Manila, 27 October 2021 — As a leader, it’s always your turn.

Story

It happened in the early days of human history. And we still see it today. While it happens frequently, most of the time the story plays in the background, underneath our conscious awareness. What is this story about? In simple terms, it’s about feeling worried about problems when people and circumstances are making your work and life difficult to handle. Here is how the story can play in your mind. 

“If only [my boss, or that difficult colleague] would be [more supportive], I could [get this done] successfully.” Or it could sound like this. “It’s difficult to [solve this problem] unless [we get more budget].” Systems and culture are frequently seen as obstacles too. “We already tried [to change that] and [it didn’t work].” 

During our growth as leaders, we are bound to be confronted by such self-limiting stories at some time, from ourselves and from colleagues around us. If not spotted and dealt with properly, these stories can wreak havoc on individual performance, teamwork, and also corporate innovation. They can mess up personal development and hold people back from performing at their best and finding fulfillment in their life. These are stories with consequences. It’s time to shine a light on yourself.

Challenge

To start dealing with self-limiting stories that feature others as the culprit, the challenge we face comes in three parts, in my experience. First, the real problem is in our subconscious and that makes it harder to recognize. Second, there are roots to the past, often to our youth, going back to a time when we dealt with a life challenge by creating a story that successfully pushed a part of ourselves out of the way. Third, following from the first and second, these stories are difficult to overcome by ourselves without some help from a coach or, in some cases, a therapist.

According to Ken Wilber, a philosopher, one of the great psychological discoveries of all time came when we learned that “under certain circumstances, 1st-person impulses, feelings, and qualities can become repressed, disowned, or dissociated, and when they do, they appear as 2nd-person or even 3rd-person events in my own 1st-person awareness.” (Integral Spirituality, 2006). The discovery of such projection, already hinted at by philosophers since antiquity, was first articulated scientifically by Sigmund Freud and his daughter Anna Freud, both psychologists.

When armed with this psychological insight about projection, leaders will be more cautious to ascribe their problems to other people and external circumstances. With a leadership perspective, we like to go in the opposite way by shining a light on ourselves and saying that it’s always our turn. Rather than investing lots of energy and emotion into expecting other people or situations to change, we ask how we can transform ourselves first in order to deal with the situation at hand. Sometimes, however, that requires work to reclaim our 1st-person ownership of emotions and qualities that we had, subconsciously, projected on other people or circumstances. 

Question

While reflecting on the discovery of projection in modern psychology, I was reminded of my experience as a monk, when we were taught to pay attention to any unusually strong emotions — positive or negative — for people and circumstances. In further training, years later, we learned to ‘double-click’ on such emotions and review what they were telling us about ourselves and our history of projecting project parts of ourselves to others, thereby diminishing our whole selves in the process. Thankfully, there are ways to restore what we lost in the projection.

My question to you this week is about reflecting on your history of projection. Where do you see a need to reclaim parts of you that, over time, have become projected onto others, leaving you incomplete and in a vulnerable state? This is a profoundly human problem that affects each of us in some way, even those of us who feel in prime shape. Why not start by reviewing your workplace relationships, especially those that are prompting strongly negative or positive emotions in you. They might hold a clue for you to engage in some restorative work on yourself.

As we all have our blind spots, it’s best to get some support when you embark on this journey of reclaiming and restoring yourself by letting go of limiting stories and beliefs. The next time you encounter problems, shine a light on yourself first. That’s why we say that leadership starts by transforming yourself first, and that coaching can help you prepare for your next steps on the journey. If that resonates with you, you can book a free strategy call here to discuss your way forward.