Want To Become A Better Leader? You Need To Sleep On It

This expert opinion by Rebecca Hinds, organizational physician and entrepreneur, was originally published on Inc.com.

Back in the 1980s, the space shuttle Challenger exploded less than two minutes into its flight. All seven members of the crew were killed. Reportedly, some of the victims got just two hours of sleep before going to work that day.

In an official report describing the disaster, the crew’s willingness to work excessive hours was described as “admirable.” That type of description isn’t uncommon. In many work settings–especially high-pressure ones–sleep deprivation is a badge of honor. 

But poor sleep hurts you, your employees, and your bottom line. And it has only become more challenging to get a good night of sleep. The blue lights that power our devices disrupt our circadian rhythms. Meanwhile, hybrid and remote work have thrown many of our sleep schedules even more out of whack.

Many of us don’t discuss sleep at work–it’s borderline taboo. But at a time where efficiency and productivity are in high demand and short supply, sleep needs to hold a more central focus in your workplace.

The first step to prioritizing sleep is to understand the inseparable link between quality sleep and your ability to lead your organization through dynamic and complex times. 

Sleep Impacts How Inspiring You Are As A Leader

The best leaders inspire their teams. But sleep-deprived leaders are less likely to show positive emotion (like joy or excitement). They are also more likely to be seen as lacking charisma. 

If you’re sleep-deprived, a vicious cycle ensues: You become too tired to inspire your teams, and your employees become too tired to be inspired. Ouch.

Sleep Boosts Your Creativity

Especially in complex macro environments, creativity is non-negotiable for effective leaders. Research by IBM found that great leaders embrace creativity, and in doing so, they are able to reject unnecessary tradeoffs and avoid sticking to the status quo. The result? They’re more likely to get a leg up on their competition.  

As a leader, sleep boosts your ability to think creatively and solve problems. Counterintuitively, research has shown that you are more creative when sleeping than when you’re awake!

Sleep Improves How Well You And Your Employees Collaborate

In our latest research at the Work Innovation Lab by Asana, a think tank that helps executives navigate the growing changes of work, we found that sleep impacts the arguably most mission-critical work practice for your organization today: collaboration.  

In a joint study with Chorus Sleep and performance physiologist and scientist Dr. Greg Wells, we found that as participants’ sleep improved, they collaborated an impressive 55 percent more each day. 

How can we explain this? Effective collaboration at work requires high levels of emotional intelligence (EQ), and lack of sleep has been shown to deplete our EQ reserves. With higher levels of EQ, you and your employees are more likely to cooperate, coordinate, communicate, and inspire one another to accomplish shared work. 

Our participants, including leaders, told us that improved sleep changed how they collaborated at work. They told us that, armed with better sleep, they became more intentional about how they collaborated with others, triggering fewer pings and notifications for others and reducing damaging collaboration overload.

Build Sleep Into Your Company’s Programs And Practices

As a leader, you can set yourself and your employees up for success by educating yourself and your employees on why sleep matters and building sleep into your wellness programs. In a world where the lines between our private and professional lives are more blurred than ever, sleep is one of the few aspects that positively impacts both. 

You should also build sleep into your company’s daily work practices. Establishing asynchronous work norms during part of the workweek can help your employees design their work schedules around the sleep schedules that are most effective for them–not the other way around. 

One of the biggest impediments to effective sleep is productivity paranoia–managers’ uncertainty-turned-obsession about whether their workers are actually productive. If your workers feel like their every keystroke is being scrutinized, they’re much more likely to burn the midnight oil. 

As a leader, focus on evaluating outcomes, not outputs. This will give your employees permission to prioritize sleep over keystrokes. 

Sleep Well, Lead Better

Sleep is often thought of as a personal activity. But it impacts how you lead others–through being more inspirational, more creative, and even a better collaborator. Prioritizing sleep doesn’t set you behind, it sets you apart as a strong and effective leader.