On Friday (19th April 2024), I finished running my 5 Day Mind Cleanse challenge live with 171 introverted women leaders. I first ran the challenge 11 years ago and have done it several times since. However, this was the first time I did it as a live challenge where participants came on a Zoom call with me for 30 minutes a day for the 5 days.
Each I day shared information and knowledge based on my experience as a psychologically informed executive coach and set an exercise/challenge. At each session, I split participants into breakout rooms so that they could connect, share, support, and encourage each other.
This was a global group of women, with participants from the UK, US, Europe, and Africa, and one thing that was apparent to them all was how universal their experiences and challenges were. They were surprised that so many other women experienced the same issues and challenges
Because of the different time zones and not everyone being able to come online at the same time, some of the participants watched the recording and did the challenge at their own pace.
We are all different yet so similar
Over the years I have worked with 1000s of introverted and extraverted, women and men, with various intersecting identities. I have coached them, had them attend my workshops and webinars, read my book Quietly Visible: Leading With Influence and Impact as an Introverted Woman, and read and comment on my articles (my LinkedIn Quietly Visible newsletter alone has over 113,000 subscribers) and helped them with the psychological aspects of leadership and to navigate their leadership careers and lives.
Despite us all being different and unique individuals, we are also very similar. As an executive coach, I have a helicopter view of my coaching clients' issues and challenges. When individuals realise that it’s not just them, but many others who are experiencing what they experience, that in itself can be freeing. Knowing that they are not alone can make their experience feel less of a burden to them.
It is often thought that the ideal leader is full of self-belief, is confident, self-assured, exudes presence, can speak up, influence, and command the room with ease. We portray an image of the perfect leader, but the reality is, that many leaders whether they are introverted, extraverted, women or men, and the varying intersecting identities, don’t meet this ideal.
We put pressure on leaders to meet the perfect ideal
We put pressure on leaders to be perfect. For those that don’t fit this perfect ideal, it is stressful. It can make them anxious, experience imposter syndrome, a lack of self-belief, to be constantly doubting themselves. It puts a lot of pressure on them to achieve this perfect ideal.
However, none of us are perfect. We are all fallible and the sooner we all recognise this and be compassionate to ourselves and each other, the easier we will make it for those leaders who have challenges in the areas mentioned. This would go towards helping them not hold themselves back from being all that they can be.
Yes, we need confident, self-assured, decisive leaders, but we live in a broken world. Many of us have internalised negative experiences that have formed our unconscious beliefs, and which shape what we think and believe about ourselves. This in turn affects how we feel, which affects how we act and behave.
With the right support, this can be addressed. Much of what I write about in this newsletter addresses those universal issues and challenges that I have seen from my helicopter view as a coach; researcher of psychology, coaching psychology, and leadership; as well as my own leadership experience.
Even I experience self-doubt at times too
As confident as I am and may seem to you, I too have periods where I doubt myself and my confidence wavers. After all, I am only human. My most recent experience of imposter syndrome was in September last year after I attended a talk by Amy Edmondson, Harvard Professor, where she was promoting her book Right Kind of Wrong: Why Learning to Fail Can Teach Us to Thrive.
I purchased her book and when she was signing it, I told her that her research on psychological safety had been a key reference in my psychology masters thesis on how introverted women leaders experience belonging and psychological safety in the workplace.
She told me that she would be interested in reading it and that I should email it to her, and I said that I would. I left without asking for her email address and wonder whether that was deliberate due to my unconscious mind thinking it was not good enough.
As I left the venue, the negative self-chatter started. Who did I think little, nobody me was to be sending a copy of my research to this big worldwide expert on psychological safety? Being dyslexic and having re-read it, I started to see flaws in my writing and began talking myself out of sending it to her.
Would she think it was stupid? Was it not academic enough? Was it poorly written? Was it not good enough? These were some of the questions that raced through my mind.
Thankfully I am self-aware
Thank God for self-awareness plus the words of encouragement from my coaching supervisor because I quickly recognised that I was self-sabotaging. I recognised that it had taken me back to that shy, little girl that lacked confidence who did not think that she was good enough.
In that moment I had put Professor Edmondson on a pedestal, and I lacked psychological privilege. Being self-aware I was able to challenge the negative self-talk. I got a distinction for my research. My research supervisor was working with me to get it published. It was a topic of interest and I had been oversubscribed with applicants to take part in the research.
If Professor Edmondson did not like it, it wouldn’t mean it was not good enough. That would just be her perspective, and that was ok. There was just as much chance that she may like it. So, I contacted Harvard University and received an email from her with the email address to send it to.
Let's break the perfect leader ideal
I confessed to her that I had an initial dose of imposter syndrome but thankfully I worked through it. She responded that my research looked super interesting and that as for imposter syndrome, she is increasingly convinced that nearly everyone in any kind of professional role whatsoever is plagued by it. Something that I see from my helicopter view as an executive coach.
Breaking the perfect leader ideal challenges and deconstructs the notion of an ideal leader as someone who is flawless, confident, and always in control. It acknowledges that the pressure to meet this perfect ideal can be overwhelming for leaders, leading to stress, anxiety, and imposter syndrome. By breaking this ideal, we recognise that no one is perfect and that imperfections are natural and human.
This mindset shift allows leaders to be more compassionate towards themselves and others, creating a more supportive and inclusive environment where individuals can thrive despite their perceived shortcomings.
What can you do to help to break the perfect leader ideal?