthful, and reorienting statements. Use curiosity, self-compassion, self-expression, and mindfulness to slow the inner critic and shift perspective. If you’re open to it, consider exploring cognitive behavioural therapy. This is not in any way, shape, or form medical advice. Please seek a certified medical professional to receive medical advice.
If all of this feels overwhelming, I completely understand. To get started, I don’t recommend trying to take everyone on at the same time. That would feel overwhelming to anyone! What I do recommend is choosing the practice that you’re most excited about, and starting there. Prioritize that, see its effects on your life, and then decide if you want to make it a permanent thing or try something else entirely.
There’s not one practice that magically works for everyone. Sometimes it does take experimenting and seeing what works for you. This isn’t the easiest process, but myself and the best leaders in the world would agree that self-care is essential to effective, meaningful leadership. You got this!
