Your Well-being Is a Leadership Skill
The way you lead yourself is the way you lead others.
Leadership in the humanitarian world is often associated with vision, decision-making, and delivery under pressure. But there’s a quieter — and far more powerful — leadership trait that often goes ignored:
Well-being.
Not the performative kind.
Not the tick-boxed wellness program.
But the real, grounded practice of personal alignment, emotional regulation, and internal clarity.
Because here’s the truth:
You cannot lead others well if you treat yourself as expendable.
Leadership that ignores well-being models burnout as a badge.
Whether you realize it or not, your team is watching you:
How you handle pressure
How you recover from setbacks
How (or whether) you set boundaries
How much of yourself you abandon in the name of being "professional"
When leaders don’t model well-being, they silently communicate that care is conditional. That burnout is the norm. That exhaustion is proof of dedication.
This is how entire cultures of over-functioning are born.
The strongest leaders I know practice care — visibly.
They leave on time.
They seek support.
They admit when they’re tired or struggling.
They model what it means to be whole, not just high-performing.
They don’t need to be martyrs to prove their commitment — they lead in a way that protects their people from having to do the same.
That’s not self-indulgence.
That’s strategy.
Staff are more likely to care for themselves when their leaders show them how.
This is especially true in humanitarian work, where team members are constantly absorbing stress, grief, urgency, and loss. A leader’s ability to regulate themselves sets the tone for everyone else.
Well-being is contagious — but so is burnout.
So is emotional disconnection.
So is guilt-driven productivity.
When leaders tend to their own well-being, they expand what’s possible for their teams.
If you're a leader, ask yourself:
Am I showing up in a way I’d want others to imitate?
Do my habits reinforce health or harm?
What permission might I be withholding — from myself or others?
Because people don’t follow what you say.
They follow how you live.
Holding space with care and solidarity — here’s to staying whole, together,
~ Kate
Thanks for reading The Olive Pages: Fieldnotes on care, clarity, and staying whole
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KRC provides coaching, psychosocial support, and organizational consulting to humanitarian professionals and mission-driven organizations worldwide. Based in lived experience and trauma-aware care, our work helps clients navigate burnout, moral injury, organizational change, and career transitions — while staying human in the process.