Self Leadership
Understanding, befriending and unburdening your inner voices
My brain and I, we are not friends.
We are classmates doing a group assignment called life.
And it’s not going well.
– Fredrik Backman, author of A Man Called Ove
Group assignments can be such a pain. A team meant to be more than the sum of its parts risks disintegrating as conflicting styles and aims collide.
🫵 The bossy boots
🤓 The know-it-all
🙃 The clown
🤔 The devil’s advocate
😴 The free-loader
🫣 The shrinking violet
🙄 The second guesser
🙀 The scaredy-cat
😐 The procrastinator
🧐 The quality controller
💩 The saboteur
What if your own psyche is just such a group? We all want life (our group assignment) to be fun and generate a good outcome. What would characterize the ideal leader for this unruly crew?
– Calm, Clarity
– Curiosity, Creativity
– Compassion, Connectedness
– Confidence, Courage
– Patience, Persistence
– Presence, Perspective
– Playfulness
In fact, you have this leader at your core. When what you say, think, or do has a flavor counter to these qualities, you can know that one of those other characters has grabbed the whiteboard pen or the microphone.
Listen to what they have to say, but ask them for a bit of space. Value their membership, but don’t act on their every whim.
This is Self Leadership.