As part of Women Leading Travel & Hospitality’s 2024 Top Women in Travel & Hospitality report, which features in-depth interviews with leading female executives from across the industry, we asked honorees several questions, including “How do you maintain a healthy work-life harmony, and what strategies do you employ to prioritize your well-being amidst high-level responsibilities? How do you ensure your team does the same?” Here are a few of their responses:

“Boundaries are very important in terms of creating downtime for yourself. Be present when with your family, learn to say no and delegate when possible. I’m also aware that this is a constant balancing act. The perfect balance is hard, if not impossible to obtain. You just have to be accepting of yourself as much as possible. I try to be a role model to my team in terms of work-life balance. I also tell them it’s OK to be off-balance at times, and when they are to be accepting of the same. In addition, I plan activities with our team, such as hiking, and I enjoy volunteer work. This allows time away from work, positively impacts our communities, and further emphasizes work-life balance.” —Jyoti Sarolia, President and CEO, Ellis Hospitality Group

“For me, this is a work in progress. Just like in the travel business, there are seasons in life and in work. I strive to be intentional in my investments in all areas of my life and acknowledge that sometimes I don’t always get the balance right. Many years ago, there was an article on this topic that stuck with me, the concept was: work, sleep, family, fitness, or friends — pick 3. I still lean into this during particularly demanding times and acknowledge that the current season won’t last forever. It helps me make conscious adjustments to balance my priorities, while being intentional about where to divest without (as much) guilt. My most important strategy though is to give myself grace. As a working parent, setting and establishing boundaries that align with my priorities and values is always challenging — but as a leader there are others in the organization that observe how I do this. When I started my career, there weren’t many leaders who made being a female executive with a family look achievable. Now, the number of times individuals have shared with me that I’ve inspired them in this area is one of my proudest accomplishments as a leader. You can’t motivate your own team to find balance if you yourself don’t lead by example.” –Kama Winters, President, Delta Vacations

“Honestly, it’s hard to maintain work-life harmony. My husband and I both work and we have four children and a goldendoodle. Life is crazy, fun, amazing, rewarding and challenging all at the same time. I think it’s important to ringfence the things that are important to you. For me, for example, it’s Woerner family dinners. We’ve made it a point to all sit down together for dinners at least five days a week. Work travel and other events get in the way, but we try to preserve that as much as possible. The other example is exercise. That’s my personal outlet and I need to do some type of a workout about five days a week. For my team, I try to notice if someone is working too many hours, and we discuss how to prioritize or how I can step in and help. Also, it’s so important for folks to manage their own work schedule and make sure it fits with their personal life.
Flexibility is critical to have work-life harmony.” –Sangita Woerner, Senior Vice President, Marketing and Guest Experiences, Alaska Airlines

“Working from home presents both challenges and benefits to maintaining a healthy work-life balance. For me, having a schedule and sticking to it is imperative. I have clear boundaries between my work and my personal time. I wake up early and spend the first two-and-a- half hours doing things I love to do. I meditate, play with my dog, exercise, get outside — usually walking the dog — and then make myself a great breakfast. I guess you can call that self-care. So I go into work already feeling like I’ve taken care of my mental and emotional well-being. And I try to end my workday with similar activities, again meditating, going outside, and cooking a great dinner so I can fully disengage. Taking time off and fully disengaging from work is something I urge all our team members to do. I remind them on a regular basis to ensure no time off is left unused and to take time throughout the year to reset and get re-energized. Disengaging from work means not attending to any work calls, not answering emails, and not taking your laptop on your vacation or days off. I practice this myself, so everyone knows I’m serious about it.” –Monica Xuereb, Chief Commercial Officer, Lowes Hotels & Co.

To hear more from these women leaders (as well as other honorees) on additional important topics related to both leadership and the travel and hospitality industry, download the full report, 2024 Top Women in Travel and Hospitality.