Page 276 - Just Promoted A 12 Month Road Map for Success in Your New Leadership Role

Creating Your New Life Integration 261

2. Major job changes often trigger major life changes. The impacts of
these changes are best addressed through careful individual and family
reflection, communication, and clarification of personal/family priorities
and values.
3. Leaders who are moving up are in a state of personal transition. The
process of personal transition can be understood and effectively man-
aged by individuals and by families.
4. Health and well-being in one’s personal, family, and work life affect and
are affected by stress and distress.
5. Mutual understanding, support, and responsible collaboration within
dual-career families or with partners are essential for leaders on the rise.
6. The goal is to achieve a new life integration.

Principle 1. Personal Wellness, Family Health, and Work
Effectiveness Are Highly Interdependent
Understanding how personal/family and work systems interact will help you
better manage the process of moving up. A system is any complex of elements
in which each element has an affect on the others. Computer systems,
machines, weather systems, rocket systems, body systems, and environmental
systems are each composed of multiple elements, each one affecting the others
within the system. Borrowing this concept, social scientists have, for several
decades, studied the integrated nature and importance of personal, family, and
work organizational systems. Importantly, the actions taken by one person in
a system have the potential to affect others who belong to the system.
Social scientists have found that human systems are similar to technolog-
ical systems, with one critical difference: technological systems can generally
function independently of each other. An information technology system does
not affect a weather system or body system unless they are deliberately or nat-
urally linked (such as a computer system and a machine, a machine and a per-
son, the body systems and the ecosystem). Human systems, on the other hand,
are integrally linked. They are highly interdependent. What happens in one
system of a person’s life has a very high likelihood of affecting the others. What
happens at home affects your work and your well-being; and what happens to
you personally affects your family life and work. Human systems are highly
interdependent, try as we may to keep them separate.
For both Bob and Linda Doyle as well as Doug and Susan Sterling, as one
of the spouses experienced a leadership transition in his or her respective work