As a society, we increasingly talk about the importance of striking a work-life balance. Here at Cranfield Executive Development, we devise programmes that enable people to fit career development around their day-to-day work. But what if you want all three – a career, a life outside of work and to develop your professional capabilities? Can you have it all? And, if you can, how do you avoid burnout?

The dynamic of the global business context is often termed volatile, uncertain, complex and ambiguous (VUCA).

This context means that the nature of leadership has changed requiring more adaptive and collaborative practices plus the collective action of multiple stakeholders working across hierarchies, boundaries and borders.

In a recent article in Developing Leaders, my colleagues Susan Vinnicombe, Hilary Harris and I discuss how organisations can successfully become more inclusive when it comes to promoting talented women into senior roles.

A generation ago when successful people reached the top of their business they were eyeing retirement. Golf and spa retreats. Now we’re working longer and reaching senior positions earlier in our lives, that’s not looking very attractive.

Standard leadership development programmes stay above the shoulders, and that’s the problem. They’re often focused primarily on the cognitive and a hard set of frameworks and matrices. People are loaded up with content and sent back into the boardroom, groggy from the weight of it.

There are many practical reasons why we spend our working lives in offices, meeting and conference rooms, but it doesn’t mean it’s doing us any good.

I was chatting to a fellow runner recently, while on our regular 5km route, about my work in helping individuals switch jobs. They expressed the frustration they experience when their organisation changes their role from underneath them. This led me to think about transitions coaching being useful for individuals to navigate organisational change, not just those undertaking key career moves.

As an employee, when you consider undertaking learning and development, you’re most likely to be thinking about how that particular training course or new qualification is going to benefit you, whether that’s in terms of improved skills, enhanced knowledge or potentially a career boost.