From Jim Collins’ Beyond Entrepreneurship: Turning Your Business into an Enduring Great Company:
There’s no getting around the need for hard work. It’s a given. It comes with the territory.
However, there is a big difference between hard work and workaholism. You work hard to get something done. A workaholic, on the other hand, works out of compulsion — fear of some sort. Workaholism is unhealthy and destructive. Hard work is healthy, invigorating, and can be practiced up until the day you die, whereas workaholism leads to burn-out.
We know some effective leaders who work only 40-50 hours per week, but who nonetheless classify as very hard workers — their level of intensity and concentration when at work is incredibly high. Conversely, we know some workaholics who work 90 hours per week and are basically ineffective. More is not necessarily better.