This JPMorgan boss says it’s irresponsible for bosses to appear tired

• JPMorgan’s Kristin Lemkau leads the bank’s US wealth business with nearly 10,000 employees.
• Getting the job done means sleeping more, not less, according to the CEO.
• Lemkau told BI why you shouldn’t skimp on sleep or obsess over your job.

Kristin Lemkau spent nearly 26 years at JPMorgan. She can trace almost every bad decision she’s made to exhaustion. In a tired state, she rushed to make a hiring choice and ended up making the wrong call or showing up to meetings distracted and angry.

That CEO of JPMorgan Wealth ManagementLemkau leads a unit with $1 trillion in client assets and nearly 10,000 employees. She disagrees with Wall Street’s work-until-you-drop culture, which encourages skimping on sleep to get the job done.

“I don’t think it’s a responsible thing to do as a leader to come to work tired, jet-lagged, in a bad mood,” she told Business Insider in an interview at the bank’s Manhattan headquarters. “Most of the meetings I go to are for me, so if I’m off balance, I throw the whole group. As a leader, it is your responsibility to make good use of everyone’s time.”

Lemkau has gotten used to sleeping less to balance her career at JPMorgan and raising two children. She decided to change her habits after her friend and the founder of the Huffington Post Arianna Huffington told him she was pretending. In 2017, JPMorgan employees were encouraged to change a habit for 28 days as part of a bank partnership with Huffington’s wellness startup Thrive Global. Lemkau chose sleep and disconnection from technology, aiming for eight hours of sleep a night and not using her phone before bed.

Years later, Lemkau still sleeps seven to eight hours a night, usually getting to bed at 9:30 p.m. and waking up by 5:30 a.m. She broke her phone-free pledge before bed and plays word games to relax. night. However, she has picked up some healthier habits such as avoiding caffeine after lunch and giving up alcohol.

The sacrifice of sleep and grueling work hours have been glorified by some CEOs and executives. American Express CEO Stephen Squeri, for example, it works 17 hours a day and sleeps about 6 hours. Lemkau is part of a growing contingent on Wall Street asking colleagues to get more sleep. Goldman Sachs partner Brian Robinson prioritizes “investing in well-being” and puts his phone in the kitchen at night to get more rest.

“Early in my career, I would survive on five to six hours a night,” said the senior leader of the brokerage said Business Insider in April. “But now I can manage and have strong, sustained energy because I get over seven hours a night during the work week and over eight hours at the weekend.”

Lemkau tries to lead by example, talking to employees about self-care and sleep. She goes to all her kids’ sports games and big events, she said. While she checks her e-mail in the evening, she makes time for family dinner every evening after leaving the office around six o’clock. After dinner, she works out, usually jogging with her dog.

“I don’t think you’re going to be terribly good at your job if you’re really just really obsessed with your job,” she said. “I’m a big believer that you have to be a rich, complete human being with a rich, complete life to be good at your job.