FlexAbility How High Achievers Beat Burnout and Find Freedom in an Overworked World

A comprehensive, coach-yourself guide for busy, burnt-out leaders to take back control of flexible working arrangements and find balance in an overworked world.

Despite the promise of a post-pandemic ‘reset’ that would make flexible work practices mainstream, it seems that overwork is here to stay.

According to leading executive coach and psychologist, Dr Karen Morley, overwork is driven by ambitious, competitive and over-confident bosses who chase continuous growth and are prepared to sacrifice their own health and wellbeing, and that of their workforce, to achieve increasingly unrealistic targets. Remote work or not, this hasn’t changed. High achieving, conscientious and agreeable leaders, the lifeblood of organizational success, get caught in the slipstream. In a world where overwork remains an expectation, flexible work has not been the solution we had all been hoping for. Rather, it has just blurred the boundaries between personal and professional life.

It’s time for leaders to take better control of where and when they work – a concept the author refers to as ‘flexAbility’. Flexibility is how the system operates, flexAbility is how to operate in this demanding system.

Dr Karen Morley’s vision is to help leaders get more impact with less effort. Karen is a highly sought-after executive coach, an authority on leadership coaching, and a thought leader on gender and inclusion. She has held executive roles in government and higher education, and her approach is informed by her experience in these roles. She’s a registered psychologist with a desire to align what leaders do with the evidence for what works. Karen is the author of Lead Like a Coach, Beat Gender Bias and FlexAbility.

Introduction 1
Part I: Know what matters 7
Chapter 1: Start with you 11
Chapter 2: Live your purpose 31
Chapter 3: Be psychologically flexible 48
Part II: Do what matters 61
Chapter 4: Love your work structure 65
Chapter 5: Deepen your focus 85
Chapter 6: Make it stick 99
Part III: Influence what matters 115
Chapter 7: Flex your style 119
Chapter 8: Flex your delegation 135
Chapter 9: Flex your impact 156
Afterword 173
References 177
Index 182
About the author 184