Is it important to practice Self-compassion as a Leader. Whether you have been in a Leadership role for one week or 25 years, it’s never too late to learn a new Leadership skill. Leaders focus their development on skills that increase their decision-making efficiency and drive growth, and rightly so.
But as a result of being critical decision makers, many Leaders criticise themselves internally regarding the decisions they make. Resulting in emotions of fear, doubt and insecurities.
Not controlling these reactions will cause a lack of confidence in your future decisions.
During Leadership training, you learn how to make calculated risk decisions. But you are not taught how to handle the impact these decisions make on your wellbeing.
Self-compassion is a habit that is easy to learn, and the core result removes these negative emotions that occur when making critical business decisions and replaces them with:
- Emotional Intelligence.
- Growth Mindset.
- Compassion towards your team and other Leaders.
How can you practice self-compassion as a leader?
Self-compassion takes a short amount of time to practice and is not a difficult task. However, the challenge is keeping it a consistent practice that is at the forefront of your brain.
Self-compassion aims to replace negative emotions. Therefore, the best time to practice self-compassion is when you have a negative thought that you don’t always notice.
So, our recommendation is to spend the next 30 days being aware of thoughts, and where you identify feelings of doubt, insecurities or fear during the workplace, try the following:
- Take a deep breath (a great way to calm your body is to try the 4-4-8 technique).
- Acknowledge the emotions you are feeling and the reason that could be behind them.
- Shift your mindset and think of an alternative positive outcome.
- Say something kind to yourself regarding how you have handled the situation.
Need more advice, visit our insights page to find out more.
References
https://hbr.org/2020/11/self-compassion-will-make-you-a-better-Leader
https://www.calm.com/app/program/rGyf9vxfGN
