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Leadership is an unnatural act. You don’t naturally give feedback to your friends. You don’t praise somebody even though you may not actually have confidence in them. You don’t necessarily think about communicating over and over again. In fact, if you communicated and repeated yourself over and over again, people would think that was weird. That and so many other things are the unnatural acts of leadership that you have to learn to be effective in your role.
My name is Alisa Cohn. I’m an executive coach and the author of From Start-Up to Grown-Up.
It’s very common for leaders to face severe self-doubt, insecurity, or the feeling that I don’t know what to do in this situation. That’s true for brand new leaders. And also — I’ll tell you a secret — it’s true for most senior and seasoned leaders as well. Everybody feels imposter syndrome.
Imposter syndrome is this feeling that you’re going to be found out. You are a fraud, the jig is up. They’re finally going to realize you are not qualified for what you’re about to do. If you don’t address your imposter syndrome, you might think that the only one you’re hurting is yourself, but that’s not true. What you’re probably doing is shrinking away and not leaning into difficult situations as a leader or putting off decisions or being hypercritical. And that’s leaking out to your team.
A CEO I worked with, he had supercritical voices in his head. His people experienced him as extremely critical, hypercritical, and he did not realize that. Now what happened to his team was they were demotivated, they were nervous, they were afraid. That’s why it’s so important for you to address what are the real internal demons that you’re experiencing. Leading yourself is the hardest part, and yet the first person you lead every day is yourself. Since leadership is an unnatural act, you have to get uncomfortable and overcome your demons. And that’s how you’re going to be a great leader for yourself. Then you can move on to managing your team and managing the company.
The first thing you have to do is create psychological safety for yourself. Psychological safety is the feeling that you’re not going to be blamed or shamed for something that happens in the workplace. That is so important to unlock the full potential of the employees around you. If they’re uncomfortable trying something new ‘cause they’re going to get punished if it doesn’t work, they’re not going to take risks. But psychological safety really starts with you. It’s about having you come to terms with some insecurities and issues you have inside of you, which are normal. And there are a few different ways to do that.
First of all, you probably have role models around you, and you can begin to pick and choose the things that they’re doing that will help you create your model of leadership. Also, in the business world, there are a lot of ups and downs. Get in the habit of noticing when things are going right, including when you overcame challenges. One thing I really like to tell people to do is to create a highlight reel for themselves. It will give you confidence and remind you of all the things that you’ve been able to do successfully. The last thing I want to say is this: radical self-examination. If leadership is an unnatural act, it really requires you to be courageous at looking at your insecurities and your doubts and also your weaknesses and blind spots.
As a coach, I work with hundreds of leaders to help them build tools and tactics to master the unnatural act of leadership. If you want to be effective at managing your team and managing your company, it starts with you.