FROM THE SEPTEMBER–OCTOBER 2018 ISSUE
How
much sleep do you get each night? Most of us know that eight hours is the
recommended amount, but with work, family, and social commitments often
consuming more than 16 hours of the day, it can seem impossible to make the
math work. Perhaps you feel that you operate just fine on four or five hours a
night. Maybe you’ve grown accustomed to red-eye flights, time zone changes, and
the occasional all-nighter. You might even wear your sleep deprivation like a
badge of honor.
If this
sounds familiar, you’re not alone. Although the ranks of sleep advocates are no
doubt growing—led by the likes of Arianna Huffington and Jeff Bezos—a
significant percentage of people, and U.S. executives in particular, don’t seem
to be getting the sleep they need. According to the most recent data from the National Health Interview
Survey, the proportion of Americans getting no more than six hours a night (the
minimum for a good night’s rest for most people) rose from 22% in 1985 to 29%
in 2012. An international study conducted
in 2017 by the Center for Creative Leadership found that among leaders, the
problem is even worse: 42% get six or fewer hours of shut-eye a night.
You
probably already have some understanding of the benefits of rest—and the costs
of not getting it. Sleep allows us to consolidate and store memories, process
emotional experiences, replenish glucose (the molecule that fuels the brain),
and clear out beta-amyloid (the waste product that builds up in Alzheimer’s
patients and disrupts cognitive activity). By contrast, insufficient sleep and
fatigue lead to poor judgment, lack of self-control, and impaired creativity.
Moreover, there are lesser-known secondary effects in organizations. My
research shows that sleep deprivation doesn’t just hurt individual performance:
When managers lose sleep, their employees’ experiences and output are
diminished too.
So how
can we turn this knowledge into sustained behavior change? A first step for
sleep-deprived leaders is to come to terms with just how damaging your fatigue
can be—not only to you but also to those who work for you. Next, follow some
simple, practical, research-backed advice to ensure that you get better rest,
perform to your potential, and bring out the best in the people around you.
Spreading Damage
Historically,
scholars have depicted supervision as stable over time—some bosses are just
bad, and others aren’t. But recent research indicates that individual behavior
can vary dramatically from day to day and week to week—and much of this
variance can be explained by the quality of a manager’s sleep. Indeed, studies
have found that when leaders show up for work unrested, they are more likely to
lose patience with employees, act in abusive ways, and be seen as less
charismatic. There is also a greater likelihood that their subordinates will
themselves suffer from sleep deprivation—and even behave unethically.
In
a recent study Cristiano
Guarana and I measured the sleep of 40 managers and their 120 direct reports
during the first three months of their assigned time working together, along
with the quality of these boss-employee relationships. We found that
sleep-deprived leaders were more impatient, irritable, and antagonistic, which
resulted in worse relationships. We expected that this effect would diminish
over time as people got to know each other, but it did not. Sleep deprivation
was just as damaging at the end of the three months as it was at the beginning.
However, the leaders were completely unaware of the negative dynamic.
Lorenzo
Lucianetti, Devasheesh Bhave, Michael Christian, and I found similar results when we asked 88 leaders
and their subordinates to complete daily surveys for two weeks: When bosses
slept poorly, they were more likely to exhibit abusive behavior the next day,
which resulted in lower levels of engagement among subordinates. When the boss
doesn’t feel rested, the whole unit pays a price.
Sleep
also affects managers’ ability to inspire and motivate those around them. In a
2016 experiment, Cristiano
Guarana, Shazia Nauman, Dejun Tony Kong, and I manipulated the sleep of a
sample of students: Some were allowed to get a normal night’s worth, while
others were randomly assigned to a sleep-deprived condition in which they were
awake about two hours longer. We then asked each participant to give a speech
on the role of a leader, recorded those talks, and had third parties evaluate
the speakers for charisma. Those who were sleep-deprived received scores 13%
lower than those in the control group. Why? Previous research has shown that
when leaders evince positive emotion, subordinates feel good and therefore
perceive the bosses as charismatic. If we don’t get enough sleep, we’re less
likely to feel positive and less able to manage or fake our moods; it’s very
difficult to pull ourselves out of an insomnia-induced funk.
When
the boss doesn’t feel rested, the whole unit pays a price.
Furthermore,
leaders who discount the value of sleep can negatively impact not just emotions
but also behaviors on their teams. Lorenzo Lucianetti, Eli Awtrey, Gretchen
Spreitzer, and I conducted a series of studies of what we termed “sleep
devaluation”—scenarios in which leaders communicate to subordinates that sleep is
unimportant. They may do so by setting an example (for instance, boasting about
sleeping only four hours or sending work e-mails at 3 am), or they may directly shape
employees’ habits by encouraging people to work during typical sleep hours
(perhaps criticizing subordinates for not responding to those 3 am e-mails, or praising individuals
who regularly work late into the night). In our studies, we found that
employees pay close attention to such cues and adjust their own behavior
accordingly. Specifically, subordinates of leaders who model and encourage poor
sleep habits get about 25 fewer minutes of nightly rest than people whose
bosses value sleep, and they report that their slumber is lower in quality.
One
additional—perhaps more powerful—finding from this research was that leaders’
devaluation of sleep may also cause followers to behave less ethically. Bosses
who systematically eschewed rest—in comparison to other managers—rated their
subordinates as less likely to do the right thing. We suspect this wasn’t just
a matter of the sleep-deprived leaders’ giving tougher ratings; it’s likely
that employees were actually behaving in less moral ways as a result of the
workplace environment or their own sleep deprivation. Indeed, in previous studies we’ve shown that lack of
sleep is directly linked to lapses in ethics.
Overlooked Solutions
Fortunately,
there are solutions to help leaders improve the quality and quantity of their
sleep. Many of these are well-known but underutilized. They include sticking to
a consistent bedtime and wake-up schedule, avoiding certain substances too
close to bedtime (caffeine within seven hours, alcohol within three hours, and
nicotine within three or four hours), and exercising (but not right before
bed). Additionally, relaxation and mindfulness meditation exercises help lower
anxiety, making it easier to drift off to sleep.
A new
branch of research is beginning to show how important it is to alter smartphone
behavior too. Melatonin is a crucial biochemical involved in the process of
falling asleep, and light (especially blue light from screens) suppresses its
natural production. In research focused on
middle managers, Klodiana Lanaj, Russell Johnson, and I found that time spent
using smartphones after 9 pm came
at the expense of sleep, which undermined work engagement the next day. The
simple advice is to stop looking at your devices at night. If that’s not
practical, you might try glasses that filter out blue light. Some researchers
have found that these can mitigate the effect on melatonin production, thus
helping people fall asleep more easily; I’m now in the very early stages of a
study examining how this may improve work outcomes as well.
Savvy
leaders are also starting to track their sleep, through either diaries or
electronic trackers. But beware: Most sleep trackers have not gone through
rigorous validation for accuracy. (Your Fitbit can do many things, but it is
not especially good at measuring sleep.) Many phone apps in particular make
unsupported claims—for example, that they can track which stage of sleep you’re
in. However, some devices, such as ActiGraph monitors, are very accurate and
can help you determine whether you’re overestimating your sleep (we often
forget about periods of wakefulness in the night) and whether there are
patterns you can change. For example, you might find that although you’re in
bed for seven hours a night, you’re getting only five hours of sleep,
fragmented into small segments. Or perhaps you notice that your bedtime drifts
later on the weekend, leading to “social jet lag” on Monday, when you have to
return to your earlier waking time. With this information, you can make
adjustments, such as taking a relaxing bath before bed in hopes of getting more
sustained rest, or hitting the sack earlier on Saturday and Sunday nights.
A nap
can speed up cognitive processing, decrease errors, and increase stamina.
Leaders
often overlook two other tools. The first is treatment for sleep disorders. By
some estimates, up to 30% of Americans experience insomnia, and more than 5%
suffer from sleep apnea. A large majority of people with these issues are never
diagnosed or treated. If you are overweight, have a thick neck, snore, and
spend adequate time in bed at night but still feel tired, you may have sleep
apnea. Partners or spouses are often the first to notice the symptoms, but
official diagnoses are typically made after a sleep study that measures oxygen
levels and brain waves. You might then be prescribed a continuous positive
airway pressure (CPAP) mask to wear at night; by keeping nasal and throat
airways open, these devices greatly help sleep apnea patients.
As for
insomnia sufferers, they’re typically aware of the problem but may not know how
to fix it. Jared Miller, Sophie Bostock, and I examined an online program that
uses cognitive behavioral therapy to combat this disorder. We found that
participants who were randomly assigned to the program experienced improved
sleep, more self-control, better moods, and higher job satisfaction, and they
became more helpful toward colleagues. The treatment cost only a few hundred
dollars per participant, indicating a substantial return on investment. I’m
currently in the early stages of another study that will measure the effects of
this treatment on leader behaviors and follower outcomes, and I expect
similarly beneficial effects.
The
other overlooked tool for getting more rest is napping. Too often, leaders view
nap breaks as time spent loafing instead of working. However, research clearly
indicates that dozing for even 20 minutes can lead to meaningful restoration
that improves the quality of work. A brief nap can speed up cognitive
processing, decrease errors, and increase stamina for sustained attention to
difficult tasks later in the day. One study found that as little as eight
minutes of sleep during the day was enough to significantly improve memory.
Many
cultures outside the United States have embraced naps as a normal and desirable
activity. In Japan, inemuri, or napping at work, is typically
viewed positively. Midday siestas have long been part of work life in Spain.
Now some American leaders are beginning to embrace this form of rest. Tony
Hsieh, the CEO of Zappos, is a nap proponent, and organizations such as Google
and PriceWaterhouseCoopers have nap pods for employees, understanding that 20
minutes of downtime can make people more effective and productive for many more
hours that day.
As a
leader, even if you fail to get enough sleep yourself, you should be careful to
promote good sleeping behavior. Your employees are watching you for cues about
what is important. Avoid bragging about your own lack of sleep, lest you signal
to your subordinates that they, too, should deprioritize sleep. If you
absolutely must compose an e-mail at 3 am,
use a delayed-delivery option so that the message isn’t sent until 8 am. If you must pull an all-nighter on a
project, don’t hold that up as exemplary behavior.
For
pro-sleep role models, look to CEOs such as Ryan Holmes of Hootsuite (“It’s not
worth depriving yourself of sleep for an extended period of time, no matter how
pressing things may seem”); Amazon’s Bezos (“Eight hours of sleep makes a big
difference for me, and I try hard to make that a priority”); and Huffington,
the CEO of Thrive Global, who wrote a whole book on the subject.
It is
clear that you can squeeze in more work hours if you sleep less. But remember
that the quality of your work—and your leadership—inevitably declines as you do
so, often in ways that are invisible to you. As Bezos says, “Making a small
number of key decisions well is more important than making a large number of
decisions. If you shortchange your sleep, you might get a couple of extra
‘productive’ hours, but that productivity might be an illusion.” Even worse, as
my research highlights, you’ll negatively affect your subordinates.
If
instead you make sleep a priority, you will be a more successful leader who
inspires better work in your employees. Don’t handicap yourself or your team by
failing to get enough rest.
A version of this article
appeared in the September–October 2018 issue (pp.140–143)
of Harvard Business Review.
Christopher M. Barnes is an associate
professor of management at the University of Washington’s Foster School of
Business. He worked in the Fatigue Countermeasures branch of the Air Force
Research Laboratory before pursuing his PhD in Organizational Behavior at
Michigan State University.
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