Inner work can seem self-indulgent, yet in reality, it is critical to our ability to serve others clearly, cleanly, and effectively. In Part I, I discussed the ways we can get in our own way. Here, in Part II, I want to focus on leading from the inside out.
Removing some of the obstacles we put in our own way is critical, but so are practices that help us lead forward. Leading from the inside out is about cultivating the presence, habits, and practices that enable leaders to amplify clarity, courage, and trust. Here are 5 practices for leading from the inside out: finding your center, objectifying your thoughts, leading with emotions, embodying leadership, and becoming.
Finding Your Center
Being able to find your center where you are grounded and rooted, so you can be the eye at the center of the is one of the most fundamental aspects of exceptional leaders. In the midst of higher education’s enrollment cliffs, budget cuts, and shifting political pressures, leaders who remain centered are able to be aligned and resilient, rather than reactive. This is why the first four sessions of my coaching focus on this grounding and why our Evolve leadership programs for executive, emerging executive, emerging, and leading for equity all begin with Personal Foundations.
- In my coaching, I begin with exercises that focus on the inner guide, core values, life purpose, and inner critic. These cornerstones come from my coach training through the Co-Active Training Institute (CTI) and Mindful Self-Compassion.
- In Dr. Richard Schwartz’s Internal Family Systems (IFS), he discusses the 8 C’s of Self: Compassion, Creativity, Curiosity, Confidence, Courage, Calm, Connectedness, and Clarity, as well as the 5Ps of Presence, Persistence, Perspective, Playfulness, and Patience. Schwartz also welcomes other attributes beyond the alliteration, including Joy and Love.
- The more grounded, rooted, and centered we are, the more present, calm, and steady we can be as we navigate the (VUCA), uncertain, complex, and ambiguous world and people around us.
Objectify Your Thoughts
When we can view our thoughts, ideas, perspectives, and judgments as objects, we can see them, put them in perspective, and question them. When we consider them as objects, rather than the truth or reality, we might shift them, let them go, or even hold them more closely than when they are unexamined.
Inner dialogue tools like IFS and parts work, self-dialogue from Stoic philosophers, and other tools help us separate and objectify the voices within us help us organize the conversation in our head (a totally normal and human thing). As we develop this capacity, it is more like attending a board meeting or a conversation with close friends offering their best, honest insights, and less like showing up at a cocktail party where your worst critics and inner demons are all yelling at you at the same time.
“The most important conversations you’ll ever have are the ones you’ll have with yourself.”
For a deep, profound, and at times unnerving dive into this, consider exploring “The Work” by Byron Katie.
Leading with Emotions
Research from McKinsey and HBR shows that leaders who manage emotions and stress well improve team engagement and retention by double-digit percentages.
Many icons of leadership are presented as being unemotional and purely intellectual. This is both unrealistic and ineffective. Our emotions have plenty to tell us about what resonates and what is unsettled.
Emotional literacy is the ability to recognize and name emotions at the most foundational level. Cross-cultural researcher Paul Eckman names the major emotions as joy, sadness, fear, anger, and disgust.
Emotional fluency builds on literacy by adding specificity and nuance. This fluency helps us identify beyond the major emotion into the many different kinds, flavors, and nuances of each of these emotions.
Emotional processing is how we engage with our emotions, rather than getting stuck, overwhelmed, or hijacked by them. Tools like Recognize, Allow, Investigate, and Nurture (RAIN) from Tara Brach and other mindfulness-based psychologists can be very helpful here.
Embody Your Leadership
Leadership (and living as a fully alive human) is not a neck-up intellectual activity, though this has often been glamorized in a Western patriarchal culture. The leader often lauded is disconnected from their body and sacrifices sleep, eating, and bodily signals as a sign of commitment and dedication, rather than malpractice at being human.
Fully alive leaders connect with their bodies as a foundational resource, a place of knowing, and a means of engagement, helping them access more of themselves. We often think of the brain sending signals to the body, such as a signal to pick up the coffee cup. The body also sends signals to the brain, such as the feeling that the last comment is not sitting right with me (stomach tension, increased blood pressure, elevated heart rate, tight shoulders, etc.). Neuroscience confirms that the messages that flow through the vagal nerve are 80% from the body to the brain and only 20% from the brain to the body. What does your body teach you, offer you, or reveal to you?
Learn from your body and use your body to engage your state. If sitting in a mediation position, hand position, or repeating a mantra brings you calm and peace, you might be able to reverse engineer that state by embodying it when you are in a tense situation to bring heart-rate levels and blood pressure down.
Tend to your well-being so you can be at your best for those you lead and care about:
- Get good sleep both in terms of quantity and quality. Good sleep helps improve processing, learning, presence, focus, and attention. Sleep is not an indulgent luxury or a sign of laziness; it is a mature form of self-management.
- Move your body through exercise, activity, yoga, stretching, etc. We know movement has many benefits for our physical well-being, but it is also key to mental clarity and emotional regulation.
- Nourish yourself with water and nutrition. These are not just habits for your body and weight loss or weight management to look good, but they also help nourish your energy and mental capacity.
- Nourish your information intake. What news, ideas, and role models are you engaging with? How do you strike a balance between being informed and feeling overwhelmed?
Attend to Your Own Becoming
“Be the change you wish to see in the world.” – Mahatma Gandhi
“Just because we know better doesn’t mean we do better.” – Brené Brown
In my research, the process of learning, growth, and development flows from knowing to doing to being. We have to learn how to play the guitar, then practice playing the guitar, until we can play the guitar effortlessly while singing our new song lyrics. There is a similar process for learning a new language, listening at a deeper level, or explaining a new change process.
The shift toward being includes what contemplative practitioner Dr. David W. Robinson Morris referred to as “coming home to ourselves.” These contemplative practices, which integrate our knowing and doing into our being, can include prayer, movement, reflection, and many other forms. For example, meditation is a daily practice to help us be more mindful and present in each moment throughout the day.
Some schools of thought dismiss these capacities as soft skills. If you think they are soft, try it. The research and my coaching experience suggest otherwise: leaders who invest in their inner work see more clearly, make better decisions, communicate more effectively, retain more staff, and advance their institutions more effectively.
Reflection Prompts
Which of these areas (thoughts, emotions, embodied, or becoming) do you feel you have the greatest capacity for?
Which of these areas (thoughts, emotions, embodied, or becoming) do you see investing in that could have the biggest return for you?
How are you modeling these areas well and not so well for those you lead who lead others?
