What Are Your Insecurities?

I want to challenge you in this Leading Thoughts to do something that likely won’t be pleasant. I want you to take an inventory of your insecurities. I ask this of you only to make you a better leader.

We all have our insecurities. Think of them as tender spots on our souls. Perhaps they are better understood as bruises or sensitive scars that aren’t fully healed. We need to know them and confront them so that we don’t form our leadership around them.

I once advised a fine man whose firm was going through a time of crisis. As good a leader as this guy was, we often came to moments when he was nearly immobilized, almost incapable of functioning in the face of what he had to do.

As we drilled down into this, I found that he kept saying, “I just don’t want to be misunderstood.” He said this over and over.

I realized that I had to wake him up to the reality that being misunderstood is part of leadership. It will happen. We have to face it and take it in stride. As we talked about this, I began to realize that he was the son of a harsh father who didn’t get him, and he was the youngest brother of a bunch of siblings who thought him weird. Being misunderstood was the most painful experience of his life.

Now, what is important for our purposes is what this did to his leadership. He had such a sensitive bruise on his soul in this area of being misunderstood that he wouldn’t act decisively if he thought someone, somewhere, might not get him. He couldn’t let Bill in accounting go despite Bill’s incompetence because he was nervous that Jill in marketing might not understand. His company was suffering horribly as a result.

The good news is that as we explored how this agonizing insecurity deformed his leadership, my man disconnected his past from his present and started leading well. He’s thriving today, as is all he leads.

Now we all have insecurities and not all of them are as deeply rooted as the man I’ve described above—with permission, by the way. Some leaders suffer from a wrongheaded “imposter syndrome.” They don’t really believe that they are as good as they appear and they fear being exposed as frauds almost every minute. Other leaders fear betrayal or can’t take criticism or are debilitated by the very idea of confrontation.

Your goal is to figure out what insecurities might be deforming your leadership, if you don’t already know. Here are some steps.

• Look closely at any big leadership mistakes you’ve made and drill down into the inner bruises or deformities that may have misshapen your actions at the time.
• Ask those close to you what they see.
• Lay aside the issue of leadership for a moment and ask yourself this broad question: “What bruises and deformities would be naturally produced by the life I’ve led?”
• See if you can isolate what phrases you often say when you’re under stress. Examples might be, “I don’t want to be misunderstood,” or “They are all going to leave me,” or “I know they are planning something that will hurt me,” or “I’m used to this—everything in my life goes to *&%$!”
• Finally, if you know you’ve got some debilitating insecurities but can’t seem to locate them with any of the above steps, be courageous enough to see a counselor or professional coach. Don’t be ashamed. We all have our tender spots. You have to know yours to lead well.

Great leadership will be at a premium in the season to come. We need you healthy and strong. I’m proud of you for taking this matter of insecurities seriously.