As a leader your life in the office can be complex when everything goes well: meetings (a lot of those), performance reviews, interruptions, and creating a vision and enrolling people in that vision. But then things don’t always go well. You drink too much coffee and get a bit too much ahead of everybody else; you forget an employee’s birthday; or you hire the wrong person —- to mention just a few possible issues.

Life as a leader is full of triggers for your inner chatter especially your inner critic.

And that inner critic can be a handful. It can be like a two-year-old. It won’t let go. It just keeps on coming back to the same issue. Even hours later your inner critic takes care that the issue will pop up in your mind.

Your inner critic also has a lot of “shoulds”:

I should have let that meeting better.

 I should have listened more.

 I should have talked with that employee sooner.

 I should ….

As a leader you need to do a lot every day. And some of these things fit in the category of “should.” like showing up as a leader day in day out. Or giving feedback to an employee as soon as possible.

But a lot of your “shoulds” are a red flag. It’s your inner critic speaking up.

So, what can you do about that inner critic?

1 – Your inner critic loves drama

Don’t take your inner critic too seriously.  Your inner critic loves drama. It blows things out of proportion, especially between 2:00 and 4:00 am. It’s seldom such a big deal as your inner critic wants you to believe.

2 – Your inner critic loves a certain communication style

Realize that your inner critic communicates often in an aggressive way. Most of the times you’re inner critic is not very respectful to you. Ask yourself: if someone sitting next to me, made such a comment like my inner critic just did, how would I react? Walk away? Thank that person for sharing that insight? Ask for more?

3 – Your inner critic could be in Charles Dickens’ masterpiece, Great Expectations

Charles Dickens’ masterpiece, Great Expectations, is a great read. And your inner critic would have been a great character in that novel. All of these great expectations and that you have of yourself as a leader mirrored by your inner critic.

What Great Expectations do you have of yourself as a leader. Are they realistic? Or do you have some kind of ideal leadership role model in your head that prevents you from being the best leader you can be right now?

Please become more aware of your inner critic and how it contributes to your already complex leadership world. Create more freedom as a leader and influence the relationship that you have with your inner critic. Follow the advice given in this article or sign up for the latest UleadU – program starting in a few weeks. Just contact me to sign up.