The Power of Inner Work: A Pathway to Authentic Leadership
As people, we live in two worlds – there is the world around us, and the world within us. The world within us is where we are interpreting the events that happen, processing our emotions, and making choices. Some of the leaders we work with have a high level of awareness about what is happening in their inner world, but for others, it is unchartered territory. Leaders who ignore their inner world are prone to being more reactive. To demonstrate, let’s meet two protagonists – Beth and Bob – who are about to discover that sometimes life’s biggest challenges start on the inside.
Meet Beth: The Overlooked Leader
Beth is a senior leader who recently faced a significant setback when she was passed over for a promotion she had eagerly anticipated. Instead of celebrating her new boss’s success, she experienced ongoing bitterness and feelings of rejection. This inner turmoil caused her to view her colleagues as competitors, and she unconsciously became increasingly defensive and withdrawn at work. As a result, the relationship with her boss and coworkers suffered, as did her performance. Beth’s self-worth had been challenged, and she became stuck in a reactive state. The key question here was: How could Beth challenge her “woe is me” narrative and turn her response into something that would be more productive for her and her team?
The Shift in Perspective
The first step for Beth was to confront her feelings of unworthiness and recognize the story she was telling herself—she wasn’t good enough. By engaging in inner work—self-reflection and introspection—she began the process of sorting through her emotions, understanding the mindsets underpinning her reaction, and finding a more objective truth. This work allowed her to see how effective her newly promoted peer was in their role and reengage with confidence and greater clarity.
Introducing Bob: The Exhausted Executive
Now let’s turn our attention to Bob, an executive leader admired by many for his professional success. Beneath his polished exterior, Bob was experiencing exhaustion and dissonance in his personal relationships. He tended to overcommit and say “Yes!” to every request, leading to an overfilled calendar and a lack of presence in both his professional and personal life.
The Shift in Mindset
Bob realized he needed to confront his inner beliefs about success and saying “Yes!” to people. His sense of identity was tied to his professional achievements, making it difficult for him to say no and prioritize his personal relationships. Through inner work, he began uncovering the motivations and mindsets that were driving this behavior. This awareness helped him prevent the knee-jerk “Yes!” and replaced it with a thoughtful pause for processing.
What is Inner Work?
Inner work differs from other leadership development in that it focuses on personal growth and self-awareness rather than practicing a skill. While skillset development enhances one's technical or functional competencies, inner work delves into understanding one's values, beliefs, mindsets, emotions, and unconscious patterns. It’s not just about fixing a weakness or a problem; it’s about aligning one's inner world with their external experience to get unstuck.
Let’s go a bit deeper. In both Beth and Bob’s cases, they were caught in a reactive state—which refers to the feeling of being ‘hooked’ by triggers that provoke impulsive reactions. The Buddhists call this feeling “shenpa” – a sticky feeling that ensnares us into responding from our ego, or identity protection. To comprehend how leaders like Beth and Bob experience “shenpa” we can look at the neuroscience involved. The brain's Default
Mode Network plays a significant role in shaping our reality through silent self-talk and how we process experiences. This network can lead us to fill in the gaps between what we know and don’t know by creating stories that limit our perspective and keep us stuck in unproductive patterns. The ego often acts as the storyteller in this scenario, reinforcing beliefs that may not serve us well. Understanding this concept is crucial for leaders aiming to break free from old habits.
Why Inner Work is Crucial for Leaders
When leaders like Beth and Bob are caught in a reactive state, their performance takes a nosedive. Inner work allows leaders to confront their internal narratives, fostering a deeper understanding of themselves, which translates into more authentic leadership. It helps them recognize when they are reacting instead of responding. By practicing inner work, leaders like Beth can shift from a mindset of competition into a mindset of collaboration, while Bob’s allows him to challenge his definition of success and slow down so he can engage and be more present in his personal life. Companies benefit significantly when their leaders commit to inner work. When executives operate from a place of self-awareness and emotional intelligence, they can address challenges with a sense of calmness and make better choices. They become more focused and consistent in their actions, cultivating trust among their teams. This capability is essential for navigating the complexities and ambiguities of today’s business landscape.
Coaching as a Catalyst for Inner Work
It can be difficult to see why we are being reactive in a situation – we are simply too close to it. Too stuck in it. The good news is that there is help available. Let’s see how engaging a coach helped Beth & Bob engage in their inner work.
After many tense conversations with her boss, and sleepless nights filled with self-doubt, Beth decided to hire an executive coach. This decision proved transformative; her coach provided a structured environment for exploring her feelings of inadequacy without judgement and confronting the stories surrounding her professional identity. The coach served as a mirror, helping her label her limiting beliefs and reframing her thoughts about the situation.
Similarly, Bob's coaching journey helped him confront his tendency to overcommit head on. By challenging an ego-driven mindset that equated his self-worth with his professional achievements, he began to realize that he was more than his accomplishments. He could have taken a class in time management to build a better skillset for managing his calendar, but that would not have gotten to the root cause. Change happened when he challenged his perspective about the world and gained inner clarity. Coaching helped him make that shift.
Practical Steps for Leaders to Begin Their Inner Work
Are you wondering how to get more inner clarity in your life? Below are some practical tips to get started:
Start with Self-Reflection: Regularly carve out time for self-reflection to notice your experiences and emotions. We highly recommend journaling. Begin to see patterns in how you respond and feel. What is your default setting when faced with challenges? What assumptions do you make about people? Why might you be responding that way?
Practice Radical Acceptance: Embrace situations as they are without judgment or resistance. Try to notice what is happening from a place of emotional neutrality. If “it just is what it is” how do you want to respond to it?
Seek Feedback and Different Perspectives: Gather input from trusted colleagues or mentors to identify your patterns and blind spots. Ask them to notice you in action and provide you with insights. Invite them to listen as you think out loud about a situation and challenge your perspective.
Identify Your Triggers: Understand what drives your reactions. If you value fairness, witnessing moments of unfairness will trigger you. If you value independence, having someone exert their control over you will be a trigger. Get curious about what happened right before you overreacted. This awareness is powerful and can stop you from operating blindly.
Practice Mindfulness: The practice of Mindfulness invites you to become aware of your thoughts and inner world without judgment. Research suggests that a leader who practices mindfulness demonstrates more personal presence and clearer thinking.
Work with a Coach: If exploring your inner world alone feels overwhelming, partner with an executive coach who can guide you through deeper inner work. Find a coach who practices vertical development if you are wanting to challenge your current mindsets and get unhooked from the reactive tendencies that hold you back.
Conclusion
Inner work is an ongoing journey that leads to more authentic, resilient, and effective leadership. And yes, it involves some heavy lifting to grow inward! For busy executives like Beth and Bob, engaging in this process can transform feelings of being stuck into opportunities for growth. As you reflect on your own leadership journey, consider taking the first step—practice more self-reflection or seek support from a coach. Inner growth has been the biggest gamechanger for many leaders we work with! Our team of coaches would love to help you reveal more inner clarity, personally and professionally.
SUZ FEELY is the Coaching Practice Leader at The People Side. She oversees our global coaching community and ensures every coaching engagement is successful for our clients.
