Wait, what? Doesn’t everyone want employees who will go “above and beyond”?
I don’t. Every once in a while, sure. But a lack of boundaries at work is a fast track to burnout. Without clear boundaries, your mental and physical health suffers, and your risk of being taken advantage of increases tremendously.
What does it look like when you don’t have boundaries?
- No discernible “workday” (for WFH folks) or putting in regular hours in the evening and on weekends
- Responding promptly to emails, texts, and calls from your manager or colleagues outside of work hours
- Working during your PTO – vacation, sick days, or personal days
- Repeatedly agreeing to do speaking engagements and other work without compensation
- Regularly taking on responsibilities outside of your job expectations
What is the risk?
You might read this list and think, yeah, that sounds like just being a nice person, a committed employee, the person who you want to have on your team. The “above and beyond” employee.
And yes, in small doses some of these things are admirable traits. But what happens when you engage in these behaviors repeatedly? Burnout. Illness. Anxiety. Exhaustion. Resentfulness.
And who benefits from these behaviors? Not you! All of these behaviors are for the benefit of someone else. And the more you engage in them, the more you are expected to!
What is needed for your boundaries to hold?
I have had MANY moments where I need to check my boundaries and do a reset. People pleasers tend to fall into this trap often. But beyond having the self-awareness to recognize that you need to set some boundaries, there are some external factors that are required. You won’t be completely successful setting boundaries unless you have:
Systemic support from your organization
- If your company is chronically understaffed, has a high turnover rate, and doesn’t invest in the development of its people, you might have trouble setting and sticking to your boundaries. You end up backed into a corner: If you don’t do this, who will?
Management support from your boss
- You can set the boundaries and hold to them, but it’s going to be difficult and you are going to have to be very strong if your manager doesn’t respect them. It is easier if your manager agrees that boundaries are critical.
Let me share an example from my own life. There were two separate instances in the past 10 years during which I needed to take an extended medical leave. During one, my manager (and my colleagues) didn’t allow me to work at all. For the first week or so of my issues I kept trying to check in, join calls, etc. I was repeatedly encouraged to disengage and told that of course I would be missed, but everything would be covered while I was out. In this case, I had the support I needed to set and hold the appropriate boundaries.
In the second instance, my manager reached out to me periodically over text to get updates while simultaneously (I later learned) making offhanded comments to my colleagues expressing her dismay that I hadn’t checked in to see if I could help at all while I was out. When I returned I was met with this greeting: “Well, I don’t even know where to start. We’ve been holding a lot for you while you’ve been out.”
The outcome here is that I WAS able to hold my boundaries, but it took a lot of effort and self-awareness to do so. I knew that I was taking this medical leave out of necessity and to heal, and I knew that I should not be working. Had I engaged with the periodic “update” inquiries, which as I suspected were as much bait as they were concern for my health, my boundaries would have dissolved like a line in the sand as the tide comes in.
Boundaries are hard if you don’t have the organizational and managerial support to respect them. But if we as managers recognize the need and support our employees to have their own, and demand that our organizations see the critical importance of employee health and wellbeing, then maybe, just maybe, we can start to make boundaries easier for everyone.
What do you think — What else is required structurally for boundaries to hold?
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