The myth of the self-sabotaging leader

5 reasons why labeling yourself as a “saboteur” doesn’t work, and what leaders can do instead.

As an Executive Coach and former Cognitive-behavior Therapist, very often leaders consult me for what they interpret as a “self-sabotage” that is derailing them from fulfilling their goals. They explain it as if there was a malignant, dark, or broken side of themselves, playing against them. Examples of such “self-sabotage are the case of “Mark” and “Mary” (both fake coachee names). “Mark” was trying to rebuild his relationship with his boss, the only stakeholders still backing him up in his organization. Still, he couldn’t help continually challenging him on topics that he knew would only irritate his boss and increase his risk of being fired. “Mary” was asked to give more autonomy to her direct reports and focus on more strategic topics, but she couldn’t help micromanaging them because, “what if they make a mistake and, then the blame is on me?”.

The truth is, this is so common that multiple articles have been published describing this phenomenon, some coaching frameworks highlight the notion of a “self-sabotager”, and the International Coaching Federation (ICF) has a section devoted specifically to overcoming self-sabotage.

Now, before you say “Dah!” and accept this notion as a given, hear what usually happens when I ask clients in this situation, the following questions:

1. For how long have you been thinking about yourself in this way?
2. How much has this helped you to change your behaviors?

The answer to my questions typically is “Too long” and “Very little”, respectively. Why is that? In this article I’ll share with you 5 reasons why labeling yourself or a part of you as a “saboteur” doesn’t work, and what you can do instead to learn from your mistakes and grow as a leader.

Why the “self-sabotage” interpretation doesn't work:

1. It prevents learning:

Labeling your behaviors as “self-sabotage” is a global and internal attributional interpretation of your actions (“I sabotaged myself! I’m a moron!”) pretty similar to that of addicts experiencing an?Abstinence Violation Effect or EVA ?(“I failed because I’m weak”, “I am a complete failure”). As such, it doesn’t create awareness of preceding factors that could have triggered the ineffective behaviors in that specific context. In particular, it shows no critical thinking whatsoever about what prompted you to act in this way, on that specific occasion. Thus, it fails to kick-start effective problem-solving that leads to learning and growth.

Important preceding factors may be usual emotion dysregulation triggers such as Hunger, Angerness, Anxiety, Loneliness and Tiredness (“HALT ” for short), peer pressure, excessive multitasking, work climate, sleep deprivation, and other burnout symptoms caused by chronic stress, among other things. In the case of Mark, he was experiencing a full-blown burnout syndrome, was completely overworked, sleep-deprived, and faced multiple challenges both at work and at home. Such a difficult context prompted him to be in a mindless, reactive, and impulsive copying style most of the time.

Mark realized that his work/life imbalance was his key emotional dysregulator at that time. So being able to resume physical activity, sleep 8 hours, and plan moments of connection with his family was all he needed to regain enough self-control to stay cool under such a storm. As you can see, most of Mark’s triggers, weren’t immediate antecedents of his ineffective behaviors. By contrast, they were the manifestations of the cumulative indirect effect of his work/life imbalance and unhealthy habits. Instead of changing these triggers, when he came to see me, he was completely absorbed in criticizing himself and feeling ashamed of his “self-sabotage”. Imagine what was the result of this approach…

In the case of Mary, after zooming into a few occasions when her micromanaging “self-sabotage” took place, we discovered it was being triggered by an immediate contextual trigger that she couldn’t grasp at first: In her new position as a manager, she was expected to do a task completely new to her and much more ambiguous than her previous one, for which it was harder to know what to do first, for how long, and how to track progress. So, the trigger for her was that the mere thought of performing any of her new tasks exposed her immediately to heightened uncertainty. She reacted to this with intense anxiety and worrying (“What if I’m incapable of doing this”) that felt intolerable and thus, she avoided it by focusing on tasks where she felt more in control.

Realizing that the key for her was mastering her anxiety and increasing her uncertainty tolerance, I suggested to her, applying the 5-minute rule: She would schedule a task in her agenda and when the time came, no matter how she felt, she had to do it and stay with it for 5 minutes. After that, she could reschedule or, if she felt like it, she could continue working on it. It was amazing to discover how something so simple as practicing the 5-minute rule for a few weeks enabled her to cope with heightened uncertainty more effectively, and this was possible to devise because we first devoted some time to understanding what was triggering her avoidant behavior in various situations.

Another preceding factor for ineffective behavior might be that the intended plan of action didn’t account for other competing demands or commitments the person is currently involved in. In Mary's case, un unexplored worry was creating what Bob Kegan and Lisa Laskow Lahey call an “Immunity to change ”. Other similar examples are being overcommitted or FOMO-driven.

Finally, plans usually fail because people fail to take into account their own neurodiversity. For example, if your neurocognitive profile is like what Richard Guare and Peg Dawson call “smart but scattered ”, then your plan should incorporate environmental nudges that remind you to stay on track, mitigate procrastination, and help you stay focused. In this way, your plan would compensate your brain’s weakness in goal-directed behavior, task initiation and sustained attention.?

2.?It is counterproductive:

Being an internal attribution style, the self-sabotage interpretation focuses your attention on a futile attempt to fight or reject a part of yourself, usually in the form of brooding and self-blaming. As a result, it creates a sense of helplessness and loss of control from which the usual conclusion circles around the idea that “There’s something wrong with me”, “I’m a fraud”, or even, “I’m a failure!”. Even worse, if this interpretation of behaviors becomes a habit, it diminishes your self-confidence and self-efficacy, feeds the impostor’s syndrome, and primes you for more ineffective behaviors. So, the self-sabotage label works similarly to the EVA, transforming something bad into something worse (like a lapse into a relapse…).

3.?It is a wrong model of how the brain works:??

The wrong interpretation of your behaviors can only lead you to change by chance (at best), and the “self-sabotage” explanation fits the bill perfectly! It implies that our automatic brain can astutely go behind our backs to anticipate the future and plan what to make us do, based on an unconscious agenda that goes against our best interests. Neuroscience has shown that the opposite is true: Our automatic brain (e.g., the Limbic system, Amygdala, Insula, etc.) pursues our immediate survival in a primitive and shortsighted way. Likewise, it is plagued by predictable heuristic thumb rules that render it strongly biased or directly incapable of effective impulse regulation, critical thinking, complex decision-making, or action planning. To do such superior cognitive tasks, we need to activate our conscious, slow, and effort-full brain circuitry (e.g., Prefrontal cortex); which Kahneman has labeled as the “System 2”, in his book “Thinking fast and slow ”.

4.?It doesn’t account for how the brain replaces old habits with new ones:?

Often, we repeat ineffective behaviors only because previous experiences have turned them into strong habits (there’s no masochism nor self-sabotage needed to explain these behaviors). To change, the brain needs to simultaneously inhibit and depress (weaken) old habits, while strengthening the neural circuitry activated by the repeated practice of new behaviors until they become new competing habits. This is called inhibitory learning, or as I like to call it, “counter-learning ”. Likewise, under stress, old habits can become reactivated since they consume less energy than new behaviors. In short, there is no “unlearning” or “erase” button for old habits. Oh, wait, there is one... It’s called Dementia and you wouldn't like to tap on it...?

5.?It is un umbrella term with no added value:

In?ICF’s section about “self-sabotage” , it is defined as a phenomenon that can manifest itself as all sorts of ineffective behaviors such as overconfidence, perfectionism, work/life imbalance, scapegoating, and self-criticism. This turns “self-sabotage” into an umbrella term or “cat bag” that includes too many diverse cognitive, emotional, and behavioral processes. As such it clouds its potential usefulness as a communication or conceptual tool to promote change and growth. If everything negative is self-sabotage, then nothing is!

What you can do instead:

Call to action!?The next time you have a miss-step, don't bully yourself by buying into the lazy interpretation of “self-sabotage”. Instead, use that habitual interpretation as a trigger or reminder to pause for 5 minutes and consider the following effective problem-solving questions:

1. What prompted you to act in this way, this time? No generalizations allowed, be specific!
2. Could others act differently had they been in your shoes?
3. What would you say or suggest if this had happened to your best friend?
4. If it is valid for your friend, it’s valid for you too, so what can you learn from this?
5. What can you do differently next time you face a similar situation to prevent or change this behavior?
6. If you can’t prevent it, what can you do to mitigate it or reduce its negative impact on you or other people?
7. How can you repair any damage caused by this behavior?
8. Who can help you with this?
9. How can you train or strengthen a more effective behavior for similar situations?
10. How can you safely test the effectiveness of this action plan?
11. Is anything preventing you from following this action plan (e.g., competing demands or commitments, worries about acting differently, etc.)? What can you do about it?
12. How will you remember this insight timely?

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By taking a conscious pause and reflecting upon these questions, you’ll train your brain to become more aware of subtle -context-specific or internal- preceding factors that are triggering your ineffective behaviors. This will enable you to plan and refine your actions in a process of continuous learning that will boost your leadership. Experience does not guarantee expertise (we can mindlessly spend twenty years repeating the same mistakes), but this process of applied reflection on contextualized action is an effective means of transforming experience into expertise.

About the author:

Ignacio Etchebarne is a co-founding partner and co-director of Hi, Human Insight , a boutique consulting firm specializing in Leadership and Culture Transformation.