INsight/ Three Leadership Blocks

Photo by Valentin Salja on Unsplash

Manila, 2 December 2020 — You don’t want to stay stuck there.

Who Blocks You

As you grow up, you’re bound to get infected at some time, as I did, with the virus that makes you think that external conditions are blocking your road to success. Psychologists, of course, will tell you that this is an illusion that you’re fooling yourself with. It is you who are blocking yourself, they explain, as illustrated in the photo. That message has, over time, also been voiced by scientists, spiritual leaders as well as coaches in sports, business, and personal development. 

So how are you blocking yourself on your road? That’s where we start our dive into the practice of self-awareness as an essential leadership behavior to remove your self-imposed blocks. Discovering how to do this has made a huge difference in my life and work, and I’d like to share the process with you.

While you can join this self-reflection journey from your personal world, where you treat leadership as an inside job, you don’t have to do this all by yourself. We are social beings and your leadership has always taken place in the context of your social world and your observed world. (We’ll explore the three worlds model in another post). 

For now, let’s just say that as you get started to practice expanding your self-awareness, you can develop a healthy dynamic between your personal (I) and social (We) poles of leadership, by figuring things out by yourself and by having conversations with friends, colleagues, coaches and mentors in your network. That dynamic involves frequently shifting perspective between self-inspiration and being inspired by others. You can see this as a dynamic that resembles the Yin and Yang interaction from the classics of Chinese philosophy. 

Now let’s look at three ways you can stop yourself from becoming an effective leader. I call them the Three Leadership Blocks and you don’t want to stay stuck there. They concern a lack of drive for progress, clarity of purpose, and outdated mental programming.

1. The Progress Block

“With drive and a bit of talent, you can move mountains.” – Dwayne Johnson

That’s so true, and this block shows up when your positive drive — your life force — is diminished. This can happen at times when you experience feelings of fear, stress, anxiety, fatigue, being bullied, and even burnout. You will then adjust your mindset and behavior, often unconsciously, by avoiding to take risks and instead withdraw, follow others, and stay on a safe ‘middle of the road’ course. 

With this block, the thrill and motivation of making progress are replaced by a monotonous and therefore safe notion of just doing your job, getting through your day and week, often with a voice in your head telling you that you don’t have what it takes to realize your dream. 

We all know about the impostor syndrome and what its saboteur voice of “you’re not good enough” sounds like, and we all face times when our positive drive feels diminished. It’s critical is to overcome these moments and that takes self-awareness that this is a block that you are putting on your own road. No matter how tough the circumstances, you are in charge of your mindset.

While making progress is a powerful motivator, as shown by research, you need the drive to get started. If you can see life as a beautiful and exciting mountain to climb, chances are that you will find the drive in you to start and continue climbing up, even during tough times.

Exercise: Write down 1 to 3 areas where you are holding yourself back because of your saboteur voice telling you that you are ‘not good enough.’

2. The Purpose Block

“You can do anything, but you cannot do everything.” – David Allen

I learned David Allen’s valuable lesson when I started exploring leadership. This block manifests itself when you feel overwhelmed by choices, with your mind scattered from too much information, and your attention span short as you jump from one goal and activity to another. 

There seems to be too much going on at all times, and you feel challenged to prioritize what’s important. With too many interests and directions available, you suffer from a lack of clarity about your purpose in work and life. 

Living in our hyper-connected world full of complex challenges and uncertainty, it’s easy to feel at a loss for making good choices and sticking with them. When achieving a sense of purpose, contribution, and accomplishment keeps eluding you, it’s easy to feel stuck in limbo, and that will frustrate your leadership growth.

As Mark Twain said, the two most important days in your life are the day you’re born and the day you find out why. You are more than your job. Yet without clarity about purpose, you’re drifting instead of designing your life.

Exercise: Write down 3 to 9 dreams you have already thought of doing with your life and describe the challenge you experience in finding out your purpose.

3. The Programs Block

“People are trapped in history and history is trapped in them.” – James Baldwin

This block is more difficult to see because it’s buried in your subconscious. It was that way for me too. Just as the operating system in your computer or phone determines what you can do with the apps and information on your screen, your mental programming in your subconscious mind will drive the way you think, make decisions, and take actions, and all of that on a daily basis. And not all of that is good and helpful. 

Your mental programming is the result of how your mind has helped you survive and thrive throughout your life up to now. That means that this block is mainly about your past, your history. And, while on your computer and gadgets you receive regular notifications to upgrade to the latest version of the operating system, you won’t get such notifications about upgrading your mental programming.

You are at risk, therefore, to keep living and working with outdated versions of our mental programming that your mind developed to help you at some time in your past, when your conditions were very different. That programming, which still shows up in your communications and behaviors today, is unlikely to serve you best in meeting your present life and workplace challenges that look very different from your past.

That’s why psychologists will tell you about blindspots and derailing behaviors that can jeopardize your career moving forward as you would like. Obviously, you will want to become aware of these and do something about them. As you do, keep in mind that upgrading your mental programming takes a lot longer than it does on your computer.

It’s going to take you some work and time to upgrade your mental programming and start leading your best life now without carrying the past in your backpack. The longer you put it off, the harder the journey will be. 

Exercise: Write down at least 1 behavior that’s driven by your past mental programming and that no longer serves the leader you are becoming.

Community of Practice 

Want to take a deeper dive into expanding your awareness as a leader? If you are ready to work on your leadership behaviors using 21st-century skills, go ahead and invite three colleagues to come with you as you join us in the Grow3Leaders community. It’s a friendly and safe space to learn and practice. Joining is free of charge—not free of commitment.