Priya, an HR in a start-up tech company called xoxo. She usually starts her days early and ends late. She attends calls from home, relatives and even replies to their messages on weekends, and rarely gives time for herself. Her team appreciate and respects her dedication and takes her as a role model, but Priya notices that she’s drained, irritable, not being productive enough and less creative than before. Last night, while shopping, she realised that she had not stopped thinking about work for more than five minutes in the past 24 hours. She knows that she needs a change not just for the company, but for her own well-being, mental health and longevity as a leader.
Leadership plays a major part in any organisation, and if the individual doesn’t take care of themselves. It can create a downfall in the organisation and the mental health. It is said that if the individual practices proper boundary setting, self-care care and being resilient can help in overcoming mental health issues. (Clark,2020)
Read More: Leadership Style And Its Psychological Impact On Employees’ Well-Being
Boundary-Setting: Protecting Time and Energy
Leaders often feel that they should be in “on” mode, which means being more accessible and accommodating to the team members. But setting clear boundaries plays a crucial role. According to a Yes-well piece, setting defined limits on availability, communication and workload can protect leaders’ mental health and set clear team expectations. (Neale, 2024) Tips for Priya:
- Defined work hours (e.g., no calls/messages after 7 pm)
- Delegate tasks & trust team members
- Should have clearly communicated to her team what she can support and what she needs to recharge on
It shows that leaders who are good at setting clear boundaries are better able to maintain focus, avoid burnout and able to show healthy behaviour for their teams. (Maslach & Leiter, 2016)
Read More: Empower Yourself: The Art of Setting Boundaries in Everyday Life
Self-Care: Taking Care of Ourselves Behind the Role
Leadership is not just about having strategy and performance; it’s also about the person behind the role. Research found that in health-professional schools, a positive correlation between self-care practices (e.g., good sleep habits, mindful acceptance) and resilience. (Brown et al., 2022). For Priya:
- Having a regular downtime (e.g., blocks of “no‐work” time each week)
- Practising mental self-care: reflection, journaling, hobbies
- Use “pause moments” during the day to breathe and reset
When she treats her own well-being as part of her leadership, she maintains clarity and stamina — not just for work but for life. (Neale, 2024).
Building Resilience: Preparing for Leadership’s Ups & Downs
Resilience is the capacity or the ability to bounce back from setbacks, adapt and sustain a role under pressure. A study found that having positive affect, self-efficacy, and self-regulation were significant factors in leader that create resilience and improve their growth in society. (Pillay et al., 2022). For Priya:
- She needs to understand what she is undergoing and consciously what type of coping strategies she can use to handle it (e.g., reframing setbacks as learning)
- Developing self-efficacy: like reminding herself that past successes and capability can lead to change
- Practice self-regulation daily: monitoring emotional responses and acting rather than reacting
When these are nurtured, resilience becomes a leadership asset — not just surviving stress, but leading through it. (Seligman, 1998).
Read More: Self-Regulation Through Reading: Can Books Calm the Anxious Mind?
The Interplay of The Strategies
They are not separate skills; they build and reinforce each other. When Priya sets strong boundaries, she gets free time and energy for her self-care routine. When she engages in self-care, she boosts resilience. She is at her resilience; she can lead authentically and even more sustainably. For example, in a study of “boundary leadership,” experienced leaders noted how their self-care and reflection helped them sustain boundary clarity and resiliency over time. (Rong et al., 2023). So the model is: Set boundaries → nurture yourself by self-care → grow resilience → and lead better.
Read More: Five Pillars of Resilience, According to Psychology
Leading by Example: A Culture Shift
As a leader, Priya’s role as an HR is not only about personal, it’s about cultural. By setting healthy boundaries and having a good self-care routine, she signals to her team that it’s okay to take time, have limits, recharge, and bounce back. This creates a resilient team culture rather than a burnout culture. Research shows that leadership style can affect organisational resilience; either having a transformational or authentic leader can increase capacity for recovery and growth in their teams. (Kapoor, 2021) So Priya’s investment in her own boundary-setting and self-care pays dividends for her team, too.
Conclusion
True leadership is not about constant sacrifice; it’s all about maintaining a balance between work and the role. When leaders start to set perfect boundaries, prioritising self-care over unhealthy ones and develop resilience, it will definitely lead them to success. They do it not just to protect their mental health but also to improve their performance, relationships, and workplace culture. The healthiest leaders, like the owners of Facebook, are not the busiest, but the most balanced ones.
Read More: 5 Game-Changing Mindset Shifts for Success
FAQs
Why do leaders often struggle with maintaining boundaries?
Leadership often comes with the higher expectation of always being available 24×7, indispensable, and sacrificing their personal time to work and eventually it blurs work/life lines and drains energy.
2. Is having self-care a selfish thing for a leader?
Not at all. When leaders start to take care of themselves both mentally and physically, they make better decisions, are more creative, and sustain their teams more effectively.
3. How can I tell if I’m lacking resilience? Anyway to say.
Yes, there may be some ways to find out. You may feel flat after setbacks, take a longer time to bounce back, experience more irritability or fatigue, which are all signs that your resilience buffer is low.
4. What’s one simple boundary that I can set today?
There are numerous, and they differ from person to person. It can be “No work calls after 8 pm” or “Turning off email notifications at lunch for 30 minutes”. Communicate it to your team and stick to it for a week.
5. Do these strategies quickly help me?
They’ll help progressively. You might feel a difference in a few days, like less stress, a clearer mind, but building consistent boundaries, self-care habits, and resilience takes months. The key: consistency over perfection.
References +
Brown, T. A., et al. (2022). Resiliency and self-care behaviours in health professional schools. Journal of Clinical Nursing.
Clark, M. A. (2020). Boundary management in leadership roles: Protecting psychological resources. Journal of Occupational Health Psychology, 25(4), 223–235.
Kapoor, M. (2021). Role of spiritual leadership as a catalyst in building resilient organisations. Journal of Resilient Economies.
Maslach, C., & Leiter, M. P. (2016). Burnout: A multidimensional perspective. Psychology Press.
Neale, P. R. (2024). 3 Steps for mastering boundaries at work. Psychology Today.
Pillay, D., Nel, P., & Van Zyl, E. (2022). Positive affect and resilience: Exploring the role of self-efficacy and self-regulation. SA Journal of Industrial Psychology, 48, a1913.
Rong, T., Zhao, B., & Soguilon, D. (2023). Developing resilient education leaders: Effects of leadership coaching on leader resilience and self-efficacy. Clausius Press.
Seligman, M. E. P. (1998). Learned optimism. Vintage Books.
