"I'm not a convincing speaker." "I just can't seem to plan my weeks better.""I always struggle to find the right words in conflicts."– Are you familiar with these or similar inner monologues? Every day, we tell ourselves what we are, what we can and cannot do, and far too often we speak in absolute terms. "Always. Never. That's how I am. Not like that."But that's fatal. For your impact as a leader your development as a person.
You may find it difficult to give convincing presentations. But perhaps you can easily persuade your partner of your point of view on a regular basis.
It may be that you are at loggerheads with your schedule. But perhaps that has only been the case since you had to cover for a colleague on long-term sick leave and the number of your meetings has increased dramatically.
And while you can easily get flustered when conflicts arise at work, you have no trouble finding the right words among your friends.
When we speak in absolute terms, we do ourselves an injustice. As a rule, our thoughts, behavior, and feelings are context-dependent. Our personalities are not as one-dimensional as we sometimes want to believe.
In science, models of inner parts (see Gunther Schmidt), inner teams (see Friedemann Schulz von Thun), and inner families (see Richard Schwartz) have become established for this purpose.
People are complex beings and not one-dimensional. We feel, think, and act differently depending on the context. To exaggerate slightly, one could say that we consist of many selves. This perspective may seem strange at first, but it allows us to not identify completely with our problems.
Working with inner sides should be understood as a dissociation technique. This means that you view yourself from the outside, so to speak. This allows you to understand a problem in such a way that you are not affected by it as a whole person and do not identify completely with this problem. In the best case scenario, you will succeed in having only one side of yourself temporarily identify with the problem. You create distance and give yourself room for maneuver. A pragmatic approach.
If you describe yourself as a poor speaker, unstructured worker, and so on, then you are maneuvering yourself into the role of victim. You have no chance to change. Because that's just how you are. This is not helpful for your own development and your impact as leader.
The next time you catch yourself judging or condemning yourself harshly, look for distinctions. Look for areas of your life where you are already succeeding in behaving the way you want to. Areas where you already apply different thought patterns and where you already evaluate the reactions of those around you differently. Look for differences in thinking, feeling, and acting. The realization that these differences are key to personal development is not new. Steve de Shazer already emphasized the importance of letting differences work for you in his research.
This distinction—or rather, the realization that failures, crises, and shortcomings represent only one side of us in a given context—is not only crucial for your personal development. It can also be a catalyst for successful leadership.
Consider how you evaluate your employees. When was the last time you thought, "Mr. Smith never meets a deadline"or "Ms. Meier can never assert herself"? When we speak in absolute terms, we deprive ourselves and the people we lead of opportunities for change and development.
Explain the page model to your employees. Empower your employees and open the door to responsibility. Your employees will then be able to search for distinctions that prove to them that they can do things differently and better, and not just when problems arise. The trick is to catch yourself in the act by pausing briefly when you have negative thoughts and self-criticism and reevaluating your own experiences and behavior from an observer's perspective.
Only when your employees recognize the differences themselves can they stop playing the victim. Only then will they have the self-confidence and motivation to actively tackle change. This will ultimately lead to better results. Instead of banging your fist on the table, consider using the side model as a lesson in your next employee appraisal. It will pay off, even if the conversation requires a little more brainpower.
To those who are now thinking: Are we no longer allowed to speak in absolute terms and vent our anger? To them I say: Of course you are, one side of you is even allowed to do that...
Image source: Bryan López Ornelas