Leaders & Teams

Strengthen Your Leadership
with Strategic Breaks

To lead your employees effectively and inspiringly, it's crucial that you recharge your own energy. In this article, you will find concrete tools for taking strategic breaks, allowing you to accelerate your leadership and build a sustainable and successful career.

September 17, 2024 · by Louise Flyvholm, Pil Sally Bach
and Katrine Dichmann Christophersen (ed.)

Article

As a new leader, it’s essential to remember that you can only be there for your team if you are filled with energy and balance yourself. Regenerative breaks are not a luxury but a necessity for maintaining high performance, staying motivated, and leading authentically. By incorporating breaks, movement, calm, and mindfulness into your daily routine, you are investing in your leadership development.

strategic break

Succeeding Through Your Team

Organizations are a collection of living organisms, namely people. In all interpersonal communication, we influence each other, both intentionally and unintentionally.

As a new leader, it’s common to spend time stepping into the role with new relationships, tasks, and responsibilities that naturally come with formal leadership. You must build trust and get your employees to follow you and your visions for the team. You must listen, ask questions, and allow your employees’ expertise and skills to come into play. You must think strategically, succeeding through your team. You need a solid understanding of what’s happening around you and constantly adjust your actions to the situation.

In other words, you must create good conditions for both your and others’ performance and well-being – and that requires an awareness of what you bring to the relationships with your manager, colleagues, and employees.

Accelerate Your Leadership – Recharge and Regenerate Your Energy

It’s easy to neglect your own needs because the role is new, and it’s natural to spend a lot of time and energy understanding your team’s dynamics, challenges, and potential. At the same time, many new leaders feel the need to be liked and accepted by the team. From our experience working with new leaders, we see that the combination of new tasks and increased responsibility in a leadership role can cause you to lose touch with yourself and your body’s signals. Through balance and renewed energy, you become the most authentic and inspiring leader for your team.

At Mannaz, in our work with new leaders, we’ve noticed many leaders skip strategic breaks. As a new leader, it may be tempting to deprioritize breaks in the pursuit of quick success and efficiency. There’s a general misconception that optimization and progress can only be achieved through constant activity and action. However, this belief is a misunderstanding that stillness and breaks are counterproductive to efficiency. In reality, strategic breaks are an essential part of leadership. They allow time for reflection, evaluating progress, and adjusting goals and strategies. Instead of seeing breaks as wasted time, they should be viewed as an investment in better decision-making and the development of both your own and your team’s potential.

Five Strategic Breaks

Below are five methods to help regenerate your energy, thereby enhancing your performance and maintaining motivation so that you can lead authentically.

1

Breathing

Deep breathing helps calm the body’s nervous system, reducing stress and improving focus.

This simple exercise can be done anytime, anywhere: Take a deep breath while counting to four. Hold your breath while counting to four. Slowly exhale while again counting to four. Hold your breath while counting to four. Repeat 2-3 times.

2

Movement

Regular movement increases your energy levels, releases feel-good hormones like endorphins, and improves blood circulation, which can enhance concentration and the ability to think creatively.

Any movement is better than none. Remember, the best position is the next one!

Take a short walk alone or with a colleague, roll your shoulders back a few times, or alternate arching and rounding your back while sitting in your office chair.

3

Silence

Being in silence gives you time to process all the impressions, information, and stimuli we are constantly exposed to. Silence can help promote clarity in your decision-making processes.

Silence can be combined with several other breaks. Find a moment to close your office door or find a quiet corner. Turn off your phone and other distractions. Sit comfortably with your eyes closed and focus on your breathing. Allow thoughts to come and go without engaging with them. Just be present in the silence.

4

Nature

Time spent in nature can have a profound effect on your mental well-being. Being surrounded by nature reduces stress and improves mood and concentration. Nature helps recharge your mental energy and promotes a sense of calm and balance.

If possible, take your break outside in a park, garden, or other green space. Take a few deep breaths and pay attention to the sounds around you. Even a short 5-10 minute break in nature, without digital devices, can have a positive effect on your well-being.

5

Inner Awareness

Developing inner awareness involves becoming more conscious of your thoughts, feelings, and bodily sensations. It can enhance self-awareness and help you lead more authentically. Increased inner awareness can also improve decision-making by making you more aware of your reactions and patterns.

Take a moment for a short body scan, where you focus on each part of your body – from your toes to your head. As you scan through your body, notice any tension or discomfort without judgment, and use your breath to release the tension. This exercise can help you reconnect with your body and give you a moment to withdraw from the busyness of daily life.