Why leadership always comes back to doing the “inner work”
I entered the workforce straight from music conservatory, with only a few jobs under my belt as a waitress, private music teacher, and performer of paid gigs. I didn’t see it at the time, but those roles—server, teacher, and performer—had one thing in common: the expectations were extremely clear. It was easy to tell when I was excelling or failing.
When I started working in office environments, I began to notice that the definitions of success for my role were vastly different and often inconsistent—sometimes within the same organization. I soldiered on, motivated by the mission of each organization I chose, and desperately eager to please.
I usually succeeded.
To very small, scrappy organizations, I brought strategy, entrepreneurial habits of mind, process, systems thinking, and creativity that helped us innovate, experiment, and reinvent how we did our work. To highly stratified, large organizations that had loads of resources and a glut of talent, I brought specialized skill sets, big ideas, and a mission to learn, connect, and collaborate.
I also failed. At the time, I saw one layer of truth:
Wherever I landed, I consistently thought I was doing everything “right.” I’d formed good relationships, I was getting results, I was learning, creating, and felt I was adding value.
And yet, I kept hitting walls. It hard to tell when I was excelling or failing.
For instance, many workplaces avoided conflict. Which meant that honest, consistent, process-oriented feedback was hard to come by. The annual review was a dreaded moving target, as in these spaces, lack of feedback meant I didn’t have a true sense of how it was really going. And when it wasn’t going well, I was defensive and deeply hurt. I hungered to learn and grow, but it was hard not to take even small failures personally. So, I blamed them.
In other organizations, culture set strategy. Which meant that although we talked about innovation and bold work, we then rarely ended up doing it, for a host of reasons, including not wanting to change. When I realized what we’d discussed likely wouldn’t happen, I often lost interest, or at worst, became defiant and didn’t hide my disappointment that we weren’t “walking the talk.” I blamed them too.
Other failures included my own energy. For 10 years, I lived on the edge of pure burnout from the relentless hustle the work demanded. It often felt like whatever I did wasn’t ever going to be enough. The work was an insatiable beast, and I was out of ideas about how to feed it and stay in one piece myself. I also blamed them for that.
It took having every aspect of my life blow up for me to see a deeper truth. For the first time, I finally couldn’t ignore that I was the person responsible for all of it.
I began to recognize my role in these failures. I resisted seeing it. But when I was really honest, it was unmistakable. I was the through-line, the common denominator, behind all of it.
They hadn’t been wrong after all. I’d been wrong, and being right was how I’d learned to protect myself from hurt.
(And wow, was there ever hurt there).
Still, it gave me hope to tell myself: You created this. And the person who can fix it is you.
It was my own come-to-Jesus moment where I committed to healing and rebuilding my life. If I were going to accept responsibility for my life and all of its results, I’d need to focus on me. Because who else would do my work to heal and get happy?
I recognized I would need to address the hurt I had been burying, too. I sought help: therapy, coaches, friends, family, endless YouTube playlists, affirmations, meditations, books. Self-development became my new set point.
Who I had been, and how that person moved through the world, would need to end, in order for me to be where I wanted. And that would require me to reinvent myself from the inside.
I looked at what was happening inside, and began by remodeling my inner monologue. I chose new thoughts on purpose—thoughts that the healed, full person I was working to become would think.
I suspended distractions—dating, friendships, family, travel, socializing, and any extra projects beyond what was required—so I could get to know myself on these new terms. I questioned old ways and made choices that matched the person I wanted to be and the life I wanted to live.
This is part of a practice I call “inner work.”
As I pursued the inner work, I began to understand that my inner wounds and the way I coped with them were the source of my failures as a leader, partner, friend, and family member.
Doing inner work helped me remember who I AM. I became full and happy, even when something happened that was beyond my control. I started showing up differently, and others noticed it too.
This is why I’m a proponent for doing the inner work. Your leadership, relationships, quality of life, and self-outlook will change immeasurably when you begin to see that:
Your healing is grounded in accepting responsibility for your life, for yourself, and for your results.
Your past need not be a playbook for your future.
You can’t outrun accountability for what you choose. Eventually it will catch up to you and you will need to accept it. It’s better when you accept accountability as part of the deal.
When you are in a healthy place with yourself, other people and what they bring to the table won’t shake your confidence.
Your wounds, or what you might find inside yourself, isn’t bad, shameful, or something to be afraid of. Your wounds are actually what’s helping you call in your greatness.
This is what leadership is all about. When you decide to lead—and not just respond to—your life, you become powerful in new ways.
It’s all possible, and so much more satisfying, when you’re doing the inner work.
As I often say to clients, you are the artistic director of your life. You get to make your choices. What happens, what shows up, is because of the script you’re running. And you can always change the script.
So go ahead, do your inner work. It’s been calling you. And I promise it’s worth it to answer the call.