You are a successful senior leader; you have a reputation for delivery and are admired by your peers. Yet you still feel like something is missing. There is an emptiness, a lack of meaning and a sense that something more is possible.
I meet a lot of executives who talk to me about this gap in their lives. To the outside world, they seem to have it all. But on the inside, it’s a different story. Why is it that so many leaders experience this? The answer is an uncomfortable truth, that it’s time to finally grow up!
What makes a leader so successful is their ability to adapt to their environment. They achieve results where others struggle. But in adapting their mindset and behaviour, they sacrifice something of themselves. This results in them becoming a ‘smaller person’ than they naturally are.
The path to achieving results is well trodden – adapt, give up some of your authenticity and achieve success. Hit repeat again and again over the course of a career, you end up with executives who are comfortable in life but somehow, they feel more robotic and detached than they used to. But why is this? Quite simply, the more a leader adapts their authentic self, the less they experience their true nature in daily life.
In reality, this actually paints a rosy picture of executive life. More commonly I find leaders who are stuck in their career, fearful that if they make a change, they will lose all that they’ve built and achieved. Even worse, some become complacent in their success and their career just becomes a relentless treadmill.
In both of these states, it is only natural to distract yourself with becoming even busier or to anesthetise yourself with food, drink, working out, or some other addiction. This becomes the all too ordinary and predictable route of so many executives’ lives.
So why is it that there are some leaders out there who are full of meaning and purpose? The difference is that these are the executives who realised that it was time to finally grow up.
But what’s involved in growing up? It’s not about taking more senior roles, having more people report to you, or having a larger P&L.
In the life of an executive, finally growing up is about how you respond when something larger than you or your mindset turns up. This could be failing to get a promotion, losing your job, getting divorced, experiencing illness or suffering a bereavement. It’s at times like this that you could choose to double down on your current formula for success or examine what would be a larger way to approach the situation.
When leaders become aware that a larger perspective is possible, this is inherently meaningful. They detach from their familiar, narrow ways of thinking, choosing instead to change their mindset by fully engaging with the unfamiliarity and scale of the circumstances and challenge which faces them.
Only by taking in the whole view can they properly see things in perspective, proving that this larger way of being in the world is far more resonant and connected. Awakening and aligning their behaviour with a deeper and truer sense of themselves. They begin to recover the parts of themselves they gave up. They realise that being their whole self, with skill, is full of meaning and purpose. Through growing up, life becomes larger and they become adept at facing ever bigger challenges.
The work of finally growing up isn’t easy, but just ask a mature adult leader, and they’ll tell you that this cycle of growth is certainly worth it.