by Sarah Crawford of Sitawi Life Coaching, LLC
Not everyone would consider themselves a leader but to be a leader doesn’t always include a corner office and specific title. “We are moving to a new relational paradigm, where how we interact with ourselves, others and our environment is as important as what we produce,” says Karen & Henry Kimsey-House, co-authors of Co-Active Leadership.
Many Empaths, Highly Sensitive People (HSP), caregivers, deep feelers and sensitive healers find themselves natural Servant Leaders. According to the Robert K. Greenleaf Center for Servant Leadership, “A servant-leader focuses primarily on the growth and well-being of people and the communities to which they belong. While traditional leadership generally involves the accumulation and exercise of power by one at the ‘top of the pyramid,’ servant leadership is different. The servant-leader shares power, puts the needs of others first and helps people develop and perform as highly as possible.” Whether or not we have staff directly reporting to us in our work, we can be (and are) servant leaders for our companies, families, patients/clients and our planet.
The downside of being a Servant Leader is that we have an Achilles Heel and it’s enormous. Many of us put our own needs after those of others far too often, and without intentionality. This is unfulfilling and short sighted, albeit generous, at best; destructive and devastating at worst. We know it is unsustainable yet how to shift it and why does it happen?
Below are 7 habits to move you from self-sacrificial to self-loving Servant Leader, and thus expand your impact AND personal fulfillment:
1. Include yourself as a recipient of your servant leadership. It is astonishing how many of us deep feelers struggle with this until it is too late. It is not as simple as it sounds. Many servant leaders and caregiver types view the world through a “lens” of external service, looking outside ourselves for needs to be met. What is needed here, where is there a gap to be filled, how can I help? We love to serve, we value people, we are attentive to details and can foreshadow outcomes when things are left unaddressed. Sometimes this is not even a conscious thought – we just see and do. Therefore, burn out, compassion fatigue and exhaustion are common experiences when working in the caregiving or direct service field. The needs are endless, however, so if we don’t acknowledge that this caregiving needs to go both ways, we become self-sacrificial, not servant leaders. Think of it as less of a one-way lens, and more of a two way mirror. The people we are serving can only truly thrive under our leadership to the extent we are. Read that again. The good news is that we become excellent self-caregivers when we understand exactly what our needs are and put intention into meeting them with the same loving attentiveness we so readily give to those around us.
2. Use your own bad behavior to recognize when you have an unmet need. Parenting coach, Eliane Saint-Marie wrote a beautiful article on this topic and asserts bad behavior comes from unmet needs. You will probably not have to look far to find what these “bad behaviors” are that you can use as yellow caution flags to get your own attention, you are likely more than aware already (hello, our own worst critic). It could be snapping on those closest to you. It could be wasting endless hours on Facebook or in front of the tv at the expense of your other priorities or passions. It could be neglected household chores (or spouses or children). It could be unhealthy eating patterns. Instead of judging yourself so harshly, start seeking ways of including yourself sooner in your caregiving when you recognize there is a deeper need.
3. Pause and check-in with your inner wisdom. Ask your heart, “What is it I need right now?” Then listen for the answer and act on it. Imagine viewing yourself from 10,000 feet in the air with compassion. What is going on right now? What might you benefit from? For a proactive inner wisdom check, every morning before you get out of bed, ask your heart, “What do I need to know in order to be of the most service to myself and others today?” The thing about our inner wisdom is it knows more than us. It can see beyond the limits of the rational mind, and that’s why we ask it. It is an asset if we are willing to slow down enough to hear it, and trust it enough to act on it.
4. Look for win/wins. Once you recognize there is something needed, you may have many other obligations continuing to beckon you. Firstly, understand it will take time to re-train people what to expect from you, but this isn’t about doing the opposite and neglecting others the way you sometimes neglect yourself. In an abundant world, everyone’s needs can be met. Tapping into your creative resourcefulness and looking for win/wins will go far. Ask yourself (or others!), “If no one had to lose out right now, so I could get my need of ____________ met, what could this situation look like?”
5. Create a morning or evening ritual to start or end your day and practice it imperfectly. This proactive way of starting or ending your day with intention is highly underestimated and need not take long. There are a plethora of ways to begin or end your day that can be sourcing to you instead of reaching for your phone. Try a bit of yoga or stretching at home, use journaling prompts to connect in with yourself or try some of these self-care practices for HSPs & Empaths. If you prefer sleep to most other things in the morning, know a mere 5 minutes of intentional self-loving action can do wonders.
6. Schedule yourself spaciousness in your day – before and after activities. Give yourself a buffer to be away from people or integrate your experience and actually block it in your calendar. Again, this could be as simple as 5 minutes of silence alone in your car. Sensitive feelers process things “longer and more deeply” according to Andre Solo of the Highly Sensitive Refuge, and it’s important for us to understand and honor this need and gift rather than powering through from one thing to the next.
7. Give yourself grace, this takes time. Enhancing your relationship to your own needs includes recognizing how you function best, what you generally need in order to be well on a daily basis, and then acting on it and communicating openly to those around you who it impacts. As with any new behavior, humans are predictable. Eliane Saint-Marie compares the process of human behavioral change to a child potty training. I find this analogy so relevant to anything we are wanting to shift in life, not only because it’s super simple to understand but also because it normalizes why we cannot just expect ourselves to immediately make a change once we have realized we want to. We need to first realize, after the fact, that we are “peeing our pants,” she says. Forgiveness is key here. Oops, there I just zoned out on Facebook for 45 minutes instead of meditation for 5, for example. Stage 2 is realizing your behavior while it’s happening and riding it out the best you can. Stopping “mid-stream” is unrealistic and this is the stage people generally want to skip because it creates cognitive dissonance. You see you are doing something you do not want to do, as you are doing it, but you are a little too far down that path to change it, and so the body wants to go into shame response. Grace is the only way through this without numbing out and eventually repeating the pattern because you are mad at yourself and disconnected. To notice it here and stay with the awareness, is hugely celebration worthy. You might tell yourself, “This is stage 2 and I acknowledge myself for noticing. I will not pressure myself to do anything different at this moment, although my inner critic wants to be really harsh right now. This is the discomfort of stage 2 and it is progress.” Finally, stage 3 is realizing we are about to fall into old patterns, before it even happens – it is predictable, and then we actually do something different to interrupt the cycle in a way that is more aligned with our true commitments. You will get there with diligence and perseverance.
Re-structuring how we view and care for ourselves on a regular basis supports us to lead, and lead by example, for those we serve. It also brings us up to a foundationally even playing field with those who are not highly sensitive/empathic – in terms of our capacity to withstand the stimulation of leadership. Just because the world isn’t generally set up in a way that invites us Super Sensitives to thrive, it does not mean we don’t belong in leadership here; in fact, I suggest we are actually designed to lead. We just have to create a way for ourselves (and others!), and isn’t that what leadership is all about anyhow – paving new ground that serves the whole?
For more conversation on all things related to being a deep feeler, sensitive healer or heart-centered leader, join my Facebook group!