Can you take a break?

As this post is published, I’ll be speeding down a snowy slope in the French Alps. Yep, I know it’s a bit of a cliché, but so what… I write software and I snowboard. At least it makes up for all the nerd jokes.

As many managers will know, although taking a holiday is obviously supposed to relax you, the stress of thinking about leaving your team to it for a week or so can leave you a gibbering wreck. In fact, the stress can get so bad that you need the first half of the holiday to recover. Worse still, when you get over that you can spend the last half of the holiday worrying about the state of the team when you get back.

So, here’s the question. How do you feel when you take holiday, and how do you feel on your first day back? If you feel relaxed and confident that your team have everything under control, but know they’ll be glad to see you get back, then I’d say you’ve got your management just about right. Me? I feel pretty relaxed as I write this post, but as for how my team feel, well… you’ll have to ask them :-)

You’ll have to forgive me for the fact that this is a short post – I do have to pack! Any requests for future posts? Fill in a comment below.