Five common problems leaders bring to coaching – and what to do about them!

 

 

In my coaching practice I come across a lot of leaders. Indeed, I have been coaching leaders for over three decades now and there are five common problems that I see causing a lot of unnecessary suffering:

1. Striving and a lack of joy in life
2. Working in a power/toxic culture including being bullied by a more senior manager or by peers
3. Making decisions when there is a complex, emotional inner conflict about what to do
4. Believing that being good at your job is what gets you to the top
5. Self confidence.

The model that most influences my coaching is called psychosynthesis and it brings some powerful tools to these common problems.

One of the most powerful elements of psychosynthesis is the understanding that there is not a single ‘I’ or self. We have multiple selves most of whom are unconscious but influence our day-to-day behaviour whether we know it or not. If you are interested you might want to listen to a short 18 minute talk on The Multiple Mind by Assagioli[1]. According to Assagioli, these selves are influenced by our evolutionary and ancestral line, our biology, culture, family, community, our parental conditioning, our pre-natal and early childhood experience and the generation we are born into with its icons and role models.

How does this play out in leadership? Let’s look at one of the problems above from this perspective.

Striving and a Lack of Joy in Life

An example I often encounter is ‘the striver’. The striver is a sub personality that many leaders possess and is born of many elements. It could be that the individual was rewarded and praised for his or her accomplishments. They went through a schooling system that only valued high achievement. Parents valued high academic achievement and the individual mixed with peers in a similar position. Society values a certain kind of achievement – i.e. one that comes with money, power, status and fame (or the 5 ‘Ps’ – possessions, power, prestige, prominence and publicity). So, for example, society values top CEOs, top celebrities and those who display their money via their cars, houses, holidays and clothes. This is not so much achievement but achievement in certain spheres such as finance, law, entertainment and business. High achievement in a nurse or a teacher or a social worker is not so valued as it does not yield wealth or power.

The narrative is clear to see: you are only a valuable human being if you achieve and are recognised. This seems true – you can see it in the media every day. Hence the striver sub-personality is born. The striver constantly seeks to get to the top, to achieve and be recognised and rewarded. The only trouble is, she or he is never satisfied! The striver works and works and works and works – why? Because somehow she or he believes that they are only a valuable human being if they achieve – and they have to achieve constantly.  Their motto is that you are only as valuable as your last achievement.

So what’s the problem, you might say? This is obvious and it’s inevitable – everyone wants to get these rewards.

The problem is that many leaders, dominated by the striver sub-personality experience a complete lack of joy in life. Let’s say they achieve an important goal. What do they feel? Elation? Happiness? Satisfaction? Self-worth?  Often they just feel relief. And then they are on to the next achievement.

This is an exhausting and dark way to live. We are not meant to live like this. Every moment of every day is a gift and we can learn how to appreciate life and bring more balance to it. The way to do this is to disidentify from the striver.

At this point, people can often get quite angry! They think I am suggesting that they should give up achieving. Well in a way yes, and in a way no.

When the striver is in charge, life is a struggle and is often unhappy, not only for the individual but for his or her friends and family.

Can you dare to believe that, even without the striver, you are a valuable human being? This is the source of true happiness but it can only come about through disidentification.

Disidentification involves recognizing that the striver is just a conditioned, brainwashed sub personality and that your true self is so much more! The striver is how society and your key childhood influencers have conditioned you to be. It is not who you are. Let go of the conditioning and suddenly your true self can emerge and, guess what, the true self allows the striver to do his or her stuff but doesn’t identify with it. You can achieve with joy, accomplish with lightness. You can perform well and enjoy your life, so that you have a balanced life with time for family, friends, exercise, sleep, creativity, fun and hobbies.

I will talk a lot more about disidentification in subsequent posts where I will address the other four problems.  For now, to finish, here is an excerpt from a poem by John Donahue.

Bless the Space Between Us

You have been forced to enter empty time.
The desire that drove you has relinquished.
There is nothing else to do now but rest
And patiently learn to receive the self
You have forsaken in the race of days.

At first your thinking will darken
And sadness take over like listless weather.
The flow of unwept tears will frighten you.

You have traveled too fast over false ground;
Now your soul has come to take you back.

Take refuge in your senses, open up
To all the small miracles you rushed through.
Become inclined to watch the way of rain
When it falls slow and free.

Imitate the habit of twilight,
Taking time to open the well of color
That fostered the brightness of day.

Draw alongside the silence of stone
Until its calmness can claim you.
Be excessively gentle with yourself.

Stay clear of those vexed in spirit.
Learn to linger around someone of ease
Who feels they have all the time in the world.

Gradually, you will return to yourself,
Having learned a new respect for your heart
And the joy that dwells far within slow time.

       

[1] Assagioli was a contemporary of Freud and Jung and his male-oriented language reflects his time and era.