I\u2019ve learned to live by the saying \u201cYou can never get enough of what you don\u2019t need.\u201d It\u2019s not easy, especially when it comes to BBC crime procedurals, chips and queso, and approval. One of the patterns that I\u2019ve observed in working with leaders is that many people lead from a place of hurt and smallness, and they use their position of power to try to fill that self-worth gap. But we just can\u2019t fill a self-worth gap by leading and using power over people, because that\u2019s not exactly what we need.<\/p>\n
Leading from hurt rather than leading from heart means we\u2019re working our shit out on other people. And, because we\u2019re not addressing the real driver of our pain, this behavior isn\u2019t an occasional angry slip. Inflicting hurt<\/em> rather than feeling hurt<\/em> becomes a habit.<\/p>\n In general, it\u2019s fair to say that we\u2019re all working our stuff out on people all day long. But when you add the leadership power differential, it gets dangerous.<\/p>\n \u201cLeading from hurt\u201d behaviors can be fueled by feeling no value from our partner or our children, so we double down on being seen as \u201cimportant\u201d at work by taking credit for ideas that aren\u2019t ours, staying in comparison mode, and always knowing instead of learning. The most common driver of the hurt that I\u2019ve observed is from our first families.<\/p>\n The first-family stuff can look like seeking the approval and acceptance from colleagues that we never received from our parents. Also, if our parents\u2019 professional failures and disappointments shaped our upbringing, we can spend our careers trying to undo that pain. That often takes the shape of an insatiable appetite for recognition and success, of unproductive competition, and, on occasion, of having zero tolerance for risk.<\/p>\n Identifying the source of the pain that\u2019s driving how we lead and how we show up for other people is important, because returning to that place and doing that work is the only real fix. Projecting the pain onto others places it where it doesn\u2019t belong and leads to serious trust violations. Our long, hard search for whatever it is that we need never ends and leaves a wake of disconnection.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Leading from Heart<\/strong><\/p>\n One of the key learnings emerging from our leadership study took my breath away: Leaders must either invest a reasonable amount of time attending to fears and feelings or squander an unreasonable amount of time trying to manage ineffective and unproductive behavior. \u00a0<\/strong>Well, leader, heal thyself.<\/p>\n We also have to invest time attending to our own fears, feelings, and history or we\u2019ll find ourselves managing our own unproductive behaviors. As daring leaders, we have to stay curious about our own blind spots and how to pull those issues into view, and we need to commit to helping the people we serve find their blind spots in a way that\u2019s safe and supportive.<\/p>\n Like all of us, most of the daring, transformational leaders I\u2019ve worked with have overcome hurtful experiences\u2014from childhood illness and painful family histories to violence and trauma. Many are in the middle of deep struggles like marriages that are failing, children in rehab, or health crises. The difference between leading from hurt and leading from heart is not what you\u2019ve experienced or are currently experiencing, it\u2019s what you do with that pain and hurt.<\/p>\n One powerful example of leading from heart was Tarana Burke\u2019s response to Harvey Weinstein\u2019s arrest. Tarana is the senior director at Girls for Gender Equity and founder of the Me Too movement\u2014a movement to end sexual violence. In an interview with Trevor Noah, Tarana said, \u201cThis is not really a moment to, like, celebrate how the mighty have fallen.\u201d She explained that the focus should be on healing the survivors and recognizing their courage.<\/p>\n In a world full of rage and hate, Tarana, who is a survivor of sexual assault and has dedicated her career to helping other survivors, said, \u201cIt doesn\u2019t bring me personal joy, this is not really what it is about.\u201d She explained, \u201cIt\u2019s not about taking down powerful men, and it is not a woman\u2019s movement either\u2014that\u2019s another sort of misconception. It\u2019s a movement for survivors.\u201d<\/p>\n Ed Catmull, president, Pixar and Walt Disney Animation Studios, is another leader who inspires me by leading with heart. In fact, I think his book Creativity, Inc<\/em> is a manifesto on courageous, wholehearted leadership. Ed explains that recognizing, naming, and managing our emotion is essential to leading.<\/p>\n I love this personal example that he shares\u2014it\u2019s really helped me maintain perspective when I\u2019m in struggle. Ed writes, \u201cI tend to flood and freeze up if I\u2019m feeling overwhelmed. When this happens, it\u2019s usually because I feel like the world is crashing down and all is lost. One trick I\u2019ve learned is to force myself to make a list of what\u2019s actually wrong. Usually, soon into making the list, I find I can group most of the issues into two or three larger all-encompassing problems. So it\u2019s really not all that bad. Having a finite list of problems is much better than having an illogical feeling that everything is wrong.\u201d<\/p>\n