Leadership, professional success & self-worth

Greetings to my amazing network and friends!

So, what’s the connection between leadership and self-worth? This is a conversation worth having at your workplace to support leadership and mental health of your people.

I coach leaders and executives and as part of coaching leaders who are also my thought partners, we co-create an outcome around self-worth as part of their development plan, depending on the issue or challenge that they bring.

Behaviours such as micro-managing, exercising power through assertion of ego and ranks, actions that fall under the realm of “My way or the Highway”, could be driven by a lack of self-worth. Few leaders are acutely aware of this behaviour while others are impacted by self-beliefs that run the show unselfconsciously. Stepping back from these situations and exploring other constructive ways takes time and busy leaders are dealing with complexity of this era. ?

What has self-worth got to do with your career success? In words of a senior executive and a mother in a coaching conversation “Having children has cured me of that, they put things in perspective.” :)

Is it not a privilege to be able to lead people, make policies, hire, and fire people, set direction and vision for an organization? Yet leaders often find themselves in situations in which they doubt their value. Though this predicament is unavoidable, self-worth can be reclaimed.?

Self-worth often gets intertwined with our identity as a human being. Like life, career has its ups and downs, and it might be a problem when these ups and downs are always linked to one’s self worth. Self-worth helps you to trust your judgement and make better decisions and the good news is that it’s cultivated from within. It is the value you give to your life and achievements. Self-worth can be cultivated.

How so? First let’s consider these eight questions: ?

o?? Is your Self-worth based on your ability to earn it?

o?? How does the culture for e.g., family, community, or country you are born in, evaluate success or self-worth?

o?? Have you moved from the country of your birth to another culture? Are you still adapting, being a minority in a dominant culture?

o?? Is Self-worth a result of promotions, praise, recognition, awards, and lofty job titles?

o?? Is Self-worth being better than everyone else? ?

o?? Does feeling good about yourself requires ongoing proof??If so, then we are hamsters on the wheel.

o?? Do you want success because you are afraid of disappearing into a chasm of emptiness? Do you continuously want to be seen?

o?? Does your self-worth often indicates/express, “My way or the High-Way”?

“Awareness is Curative” Surya Das

Five Essential Reminders to Reflect upon:

o?? You have unlimited potential. You adapt to becoming a person who creates value. Leaders are attuned to what their team values and how will the community/world around benefit from their decisions.

o?? Your value is intrinsic meaning it is free of positive or negative regard of others thus it frees you to find your heart’s desire. Leaders need this attribute in this era’s complexity and Artificial Intelligence driven choices to create value. My friend and fellow Executive Coach Manbir Kaur talks about Heeding Yourself: Being aware of the gaps between Perceived Self & Imagined Self and finding your Real Self in the middle. It means having awareness of your strengths, challenges, and behaviour.

o?? You are enough just as you are embracing the wholeness of your identity. You are spontaneous and unselfconscious or you are aware when you are not. And you accept your vulnerabilities. You engage with your world (and people) in awareness of its richness and subtlety. Though the Inner critic can continually distract you however you are skilled at managing it. You do not shy away from support of your peers or a coach.

o?? You are awed by the majesty of this universe and trust the unknowingness. You are not attached to identification of any particular point of view. That by no means is detachment. As a leader you are aware that any position or idea is useful under unique set of circumstances. Buddha calls it “Shunyata or Clarity of the Mind!”

?o?? You give up your own willfulness and discover a larger will. Instead of trying to assert ego and power, you align yourself with value creation and development of people or communities/organizations that you lead.

Some practical Tools

This isn't about being soft and fluffy. This is a call-out for firm boundaries, clear messaging, trust, and emotional intelligence. This is about creating a robust healthy organization that creates value. Tracy Short a recruitment executive suggests a few of these tools.

o?? Acknowledge the role of self-worth and start having positive conversations with like-minded people within organizations and the wider community.

o?? Influence positive change by embodying leadership presence, effective ways to communicate and co-create a vision, facilitate meetings.

o?? Create value and thought through strategies to how people are attracted and hired, onboarded, and trained.

o?? Get gritty on how you are leading and engaging your people in learning. Are you yourself on a learning journey??Do you take time to pause and reflect and engage in meta cognition.

o?? Coach and incentivize the people leaders to cultivate and nurture self-worth in their teams.

“We don’t need giant personalities to transform companies. We need leaders who build not their own egos but the institutions they run.” Susan Cain

Finally Look at the bigger picture. Would you be doing the work that you do, regardless of any sense of failure or success? Pause, recap, recalibrate, take stock of your strengths and achievements small & big.

o?? Learn how to be present, open, connected, and on purpose in multiple situations and under a wide variety of stresses. It’s about awareness and practice training the nervous system.

o?? Do what’s in front of you & don’t take any perceived success too seriously. (Nature is beautiful, makes many cool things happen. It surrenders and adapts)

o?? Does the process (of functions you do) make you happy?

o?? Take a cue from an artwork that you admire. Reflect on how that artist may have set up the narrow parameters initially and then within those boundaries had enough room to be free and play. Perfection is a killjoy.?

o?? Intimacy, social connections, fireside chats, music, sports are excellent lubricants and loosen the tight armour or an ego that usually is a by-product of success.

o?? What can you do when its hard to see what needs to change? Get out, go for a walk in the woods, play with children, doodle, engage in any activity that is disconnected from the work you do.

I coached an art director once and they said, “Sometimes it’s hard to see what needs to change, that’s when my students turn the painting upside down, or look at it in a mirror and that shows me and them a different perspective.”

I’d love to hear your thoughts on self-worth, leadership, and your career.?If you're ready to talk about leadership, development of people leaders, challenges of working with global teams, intercultural competencies, coaching and support, or why we need to talk about self-worth at work do get in touch.