Guest Post By: Nate Sleger
In the challenging business world, the best leaders are always looking for the most effective ways to leverage time, improve their own performance, and have a powerfully positive impact on others. This is why consistent exercise is part of the life of the best leaders, and should be part of your regular routine.
Most people view exercise as a way to shed some pounds or stay toned, but there’s a whole lot more exercise can do to shape you as a leader.
Here are three reasons the top leaders exercise regularly… and they have nothing to do with physical health.
1. Improve Personal Performance
Mounting scientific evidence has revealed a strong correlation between fitness and cognitive function. As little as 10 minutes of physical activity has been observed to improve the performance of a leader’s most valuable asset, the brain, by as much as 14%.
What would you do to increase your personal performance by 14%?
With the demands that are placed upon the leaders of today’s workforce, who would want to show up at the office with impaired cognitive function?
Even a brief morning workout can ensure you are showing up for work with your brain fully turned on.
2. Moods Matter
Research shows that the moods of work leaders are highly contagious. The best leaders understand this, and take steps to make sure they show up the way they expect their staff to show up.
Because of the hormones released during and after a workout, exercise is a powerful way to shift into a more positive state. Leaders who start the day with exercise are more likely to bring contagious positivity to work.
Positive leaders become the epicenter for an infectious spread of positive energy, better team performance and customer interactions.
As a leader, you can’t control the fact that your mood will spread to your team. But you can control the kind of mood that you share.
Exercising regularly will help you to create a daily ripple of positive energy throughout your team and beyond.
3. Reap Dividends of More Time
Without question, time is one of a leader’s greatest assets. Improved focus and cognitive performance means getting more done in less time. Better moods at work means less time spent dealing with office drama rooted in bad attitudes.
Because exercise is time spent creating these conditions, it can rightly be viewed as time invested; the ROI is incalculable.
The dividends reaped from time invested in exercise are in the form of more time, which can then be reinvested further into activities that will yield even more time, such as training and coaching employees.
Leaders who invest time in exercising end up having more time than their colleagues and competitors, and their performance reflects it.
The Bottom Line
Do leaders exercise because they lead or do they lead because they exercise? Either way, regular exercise is vital to the best leaders.
If you’re not already in the habit of starting the day at the gym, you can no longer afford not to incorporate exercise into your regular routine.
Aside from the obvious benefits to your health, your personal performance as a leader and the success of your team depend on it.
What are you waiting for?
About Nate Sleger
Nate Sleger is a professional development coach, Personal Trainer, and Director of Training for a multi-location fitness company in Wisconsin. He owns Even Better, a coaching company, and has clients which include personal trainers, business leaders, as well as individuals seeking coaching to pursue personal goals. His book, Exercising Backwards, is available on amazon.com. For info regarding coaching or to host a development workshop, contact Nate at yourevenbetter.com or nathan.sleger@gmail.com.
References:
Cognitive performance from exercise
https://mediarelations.uwo.ca/2017/12/21/short-term-exercise-equals-big-time-brain-boost-western-study/
Employees can catch the mood of the leader
https://www.kornferry.com/institute/better-mood-better-bottom-line
