Are you checking your emails during the holidays?
For many of you, spring break is just around the corner. It’s a great time to take a week off to spend time with the family and disconnect from work and school. But I’m curious, how many of you actually check your emails during your holiday? Are you answering emails, or just glancing through the inbox to make sure there are no fires while you’re out?
Either way, you’re not fully disconnecting and benefitting from your week off by answering or glancing at your inbox. I get it, as leaders we have a responsibility to our team and the organization to ensure nothing falls apart while you’re off, but the hard truth is: you were unprepared for your holiday. Yup, I am putting the accountability on you.
Let’s break it down.
You’re taking a week off of work to spend time with the family. Perfect! How far in advance did you know about this vacation? Even if it was only a week before, if you feel the need to check your emails while on holiday, then your time off was poorly planned.
As leaders, as much as we want to own all the processes, build all the systems, and lead the teams, there comes a point where you have to tell yourself: you’re not a superhuman. You cannot do everything by yourself. You need to solicit help, you need to ensure you have support. That support comes from two directions; 1) your direct line manager (leader); 2) your team. For those who say their boss won’t help them, and their team is swamped, I have feedback for you, keep reading.
Here’s how to properly prepare for your holiday and not have to check your emails daily.
Team development:
Yes, you’ve been appointed as the leader of the team - congratulations. You weren’t appointed to do everything for the team. You were appointed to LEAD the team.
As you lead the team, you should always consider who the next person in line would be to step into your role. This is not a threat, this is called succession planning. Even if your next role isn’t coming for 2-3 years, start working on this now. It gives you time to build your succession plan and build up your team members.
Remember, there will be sick days, there will be urgent days, and you’ll need to take an unexpected day off here and there. If you have children , they will get sick, and you will need to take days off. You will also have vacations . You may need to travel for work and will be out of the office for a few days. You need to have a game plan for those days. The work will sit there, unless you have a game plan for these scenarios.
Start focusing on your high-performing team members. Provide them with the opportunity to take on more. Train them on some of the elements of your role. Developing your team is a perfect opportunity to learn about your role in the organization, but also consider who could step in to manage your role while you’re out.
Below are some additional articles on team development and how to build development plans for your team. Focusing on your high-performers and developing their skills to step in for you on days when you’re out, is a massive benefit for you, the high-performer, the team, and the company.
Relationships:
If you’re going on holiday or will be off sick for a day, you need to consider who this impacts outside of your team. As a leader, you’re not only interacting with your direct reports, you’re interacting with your leader, as well as the team members who report to your leader. How will your vacation or sick day impact them?
Communication is everything. How you communicate will determine whether your relationship will be stronger or weaker. Early engagement around your holiday is key. Perhaps you connect with your most frequent connections and let them know you will be taking time off in the next 1-2 weeks. Make sure they are aware of the time you will be off. It’s also a good idea to inform them of the game plan while you’re away. Who will be stepping in to support? Where do they go for approvals? To what degree can your delegate make decisions or find solutions in the event something comes up?
Make sure to take the time to ask whether they have anything they anticipate coming up during the time you’re away. Is there a large order coming in? A big contract that requires a quick turnaround? Is there a customer meeting they wanted you to be part of? Have the discussion around potential projects, asks, requests that they may be looking for your support with. See what could be done up front to help support the initiatives now.
Your workload:
If you know your holiday is right around the corner, your organization skills need to be sharp. Treat this period before your holiday as if you were leaving an onboarding package for a new hire to walk into.
Start by taking inventory of what you absolutely need to get done before you go away on holiday. Identify the action items that no one else can do but you, and prioritize getting these completed.
Identify opportunities to transition some of the workload to your delegate. Don’t just forward the work you don’t want to complete onward, that’s just dumping and delegating your work. Find out which action items you know (100% for sure) you won’t be able to start and finish from now until you leave on vacation. Make a list, make notes, and prepare to present these action items to your delegate. Not in an email, in a face to face meeting (I would prepare to connect for 60 minutes) where you can walk through the history, provide context and guidance on the task. This allows your team member to start working on the action items and ask questions while you’re still here before you leave on holiday.
Leave smart notes for yourself. If you have projects or longer assignments that will be waiting for you when you get back, take the time to describe (in a smart note to yourself) where you are in the project/process so when you come back, you’re not confused and trying to figure out what frame of mind you were in.
Manage up:
I get it, the leader you report to may not want to cover your work while you’re away on vacation. That’s fine, they don’t have to. What you need from them is the following: your leader needs to have a good understanding of what decisions may need to be made while you’re away. They need to know the risks or potential issues that may arise while you’re away. Provide them with an overview (verbally) and a summary (written) so they have an understanding of what urgencies may come up.
Share your game plan. Make sure they know who is responsible for what while you’re away. You can even go so far as connecting your delegate with your leader via meeting and spend 30 minutes or less walking through the game plan to set expectations during the time you’ll be away.
Wrap-up:
Once you’ve put in the work over the 1-2 week period, plan a 1 day wrap-up up session for yourself in your calendar. What the heck is this? It’s an opportunity to revisit everything we’ve just discussed above.
Team development: Do you have a high-performer on the team who you’ve developed and can step into your role while you’re away? Does that high-performer feel comfortable stepping in while you’re away? Do they have what they need in order to be successful during your time off?
Relationships: Have you connected with all your VIP’s to ensure they know you’re off, what’s expected, who they can reach out to? Have you identified any potential risks or flare-ups that may occur while you’re away?
Your workload: Did you get the important tasks you needed to get done, completed? Is there anything outstanding? Is there anything new that’s come into your inbox in the last 24 hours? If yes, repeat steps 1 and 2, making sure these last minute requests will be handled and you’ve set expectations clearly.
Manage up: Check back in with your leader on the last day before your holidays. Provide him with an update on the progress you originally discussed. Highlight any new developments/last minute requests.
Administratively, don’t forget to turn on that OOO, redirect any approvals in the system, reroute any automated notifications to your delegate, etc.
Once you’ve completed all of these steps, you can go on your vacation with peace of mind. If you’re an anxious person who’s worried about the future, I’ll be honest: if it’s going to break it will break. All you could do is prepare people in advance to know what to do when it breaks. Having a support system ready to go in advance of your holiday is the most critical part of being able to fully disconnect and enjoy your holiday with minimal stress and without having to check your inbox.
If you need help putting this into practice or looking to spend more time on the team development portion, I’d be more than happy to help. Register for my mentorship program below to get started.
