I am out of the office right now. [Note: this post was intentionally written before I left so I would not eat into my actual time away!] This is weird for me to say since I have been a full-time work-from-home person for over a decade now. Being out of the office is my default position. Going on vacation is often simply a different place away from the office. My work habits allow me to be effective regardless of my physical location or access to my at-home setup. Emails come in and I can easily reply from my phone while sitting on the beach. Someone has a quick question and I can help redirect them without ever feeling inconvenienced while sitting on a porch.
Most years, I never turn on my out-of-office notification when I go on vacation. In an hour of work triage in the morning or afternoon, I can quickly make sure anything urgent that has come through is still taken care of removing the inconvenience of someone needing to navigate who to reach out to in my absence. I have not once seen this as a burden, difficulty, or impact on my time away. I always thought of it as peace of mind for all involved. Similarly, I never expect anyone to have the same approach that I have because all of us need different things to feel at peace with how things are going. Never once have I questioned someone else having an out-of-office on while they were on vacation as a way of ensuring they could fully disconnect.
More recently, I have learned that my approach is more problematic than I ever thought. How I do vacation and time away is something that others have noticed and asked me about. I have always shared with them what I wrote above; it is my way of being most relaxed and at rest while not expecting anyone else to follow my approach. However, I am learning that leadership means demonstrating how others should do things. Where the culture is one of disconnection and time away, leaders should also disconnect and take their time away. If the adage is that actions speak louder than words, your actions should reflect your words.
Recently, I posted about mentors that did not know they were mentors. While writing that, I had not stopped to consider that I would be one of those people others were observing. (On a side note, this is a great demonstration of how easy it is to think of ourselves as exceptions to our other general observations.) Taking this together with questions about my approach to vacation has me really questioning how I should be handling my time away. If I really want people to believe they can disconnect, then I should be demonstrating that disconnection process. If I continue how I always have, I should expect some set of people to unintentionally be influenced to follow my approach even if it is not their preference.
Luckily, this particular vacation is a big one so the out-of-office note is on and I will be actively trying to avoid the laptop. If I am really good, I will read the email as it comes in but then pretend I did not. The bigger question is how to handle this going forward. How should I balance my own preferences for time away versus representing how others should disconnect and be away? It is not an easy question for me.
Maybe I will need another vacation so I can find the time to contemplate my approach…