We watch a lot of TV in House Lisanti, and it probably won’t surprise you that my favorite shows are about work, with people doing what they love (or what they tolerate), navigating complex office cultures and negotiating the role their work plays in their lives.

I relish the chaos of The Bear and the competence of The Pitt. I cackle at the audacity of Succession, the hilarity of Parks & Rec, and the insanity of Severance, which gives new meaning to work/life balance.

In Severance, seemingly reasonable people opt to surgically split their professional “innie” and personal “outie” selves. Outies never have to work, and innies never leave the office. Sweet deal for the outies, right?

The show's first season satirized the mundane horrors of corporate life, with the innies enduring never-ending, nonsensical work with the occasional weird waffle party. Season 2, which concluded last week, added a twist: The outies are not thriving. They're lonely, listless and rather lost—maybe they always were, and that's why they chose to be severed in the first place? But living without work doesn't appear to be helping anyone.

Meanwhile, even in the oppressive company/cult of Lumon, the innies have found meaning in their connections with one another and their shared “mysterious and important” purpose.

That may not be the lesson the creators want me taking away, but that's what work has always been for me. Not a cult, though some jobs came close. But a source of meaning? Very much so.

Maybe too much so. I remember back in my 20s, after complaining that my (objectively very good) job wasn’t fulfilling, a more experienced colleague kindly said:

“You know, Kristen, many people go to a job during the day, and then go home and find meaning in time with friends, or making art, or fostering animals. Their job is simply a means to that end.”

Reader, my mind was blown. I’d never considered this. And I knew, with utter clarity, that I was not one of those people.

For me, work was (and to some extent, still is tbh) central to my sense of success, of satisfaction, of self. Less like an innie but plenty like the full-time managers who work at Lumon. For Mr. Milchek et al., there is no work/life balance—work is life.

Over time, my tendency to work too many hours, neglect personal relationships, identify too much with a company or role, and conflate professional success with satisfaction proved deficient and destructive. I began to see how I’d been using work to define my worth... and to avoid my inner mess.

I needed to get a true sense of myself, beyond my resume. I needed to get a life.

“Above all else, overwork was a distraction that blotted out the dull, but ambient emotional discomfort that was always there, a feeling of unworthiness that I’ve been running from my entire life.”

—My brilliant friend Jenn Romolini in her memoir, Ambition Monster​

WORK X LIFE

Beyond Balance: Our many roles make us whole

Now I can recognize my old work-is-life strategies as not just personal but cultural, especially here in the U.S., and I see them deployed deftly by many leaders I work with. Our sense of work/life balance has declined slowly over recent decades, and then rapidly in 2020, as at least three shifts happened simultaneously:

1. The deadly Covid-19 pandemic shocked us into remembering there is more to life than work.
2. Boundaries between the two were erased as the white-collar world started working from home.
3. We gained a new sense of autonomy as we discovered new ways of working that work for us.

Our relationship to work fundamentally changed, thought we're seeing the predictable backlash now, as command-and-control executives demand people return to the office and be happy about it. They see this as a simple structural shift (i.e. corporate policy), not a profound paradigm shift. They can correct the former, but they can't reset the latter. I expect their attempts to do so will backfire spectacularly, and maybe they already are.​

Transformational leaders recognize when it's time to adjust to a new paradigm—individually, organizationally and societally. Now is the moment to stop pitting work and life against one another as if they are opposing interests we can only frantically swing between. What would it mean, both for ourselves and to the people we lead, for us to move beyond work/life balance and commit to work/life integration?

This might seem like semantics, so let’s unpack the notion of integration: Every one of the roles we play exists in relationship to all the others—and, contrary to popular belief, those relationships are not competitive. They support and enrich one another.

When I finally went to therapy, it didn’t just open up my personal life, it led directly to a career pivot. Becoming a mom made me a better, more patient manager. And benefit flows the other way too: Today, as my son sees me building Radiant Change in alignment with my core principles, I know I'm shaping his understanding of what leadership looks like and what business can be.

This isn’t just my story, it’s also my wish for you. I hope a rich and rewarding personal life informs and supports your leadership. I hope your work is a source of connection, meaning and growth. I hope you get to be pretty much the same you, everywhere you go. And if you don't, read on…

“Our deepest calling is to grow into our own authentic self-hood, whether or not it conforms to some image of who we ought to be. As we do so, we will not only find the joy that every human being seeks—we will also find our path of authentic service in the world.”

—Parker Palmer

In practice

I want to manage expectations here: Work/Life integration is not a destination but an exploration. Not a perfect state—a practice. You don’t get to integration, you do integration. All the damn time. Some days, it's pure chaos. Other days, it's almost magic. Most days? It's somewhere in-between.

Here are three elements of my work/life integration practice, with a few prompts you can bring to yours this month:

• Presence—Am I fully present wherever I happen to be vs. my mind being somewhere else? Am I able to focus primarily on work while at work, and on family at home? Am I transitioning between roles effectively or trying to play them all, all the time? See also: Inner Leadership​
• Perspective—Which roles am I over-doing at the expense of others? Do I give myself permission to be inconsistent, even messy? To lean hard into some roles sometimes, and step back as needed? Do I respect other people’s many roles, even when inconvenient for me? See also: Executive Coaching​
• Purpose—Am I committed to positive impact as well as personal achievement? Am I clear on what I stand for? Is my worth defined by what I do, or how I do it... or something else? Is my work aligned to my own core principles, even over external results? Am I applying those principles creatively in all areas of my life? See also: Ambition < Intention​

As we learn to honor all our roles, it's wild how naturally they weave together. Passions become projects, friends become colleagues—and vice versa. We find ourselves being imperfectly, courageously, honestly ourselves, wherever we go. And we create brave spaces for others to do the same.

who are you haiku

I am one person
I am so very many
here is who I am

dreamer protector
child sister friend wife parent
coach teacher mentor

none of these are me
I am all of them, and still
worthy without them
​

This month in the RadiantLeader.co membership…

We're diving deep into work/life integration as an exploration—not a destination.

• What are the roles we play in the various dimensions of our lives?
• How do we manage the tensions and transitions between them?
• What becomes possible when we stop trying to compartmentalize ourselves?
• How can our leadership intention apply in all dimensions of our lives?

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​Not a member? Not a problem. You can join us for...

April Mini-Retreat: Beyond Balance

Professional. Friend. Parent. Partner. Leader. Learner. We all play many roles—but how do we play them well?

​April's Mini-Retreat offers a fresh perspective on the eternal challenge of work/life balance. Instead of dividing our lives into neat compartments, we'll explore how to honor and integrate our many roles. From healthy boundaries to energy management to role transitions, let’s design a life that works—not by sacrificing one role for another, but by seeing how every role enriches the whole.

Friday, April 11, 2025 ​
5-6:30 p.m. GMT
12-1:30 p.m. ET
9-10:30 a.m. PT

Zoom link sent upon registration​

Reminder: Mini-Retreats are free for RadiantLeader.co members, who can RSVP here. 💛

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Updates: What I'm working on this month...

💪 Inner Leader Intensive: Registration is open for the Fall cohort of Momentum, my 12-week, evidence-based course that develops your Inner Leader—the centered, present-moment awareness that enables exceptional leadership. Learn to mitigate reactivity in real-time and show up powerfully when the pressure is on.

🏢 Agency Webinar: Rethinking RTO: Friends in the agency world and beyond: The 4As have asked me to host a webinar this month on the very timely topic of RTO, all the ways we're doing it wrong and how to get it right. It's open to all, with registration. Click here to learn more.

🎤 On that happy note, I've been getting to do lots of speaking these days and loving it. Want me to offer a talk or training to your team? Check out my speaking page and drop me a line.

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Onward together.

Kristen Lisanti
​Radiant Change​
​Training Leaders to Transform Cultures