Rodrigo Martínez “Without self-awareness and the ability to manage our emotions, often, without knowing it, we lead from pain, not from the heart. This is not only a great energy for us and the people around us, but it creates distrust, disconnection and an eggshell culture. ” I learned to live with the saying “You can never have enough of what is not needed.” It is not easy, one of the patterns I have observed when working with leaders is that many people lead from a place of pain and smallness, and use their position of power to try to fill that void of self-esteem. But we cannot fill a vacuum of self-esteem leading and using power over people, because that is not exactly what we need. Leading from pain instead of leading from the heart means that we are working our garbage on other people. And, because we are not addressing the true driver of our pain, this behavior is not an occasional angry slip. Inflicting pain instead of feeling hurt becomes a habit. In general, it is fair to say that we are all working on people all day. But when you add the leadership power differential, it becomes dangerous. The “lead from pain” behaviors can be fed by not feeling any value on the part of our partner or our children, so we double the fact of being seen as “important” at work by giving credit to ideas that are not ours, remain in comparison mode and always knowing instead of learning. The most common cause of the damage I have observed comes from our families. Family things can seek the approval and acceptance of co-workers that we never receive from our parents. Also, if our parents’ professional failures and disappointments shaped our education, we can spend our careers trying to undo that pain. That often takes the form of an insatiable appetite for recognition and success, for unproductive competition and, sometimes, for zero risk tolerance. Identifying the source of the pain that is driving how we lead and how we show ourselves to other people is important, because returning to that place and doing that job is the only real solution. Projecting pain in others places it where it does not belong and leads to serious breaches of trust. Our long and hard search for whatever we need never ends and leaves a wake of disconnection. Comment on our social media Follow us on Facebook & Instagram Coldwell Banker México
