Self-Leadership in a Shifting World

Being a leader is never easy. Being a leader–and even coming into leadership–during these times is even more difficult. While uncertainty has always been part of life, the emerging leaders of today are facing heightened uncertainty around global crises, macroeconomic forces, and the future of the workplace. Nevertheless, with the right resources and support leaders at all levels, can build awareness while securing the external resources they need to succeed.

In my experience supporting leaders, there are three critical steps to being a resilient leader in our ever-changing and connected world:

1. Cultivate your self-awareness.

2. Know when and how to ask for help.

3. Practice self-compassion.

The Pygmalion Effect and Cultivating Self-Awareness

Change is scary.  Trying new things is scary.  We often use our past successes or failures as evidence for why we cannot achieve a new business line or learn a new skill. It’s called a self-fulfilling prophecy, and psychologists have studied this. When we have high or low expectations for ourselves or others and those predictions influence the outcome, it’s called the Pygmalion effect. When our own beliefs influence our behavior and outcomes, it's called the Galatea effect.

The landmark study in 1968 by Robert Rosenthal showed that telling teachers that particular students would succeed more later in the year resulted in higher expectations. Subconsciously, these teachers act in ways that promote their students' learning (giving more time to answer questions, and offering more encouragement). It's also hypothesized that students work harder to meet those expectations. These findings have been replicated in workplace settings, and in the Galatea effect, for self-expectations too. When we have high expectations for ourselves and start to see positive effects, this creates a positive feedback loop that allows us to keep getting results.

The fact that changes in outcome occur when we (or others) have high expectations for ourselves reveals two core truths about succeeding in the workplace: we are constantly evolving and responding to various cues, expectations, stories, and stimuli, and these may not always be in our awareness. Second, being confident can make all the difference in how we succeed and show up in the workplace.

So, taking time to get to know yourself and build your confidence by recognizing that we are constantly evolving is crucial.  Are you giving up because it feels uncomfortable or because you fear failure? Are you scared because you are not sure how to approach something new?  Creating time to reflect and develop your awareness of how your desires, interests, and vulnerabilities have shifted is the first step.  Evolving means pushing past your comfort zone and being open to seeing yourself and your challenges in new ways.

One critical new skill I learned since starting my coaching and consulting practice is public speaking.  I never thought I would be a competent public speaker. At my first major public speaking engagement, an audience member raised his hand and said, “I didn’t understand a single thing you said.” While it was true that I speak fast (and still do!) and that I have an accent, he had been gratuitously rude. I spent a long time being terrified of public speaking until I started turning inward. I asked myself, how do I overcome the uncomfortable parts of this new challenge? However, being someone who speaks to largely Ghanaian audiences with an American accent, my question was more specific: How can I adapt to this challenge while finding a way to be authentic and effective?

In my case, I started to own who I am: I speak fast, and when I try to slow down, I make mistakes. So, I choose to tell stories about where I’m from, and I invite my audience to interrupt me, ask questions, and ask for clarifications. Not only has this resulted in a deeper connection with my audiences, but it’s also allowed me to balance being authentic with being effective. I’ve seen my confidence grow because I am taking action, putting myself out there, and learning as I go.

No one gets everything right the first time. While it’s important to expect ourselves to succeed, a recent study suggests that unrealistic and perfectionistic expectations can be equally paralyzing and reduce our tolerance for uncertainty. Like my clients, I sometimes have unrealistic expectations of myself that get in the way of action.

When you realize that you are uncomfortable, create time to check in with yourself regularly and ask:

• What are things I love doing?

• What are things that I no longer enjoy doing?

• What are things that frustrate me?

• What are things that I need support with?

It is hard to grow into self-leadership when we do not feel safe or comfortable. Rather than shutting down and ignoring discomfort, embrace it and remind yourself leaders don't have to have everything figured out. Take the time to reflect or move on to one of the next two elements.

Ask for Help

An important part of self-leadership is asking for help. As humans, we struggle with asking for help for a variety of reasons. Social psychologist Xuan Zhao explains research showing that many of us believe that asking for help might make us appear incompetent or diminish our authority in the workplace. Other research shows that we might overestimate how likely it is that others will reject our request for help. Other times, it might be due to a self-fulfilling prophecy that things won’t change.

You might tell yourself:

• Strong people don’t ask for help

• Leaders don’t need help

• I’m going to look weak

• No one will understand

• They can’t support me with what I need anyway

We will use any excuse and create stories to hold ourselves back from getting the support we need in our personal and professional lives. We might tell ourselves that we should be able to do it ourselves, or that we’d be taking away help from someone else, or wasting the time of those we ask for help. But these stories ultimately project a pessimistic and self-interested view of human nature onto others.

My coaching clients take a massive step when they ask for help. I worked with one client who I’ll call Susan. She struggled enormously with transitioning from academia into an industry role, not only because it was an industry role but also because she was navigating cultural challenges as well. Pressure and hostility from above her made it difficult to effectively manage her team while strategizing and visioning for the long term. She needed an external perspective, and yet, she felt incredibly guilty for asking for help: she felt that, with her long resume of accomplishments, she shouldn’t have to spend the money or the time finding help.

Susan’s story is like many stories out there: many of us are afraid to ask for help because we’re hesitant to give up control, or that we’ll be seen as weak or incompetent. On the contrary, Stanford psychologist Xuan Zhao notes that most of us are prosocial and want to help others. Beliefs that others won’t help us or that we’ll appear weak are largely the result of projecting an individualist framework on others. Rather than seeing the one seeking help as weak, people often feel happier after they've helped someone, and might even help someone view the help-seeker as more competent—not less. Susan learned, through receiving the results of a verbal 360 feedback exercise,  the importance of focusing on strengths and how bringing in experts and the right support can give leaders the time and space to be more effective leaders.

Building the Skill

High-achieving leaders often feel their self-worth is tied to their work. Psychologist Sabrina Romanoff notes that high achievers are often rewarded for their efforts. Early in one’s career work can become a semi-reliable source of self-esteem. Leaders might measure success by their ability to “get things done.”  But eventually, leaders become responsible not just for themselves, but for a team and maybe even a business. When the stumbling blocks come, this can lead to an identity crisis.

Asking for help–whether in building your career or within the workplace–is a skill. We build skills by trying something new, consulting with experts, practicing, and repeating what we’ve practiced. The first step is recognizing that we do not live in a vacuum. Humans have always been interdependent and cooperative creatures. Though challenging in our current society, being open to receiving support and engaging with others by staying curious and open-minded can lead to better results.

If this is something you struggle with, recognize this pattern, and remind yourself that you are a whole person. Give yourself permission to receive help or delegate without making it mean something about yourself.

You can try to start asking for help in small ways and see what happens. If you’re overloaded at work, start small by asking someone to take over a piece of a project. You might even practice this outside of work by asking friends for small favors or support. Notice what it’s like to accept help, and how the relationship is affected by asking for help. Hopefully, this strengthens the bonds of trust and works to untangle stories about having to do it all yourself.

Beyond the fact that it’s scary to ask for help, we are terrible at articulating our needs. The illusion of transparency means that we tend to believe that our feelings, thoughts, and needs are apparent to other people, which might be one reason why we often wait for other people to offer us help rather than asking for help. This is why taking the time to build your self-awareness is an important first step to getting the support you need and deserve.

If you are ready to ask for help, here are some steps you can keep in mind:

1. Be concise and specific.

2. Don’t apologize or minimize.

3. Practice and express gratitude.

Practice Self-Compassion & Self-Forgiveness

Finally, leaders and emerging leaders should focus on cultivating self-forgiveness and self-compassion.  Recognize that you are setting expectations for yourself and others, whether they are spoken or unspoken. To continue working through changes and challenges, you must learn to work through disappointment so you can continue to perform. Recent research in prosocial psychology shows that the ability to forgive oneself and others can support self-efficacy (e.g., taking the actions we want to take) and protect against depression and anxiety.

Relatedly, one of the most common questions I receive from my leadership clients is how to deal with disappointment. I always start by asking: how do you speak to yourself when something goes wrong? We tend to be our biggest critics, using harsh language and punishing ourselves for things that are usually beyond our control. For leaders who are hard on themselves, it can be helpful to focus on feeling confident and resilient through setbacks. Forgiving yourself and others, dusting yourself off, and looking towards the next goalpost can set leaders up for a sustainable (and healthy) career.

Self-compassion means giving yourself the same kindness and care you would give to a friend.  Would you tell a good friend they were stupid or an idiot? Forgiveness means that you accept the behavior, accept what has happened, and are willing to move beyond it and move on with your life without ruminating over past events that cannot be changed. More broadly, this practice is part of mindfulness which I understand as being aware of your past but choosing to make the most of your present to maximize your future results. Being mindful means embodying both self-compassion and self-forgiveness.

Finally, when leaders build self-awareness and ask for help, it becomes easier to lean into self-compassion and self-love. The best way to be kind to yourself is by building routines and developing practices that allow you to decompress and make you feel good, and doing this begins with asking important questions about our work. When Susan was struggling with her transition into a new role, she was missing activities and relationships that she used to prioritize. By collecting data and understanding the trouble she was having with larger organizational forces, she built the self-awareness necessary to ask for help and have hard conversations. After she drew the boundaries, she needed to strategize effectively with less firefighting, she could make time for herself and her family again. When leaders prioritize self-care, especially when it involves being outdoors and moving their bodies, it makes a difference. They report feeling better, enjoying work again, and coping better with stress and bad news.

If you’re pressed for time, breathing exercises and visualizations are a good starting point. Minor tweaks to your daily schedule can lead to massive results in your personal and professional life, but you have to take the time to check in with yourself.

Before attempting to support others, focus on leading yourself.  By continuing to build your self-awareness, being open to receiving support, and recognizing you will not get everything right the first time, you will be able to continue to grow and build even during times of uncertainty.