78. Five Hot Takes That Might Ruffle Some Corporate Feathers

Okay, this one's a little spicy.

In this episode, Sara is dropping some hot takes — the kind that sound controversial until you actually think about them for two seconds. Inbox zero? Myth. Answering emails on vacation? Not the flex you think it is. Being "busy" all the time? Might just mean you're bad at saying no.

Sara gets into why the way we've all been taught to "do" work is kind of broken — and what it actually looks like to build a career that fits into your life instead of swallowing it whole. She also gets into a few truths that might feel a little uncomfortable, like why you don't owe anyone workplace friendship, and why leadership was never actually about the title on your business card.

If you've ever felt like you had to be constantly available, endlessly busy, or fully "on" to be taken seriously at work — this episode is your permission slip to stop.

Tune in, and let us know which hot take you agree with the hardest.

Let’s keep the conversation going—connect with me on Instagram and LinkedIn, subscribe to my weekly newsletter, or reach out at hello@leadintoit.co. 

Excited to be with you!

Transcript

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You're listening to episode 78 of the Lead Into a Podcast. Hello and welcome to another episode of Lead Into It. I'm your host, Sarah Greco, and today we're going to talk about something a little bit different. I decided that I have a few opinions about some things. So today we're going to talk about some of those few opinions because I think that there are some common things that are done pretty regularly or thought to have to be done pretty regularly in a corporate or work environment that probably don't need to be. And I think that these opinions should be challenged because we're coming about a new kind of era when it comes to work. And maybe the way things have been doesn't have to be the way they always are. And so I'm going to talk about those five things. And so number one is inbox zero is a myth. You can leave emails unread. I know this is might be a super hot take for a lot of people because people are very passionate about email in general. I have said on previous podcast episodes, I am really bad at email. It's okay. I've come to accept it. I will answer emails that are of importance, but if you're just sending me an email to send me an email, it might go unread. And that's a lot because I believe that people who start with their day opening their email are working somebody else's to-do list. I heard this in a training a couple of years ago when I worked for an airline. And it was interesting because we were talking about how to organize email, which I think is something that everyone should figure out how to do. What is the best way to organize your email so that it is productive for you? But when you're starting out your day, and the first thing that you do is check your email, you're working somebody else's agenda because everyone is sending you their input or their wants. And when it comes to answering those emails, you're answering their wants and are on their agenda. What's on your to-do list? Are those things actually leading to productivity for a project that you're working on? And that's a question I would ask myself and come to realize maybe it wasn't. And so now I start my day with my own to-do list. I will get to those emails. And probably the best way to go about answering your emails is twice a day, checking your email at 10 or at 2 p.m. And then maybe once before you lock off for the day. Plenty. That should be plenty. If you are striving for inbox zero, you are not actually being productive. You're creating a facade of productivity. And I remember having this boss very early on in my military career that would exit his office. And he was like, I have no emails in my inbox. I was like, okay. Like with all due respect, sir, in my mind, I was saying, and what would you like for that? Because within five minutes, not even, you probably have an email in your inbox. And so that zero that you strive to reach is no longer a thing anymore. So what was the point? The main thing is to have an email organization that makes sense to you and that leads to your productivity. It's not to have an empty inbox. So that's number one. Number two, your whole life does not need to be about your work. Leave the office at a normal hour. Don't check your emails on the weekend. Don't respond to anything. Take your vacation and not check email as well. You can have a life that is outside of work, but you can still be really good at your job. I'm not saying that those have to be the same thing. Like you can be really good at your job and also have a life outside of work that is separate from work and still have normal work hours. That is all possible. You have to figure out where your priorities lie and how much your capacity is and where you can grow from there. What leads to burnout a lot of ways is you're working all day, then you're checking email, and then you're thinking about that thing first thing in the morning when you wake up that you have to take care of. And then you go into work, do work for all those hours, and then you repeat and repeat and repeat and repeat, and you don't give yourself the time that you need to be who you are and what you actually want to be in your life. Your career can be a huge chunk of your life. Yeah. You can be passionate about your job and have hobbies, do something else on the weekend, spend time with friends, spend time with your family. All those things are so important to living a well-balanced life. And if your work is consuming every aspect of your life, that's not actually healthy for you. And so I would ask yourself the question of by me doing this action, whether it's staying late after work, answering an email, doing work on the weekend to catch up for the week ahead, is that creating the life I want to live? Is work becoming my life, or do I feel happy by the balance or the integration? Integration has become a big word recently because since we have smartphones and we have a lot of internet connection at home, a lot of people are integrating life because maybe they're making a doctor's appointment when they're at work. And there's just personal life sometimes happening during work life and vice versa. So now it kind of makes sense. But what I challenge you to ask yourself is does it seem like it's consuming your life or that it's fulfilling your life? And those are very different things. If you feel fulfilled and passionate about the work that you do, that's a good indicator that it's not your entire life. If you feel like you do not want to go out the door to go to your job every single morning for weeks on end, that's a good indication that work is taking over your life. So look at those two things. Number three, take your lunch, take your lunch, take your lunch. Take your lunch, take it, take lunch, take a break. You're allowed to take a break. You are allowed. Your contract probably has it in there somewhere. Take a 30-minute lunch, take an hour lunch, take those times that you need for yourself to do what you need to do. It has been proven that if you take a break, you will get more stuff done later. Take that brain break. It's okay. If you're sitting at your desk every day eating a granola bar, you're not being able to sustain yourself for the rest of the day. So imagine you're running a marathon and you know that you need to fuel your body in order to complete the rest of the race. You have to take those gels, you have to eat a banana, whatever it is. You have to do the same thing for work. You have to sustain and fuel your body in order to complete the race of a workday, the work week, work month, whatever it is. And it can be fuel for your mind and for your body. So if you decide to go outside, sit outside for 30 minutes to eat your sandwich that you brought with you. Those are all great things to do during lunch. 15 minutes can make a huge difference. 30 minutes, even better. The other thing is if you see people who are consistently skipping lunch because they want to appear busy or more productive, that's not an indicator of actual productivity by you skipping lunch. Take your lunch. It's worth a break. Spend time living your life a little bit. Kind of like number two. Work doesn't have to be your whole life. Lunch can be another aspect of your life, whether you're reading a book, doing classwork, taking time for family, if you work from home, all those things are okay. Fuel your mind, fuel your body, take your lunch. Number four, you do not have to be friends with people at work. You don't have to. There's a lot of people who separate their work life and their personal life. And I'm a big proponent that your coworkers do not need to essentially be a second family. I don't really agree with companies that use that. I think that is a different connotation. You can have, like, you can have friends at work for sure. Like if it turns out that you vibe with people and you're like, yeah, these are going to be my friends for forever, great. I've had those. I've also had people where I'm like, I will work with you. But other than that, like, I don't really have a connection with you. And with that, like, cool, we'll work together. Otherwise, cool. Like, I don't need to see you on Friday at happy hour. I have other friends for that. I have other connections. I have family. If it works for you, great. If it doesn't, don't force it. It's not worth it. And if you feel like you're being forced to become friends with the people at work, I would ask if your values align with the organization that you work with's values. If you feel like you're being graded on for the fact that you're not friends with a lot of people at work, then that's a question on do your values align with your organization's values? And I think the main point I want to iterate is you should not have to feel like you are forced to be friends with your coworkers. If it works out, great. If not, you should not feel like you have to. And I think that's important. The last thing, number five, is you can be a leader without an official title. You don't have to have director, vice president, manager after any title in order to be a leader in your organization. And I've become very passionate about this. In fact, I almost think it's more important to lead up versus leading down. Over the course of my career, I'm seeing the importance of leading up more than anything I have seen in my career. Because you will probably have to lead up the entirety of your career. Even CEOs have to report to boards. So if you learn about leadership and how to lead, no matter what title you have, that is going to be a key factor in your success, instead of just sitting back and letting things happen to you. There's a few examples of this, and I'll share a few. But I think the question I want to leave you with is: are there moments in my role where aspects of leadership could really benefit me? And if so, what are those leadership traits and how can I use them? So, for instance, you are an individual contributor on a small team and you see the priorities that the manager has set, but the work that your team is doing doesn't seem to align with those priorities, even though those are the priorities that the manager has given you and the work that the manager has given you. What leadership skills could be used in this moment to help align the tasks that the manager is given with the priorities they set. You're seeing that there's a disconnect, that observation is a huge leadership trait. Then the next leadership trait is to take action in a collaborative manner. These types of conversations are leadership. And taking those and taking action is huge. You don't have to have a director title after your job title in order to take these actions to make things better for everyone, including yourself. Look at these moments and see what could fit in and how you can lead without the title. So it's a short episode, but those are the hot takes that I have. Leave your inbox unread, log off on time, eat your actual lunch, take your lunch, keep work relationships professional if you want to. They don't have to be your family or friends. And remember, you might already be leading whether you have it in your job title or not. Thank you so much for joining me today. I hope you enjoyed today's episode. If you did enjoy today's episode, I would greatly appreciate it if you left your review on Spotify or on Apple Podcasts. That helps me a lot. It also helps others find this podcast. And if you found something useful out of it, they might too. But overall, just thanks for being here. And until next time.