Silencing your notifications and ignoring your email at the end of the workday could make you a better leader at your job, according to new research.
Managers who disconnected from their jobs at home felt more refreshed the next day, identified as effective leaders, and helped their employees stay on target better than bosses who spent their off hours worrying about work.
Less-experienced leaders were especially prone to becoming ineffective if they spent their time focusing on their jobs at home.
The upshot is that the key to effective leadership in the office might be a better work-life balance. Led by scientists from the University of Florida, the University of Arizona and Florida State University, the study was published in the Journal of Applied Psychology.
“The simple message of this study is that if you want to be an effective leader at work, leave work at work,” said Klodiana Lanaj, a professor in UF’s Warrington College of Business who led the research. “This is particularly important for inexperienced leaders, as they seem to benefit the most from recovery experiences when at home. Leaders have challenging jobs as they juggle their own role responsibilities with the needs of their followers, and they need to recover from the demands of the leadership role.”