PODCAST: Season 7, Episode 39
If you’re constantly telling yourself don’t check, don’t reply, don’t get involved, don’t rescue… I don’t think you necessarily need better boundaries.
You might need better business design.
In this episode of The Rebellious Leader, I’m questioning one of the most overused pieces of advice given to successful women in business: “You need better boundaries.”
Because there’s a massive difference between a personal boundary and a structural boundary.
One requires you to keep resisting the thing.
The other changes the business so you don’t have to.
I share a client example that made me ask, “Why the fuck are your clients in your WhatsApp?”, as well as how I’ve had to rethink my own relationship with Voxer, client access and availability as my business has evolved.
Because being accessible to your clients doesn’t mean being constantly available to them.
And sometimes we’re getting pissed off because people aren’t respecting boundaries we’ve never consistently taught them in the first place.
In this episode, I talk about:
- Personal boundaries vs structural boundaries in business
- Why client communication can quietly destroy your work-life boundaries
- How I’ve changed Voxer access and office hours in my own business
- Why clearer boundaries can actually create more autonomy for your clients and team
- The difference between care and responsibility
- How founder dependency gets accidentally designed into a business
- Why answering quickly, rescuing and being “the one with all the answers” trains people to keep needing you
- Why a genuine strategic problem and your emotional response to it can both need attention
- How to spot where you’re using willpower as infrastructure
And there’s a Rebellious Leader Audit at the end to help you identify where you’re relying on discipline, restraint or sheer bloody willpower to maintain something your business could be designed to hold for you instead.
Because sustainable leadership isn’t about becoming the most disciplined, regulated, perfectly-boundaried CEO in the room.
It’s about building a business that supports the actual human being running it.
Read The Rebellious Leader
If this conversation hit home, you’ll find a lot more of my thinking about founder dependency, sustainable business growth, leadership and building a business that doesn’t require all of you in my book, The Rebellious Leader.
Search The Rebellious Leader by Mills Gray on Amazon to grab your copy or click here
Come and find me on Instagram
I’m @mills_gray on Instagram.
Come and tell me: where are you currently using willpower as infrastructure and what could your business hold for you instead?