MEDIA COMMENTARY: Want to be a top performer? Work less.

The days of glamourising workaholism are over. Now the experts say the key to winning at work, is winning at home.

Leaders used to glamourise overwork. If you could be wide-eyed in the office at midnight, curl up under your desk for a restless three hours of sleep, and run a top company on the fumes of five cups of coffee, you were embodying the ideal. In the 2020s, standards have changed.

Self-care and sleep hygiene reign supreme, and it’s not woo-woo nonsense.

“People tend to overfocus on one area [of life],” says executive coach Sara Sabin. “Often, in the case of executives, that is career. The thinking is ‘Well, by focusing and putting 98 per cent of my energy into this, it’s going to drive me to the top.’”

But evidence shows the reverse is true.

“People don’t realise that, actually, some of the top-performing people in the world, if you look at what they focus their attention on, it’s multiple areas,” says Sabin. “Having a passion or hobby that inspires you and creates intuitive insights feeds into your career.”

A major study published in the Journal of Organizational Behaviour in May showed life satisfaction had a disproportionately high impact on job satisfaction. And a meta-analysis published in the March issue of the Journal of Information Systems Engineering &

Management found improved job satisfaction correlated with improved work outcomes.

In laymen’s terms, better satisfaction with life outside work equals improved performance at the office.

Many famous top-performers have passionate hobbies – and they’ve fed those passions while driving company value.

The late Steve Jobs’ extracurricular enthusiasm for calligraphy fed into some of Apple’s first fonts.

Mark Zuckerberg’s recent dedication to Brazilian jiu jitsu is credited with his midlife glow-up.

Goldman Sachs chief executive David Solomon famously loves to DJ.

Closer to home, Canva’s Melanie Perkins says she spent the last few years overhauling her self-care regimen.

“Social media is quick to glamourise working all hours and pushing through without taking breaks,” she wrote in a LinkedIn post in January. “I used to work seven days a week, barely pausing to breathe, thinking it was the only way to succeed – but I’ve since realised how unsustainable that was.”

She lists taking “real” breaks, a massive 100km walking goal per month, daily meditation among her new self-care regime.

“Small ‘rituals’ like journaling for five minutes each morning, spending time in nature or keeping a consistent bedtime and wake time (one of my 2025 goals!) can make a huge difference,” she wrote.

That’s a culture that has permeated through the executive team. Canva’s head of people experience Charlotte Anderson says she has learned balance doesn’t always mean “grand gestures”. “It’s often found in the small, intentional moments that help you reset,” she reflects.

“I try and start each morning with a moment in the sun without any distractions.” She spends time ocean swimming and likes to take walks in her lunch hour.

Stefan Vermeulen is the local boss of Nespresso and a former semi-professional basketball player. He says that experience in elite team sport has been formative in the way he thinks about balance and performance.

“I would start with reframing the concept of work-life balance,” he reflects, explaining that the framing “implies a competition between work and life, which I fundamentally disagree with”.

Instead, he likes to think in terms of managing his energy.

“When you invest in the right things it fills your bucket, and you attract energy from that,” he says. “Work benefits from that energy and the other way around.”

A father of two, Vermeulen makes sure he does at least two school runs a week and is an avid weekend sports dad. Four knee surgeries may have ended his days on the basketball court, but he’s a member at a functional movement gym, which he describes as “a great community”. “That comes back to the connection part, which is so important in your private life, but it is also all geared to moving better,” he explains.

And he says it’s “extremely important” to him that the company he works for shares his personal values and purpose. When those things align, it feeds all areas.

The data suggests leaders have lately begun to really internalise this message. Research by payroll tech company Reckon published in October showed Australia’s chief executives and general managers have the second-best work-life balance score of any job in the country (behind tech workers).

And Vermeulen, says he doesn’t feel guilty about having more than one priority. A thriving home life makes him better at work as well – and vice versa.

“Most of the time it does feel like work gives me energy, which sets me up as well to be a better father, to be a better husband, to be a better friend, to be a better person in my community,” Vermeulen says. “Because I’m not coming home completely depleted.”

Former PwC and IBM executive-turned-leadership development coach Megan Dalla-Camina warns while mindsets may have started to change for leaders, a broader cultural shift was lagging. Her research suggests only 8 per cent of women feel they are thriving at present and 42 per cent say they’re only just holding on. A study released by the University of Buffalo School of Management in September showed nearly three quarters of people reported “intrusive thoughts” about work in their leisure time.

“I think the pendulum has swung, but it hasn’t swung for everyone, and it hasn’t swung for organisational culture,” she says. “For so long, success has been about output and overwork and busyness.

“We were taught this myth, certainly I was, that resilience is just how much can you, how much can you withstand? But rest isn’t a reward, it’s a requirement. If you don’t have real recovery, then you can’t be a high performer. ”

This article was originally featured in the Financial Review