The Inner Work of Leadership
I’m curious…how are you?
At our Leadership+Design programs, we sometimes ask another question: “How are you, really?” We ask the question and then we have folks put their answers on Post-it notes, stick them on their shirts, and walk around to see what other people wrote. It’s an invitation to be just a little bit vulnerable and honest, to peek under the “can-do” armor we usually wear as school people. Perhaps someone else’s Post-it says, “Tired” or “Overwhelmed.” It’s a chance to stop, look at their face, and ask how they’re really doing, to share a story, to be human together.
No matter which way you voted, last week was a roller-coaster ride of emotion. I would have needed multiple Post-it notes to describe all the ways I felt. But interestingly, the day after the election, some friends told me that while private office conversations were loud and emotion-filled, public common spaces were eerily silent. Water cooler chatter was absent or muted; people didn’t look each other in the eye as they passed in the hallways. No one wanted to ask, “how are you, really?” Were they afraid of the answer? Did they feel unequipped to manage personal feelings? What was lost in the silence?
What did you notice about yourself when you were around people who weren’t in your inner circle? How do you know how your colleagues are really doing?
And how does all this connect to what it means to be a leader?
We are used to thinking about leadership in terms of success and ambition. Our image of the leader is the one in front, holding the bullhorn. It’s a world of action, of goal-setting, of org charts. Maybe that’s okay, as long as the leader first knows themselves and then knows the people around them. Educational philosopher Parker Palmer said, “We teach who we are.” He explains, “In every class I teach, my ability to connect with my students, and to connect them with the subject, depends less on the methods I use than on the degree to which I know and trust my selfhood - and am willing to make it available and vulnerable in the service of learning.” [The italics are mine.] Substitute “teach” for “lead” and substitute “student” and “subject” for the people you lead and the organization you guide - and you have a very different path to leadership than one taught by most business schools.
L+D calls this the “inner work” of leadership and we think it’s absolutely critical to building our capacity as leaders. In a recent conversation about this aspect of our work, my colleague Tara Curry-Jahn defined inner work as “any provocations, space, reflection and connection where people are asked to look at themselves and how they move through their lives, their work and their world.” Antonio Viva called it the “table where the head and the heart sit down to explore life’s most interesting and profound questions.” And from Carla Silver: “The value of inner work is that it helps us identify the gap between who we are and who we want to be.”
Palmer defines inner work around your identity and integrity. Your identity is the sum total of who you are - your qualities and values, how you were raised, what you love or what challenges you, your conscious self and your shadow self. Integrity is how you relate to your external world, what pieces of your identity have you chosen to live by, what moves you forward or holds you back. “Identity lies in the intersection of the diverse forces that make up my life; integrity lies in relating to those forces in ways that bring me wholeness and life,” says Palmer. (See his insightful book Courage to Teach for a fuller explanation.)
We ignore this inner work at our peril and at the peril of our leadership and the people and organizations we lead. Research shows that self awareness is one of the greatest predictors of sustained success. Knowing who you are, what values or stories define you, influences not only your method of leadership but colors and sharpens the way you see the world. Inner work grounds you in reality; it makes clearer the lens with which you perceive and then act. As Ryan Burke said: “I think there is no outer work without inner work; there is an order of operations. Inner work is the foundation of the house.”
No one says this work is easy. But the rewards make all the difference. “The courage to face ourselves, to be the highest version of ourselves, takes deep reflective work,” said Esperanza Academy Head of School Jadihel Taveras in a recent conversation. “Our ability to do the work of leadership, or our inability to do the work of leadership, is dependent upon how courageous we can be when looking inward.”
Good leaders do this work insistently, consistently, and courageously for themselves. Great leaders encourage and make time and space to build the capacity of others to do this work.
Here are some ways to start.
Being curious about our identity and our integrity is a lifetime exploration. Plus, my inner self often hides - from embarrassment perhaps or just plain neglect. Leaders who use reflection as an intentional tool to get to know themselves seek many ways to gain self-awareness. Perhaps you journal or meditate daily or take comfort in another spiritual or religious practice. Perhaps you take your dog for long walks without headphones just to hear yourself think. Here are some other ways we weave inner work into the work of building leaders.
Use poems, songs, pieces of prose, or even a walk in nature as a focus for reflection. Palmer calls this using a “third thing,” something that becomes a generous mediator of the conversation between your external world and your internal world. While you are focused on the poem, for example, you might be surprised to hear what thoughts are popping up in response, what connections your mind is making, what memories are stirring. What do those thoughts tell you about the state of your inner life? Two of my favorite poems to do this work are “Fire” by Judy Brown and “Go to the Limits of Your Longing” by Rainer Maria Rilke.
Go “One Level Deeper.” My colleague Crystal Land does this brilliantly. She asks you to write a short story about yourself, a mini-memoir. After a few minutes, she stops you and invites you to draw a line under what you wrote. Then, she says—“Write again and go one level deeper.” By the third, fourth, fifth time, if you’ve stuck with this which you should, you have plumbed some internal rabbit hole you may not have known existed. A walking meditation version of this is offered by leadership consultant Judy Brown. As you walk, say to yourself, “A piece of data I see is…and the story I tell myself about it is… Another piece of data I see is…and the story I tell myself about it is…” It’s a great way to ground your self-exploration in human-centered data.
Explore a Personal Manifesto. From our colleagues at the Stanford Design School and their book You Need a Manifesto, try creating a statement that boldly proclaims your convictions, your values, and the world which you see. “A manifesto is a navigational practice that doesn’t tell you what is right or wrong in every instance, but rather makes clear to you what you believe and how to make decisions that are aligned with those beliefs.” What are your core values? What are the stories that you tell yourself about who you are, what you fear, what brings you joy? Write one for yourself and then ask your team members to write one as well. What might you learn about one another that will enhance your group dynamics? Or that will change the way you view each other and the world you create together?
I could go on - this is my passion! - but I invite you to add more ways you engage in inner work. I’d love to hear them.
And if all this still feels a little out of your comfort zone, just begin by taking a very small risk. Begin by asking someone, “How are you, really?” And then just listen.
