The Leader Within the Leader: Why Self-Care Is Not a Luxury; it is a Leadership Discipline
In April of 2025, Potentials began a series of twelve articles exploring the leadership qualities identified by Bhavna Dalal, MCC. These qualities invite leaders not simply to perform leadership. By living into these, you can inhabit it fully. They are:
- They have a strong belief in themselves
- They have a strong sense of purpose
- They are present
- They have strong expertise in their domain
- They are constant strategic learners
- They network without an agenda
- They forgive and let go
- They believe they deserve it
- They know they cannot do it alone
- They take care of themselves
- They have an appetite for risk
- They are self-aware
With each article, we aim to expand the conversation—offering resources, alternative perspectives, and an ever-broadening vision of what leadership can be. As always, we welcome your reflections, questions, and insights.
This month, we turn to Dalal’s tenth assertion:
They take care of themselves.
Dalal writes, “Leaders know they need to be in top form to play the game well and inspire their team members to show up at the top of their game, too.”
Counselor Lianne Avila reinforces this truth:
“Setting aside time just for you is one of the best things you can do for yourself, even if it’s only 10 minutes. You’re allowing yourself to have a nurturing experience. This doesn’t mean you aren’t being productive or that you’re being selfish. Unfortunately, society has taught you that.”
Absolutely. And—there is more here than meets the eye.
Self-care, for leaders, is not merely about relief. It is about readiness.
It begins with intentionality.
Intentionality requires something both simple and demanding: that you pause long enough to see yourself clearly. Not the role you play. Not the expectations others place upon you. As yourself—as you actually are.
This requires what Ronald Heifetz calls taking the “balcony view.” Step out of the dance and observe the dance floor—including your own movements upon it.
Ask yourself, with honesty and without judgment:
- How do I move through the world?
- What habits shape my days—for better or worse?
- Where am I proactive (literally living from a space of grounded proactivity), and where am I reacting to everything all at once – everything happening around me?
- What gives me energy? What quietly (or not so quietly) drains it?
- What boundaries have I established—or failed to establish?
- How do I respond when things go wrong? When they go right?
- How do I prepare for the work that matters most?
- How do I care for my physical strength, my mental clarity, my emotional resilience?
- When was the last time I did something that nourished me, without needing it to serve an external outcome?
These are not indulgent questions. They are leadership questions.
Because leadership flows through a human nervous system. Through a human body. Through a human mind and heart. The condition of those systems shapes everything.
In Vermont, where many homes are heated with wood, people sometimes speak of being “warmed” by wood multiple times: harvesting it in the woodlot, loading it, stacking it, carrying it into the house, burning it, and tending the fire. The warmth is not confined to the moment of combustion. It is experienced again and again.
Self-care works much the same way.
When you set aside time to reflect, you are warmed by the act of claiming that time. When you gain insight, you are warmed again. When you make a change, you are warmed again. When that change allows you to lead with greater clarity, steadiness, and generosity, others are warmed too.
Intentional self-care multiplies its returns.
Once you have taken an honest inventory, self-care becomes less abstract and more practical. It shows up in concrete decisions and disciplines:
- You may engage a professional coach—someone trained to help you see what you cannot see alone, and to support your growth with structure and accountability.
- You may manage your calendar not simply to accommodate demands. Instead, rearranging it to reflect your priorities—creating space for strategic thinking, preparation, recovery, and creativity.
- You may learn to pause when plans unravel, observing your internal response before acting outwardly.
- You may establish boundaries that protect both your effectiveness and your humanity.
- You may develop the discipline of completing small tasks—such as responding to an email when you first read it—so that your mental energy remains available for larger work.
- You may cultivate strength—physical, mental, and emotional—recognizing that resilience is built, not wished into existence.
- You may intentionally create environments—physical and relational—that energize rather than deplete you.
- You may give yourself permission to rest. To step away. To say no.
- You may choose joy, not as an afterthought, choosing joy as fuel.
None of these actions are selfish. Each is an investment in your capacity to serve.
Because whether we acknowledge it or not, people experience the condition of their leaders. They experience your clarity or your confusion.
Your groundedness or your anxiety. Your presence or your absence. Your intentionality or your drift.
Self-care, then, is not separate from leadership. It is foundational to it. People experience the condition of their leaders – often viscerally.
Yes—sometimes self-care begins with ten minutes.
Over time, it becomes something far greater: a way of inhabiting your life and leadership with awareness, discipline, and care.
And from that place, you do not merely lead better.
You lead from wholeness.
