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When was the last time you asked yourself how you were doing and actually listened to the answer?
When was the last time you asked yourself what you needed and actually listened to the answer?
When was the last time you asked yourself how your heart was and actually listened to the answer?
As leaders, we talk so often about the need to be vulnerable with our teams, our peers and friends, but we often avoid talking about the need to be vulnerable with ourselves. Yet, by avoiding being vulnerable with ourselves, we inherently cannot be vulnerable to the world around us.
Being vulnerable with yourself isn’t easy, it requires immense dedication to your own path and journey. It requires you to acknowledge your own hurt, your own behaviors and the outcomes of decisions you have made.
Recently, I found myself feeling uncreative, unable to pick up a pen, unable to reach inside to write — and that has never been a problem for me before. It made me irritable, quick to annoy and not the best version of myself that my team needs.
It forced me to stop and ask myself, “What isn’t working?” And come to find out, that was a loaded question. When we ask ourselves hard questions, we are often presented with hard answers. Answers that we may not be prepared to grapple with, goodbyes we may not be ready to say and habits we may not be ready to leave in the past.
When I began to examine what wasn’t working, I also had to examine what I was settling for, what I was just avoiding and who I was allowing to drain me because it was easier than confrontation.
Self-care has become such a buzzword over the last five years, but how many people are actually talking about what it means? Self-care isn’t a massage or a facial; it is about the act of knowing what your heart, mind and body needs and radically going after it. Your body knows the things, the people and the places that aren’t right for you, yet too often we stay because it is easy, it is comfortable, it is what is expected of us.
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Self-care is about clearing out the things that no longer serve you to make room for growth. Get comfortable with the idea that some things are not meant to last forever — jobs, partnerships, friendships. Life is fluid and some experiences run their course. It doesn’t mean that they weren’t valuable, and it doesn’t mean they weren’t worth it; it just means that sometimes things end, and that is okay.
I will be the first to say that saying goodbye to people, jobs and places we love is not easy, but so often it is necessary. Goodbyes are some of the hardest things we do as humans and as leaders. Our fear of change holds us back, as leaders, as friends, as partners. Too often we avoid growing out loud to keep those around us comfortable, and to ensure they never have to meet new versions of us.
We must be willing to have vulnerable conversations with ourselves about our needs, our trauma and our healing. As leaders, we must be responsible for our own healing.
I cannot be the best leader for my teams if I am unwilling to be the best version of me, for myself. I am my own responsibility. My wellness is my responsibility. My mental health is my responsibility. My life is my responsibility.
Of course, it always seems easier to “leave it up to the universe,” but that is not reality, you own your reality, and you must be willing to confront the demons that exist within it.
As leaders, it is important for us to be willing to be vulnerable with ourselves about our need and experiences, because when we lock our emotions and hearts down with chains,; we lead through harshness. Our strength is not in how fiercely we lead, but in how softly we can lead our teams.
Oftentimes, leaders auto-default to fear-based management because they have not healed their own trauma, and they model the behaviors they previously experienced. However, when we lead through our own harm, we end up causing more. Harm is a cycle. Fear-based leadership doesn’t work, fear-based leadership will always send our teams into fight or flight mode, leaving them unwilling to be vulnerable about their own needs. The best-performing teams experience safety, vulnerability and the space to allow life to happen.
Life happens to all of us; we all have “stuff,” and that doesn’t stop because we have acquired a certain title or position. When we are open with our teams that we too have needs, boundaries and healing to do, it allows them to open up and feel safe to express their own needs and boundaries and release their own shame around trauma.
Teams perform better when they feel safe to be human, and that means as a leader, you must be willing to humanize yourself — first to yourself and then to your teams.
