Finding Your Most Counterintuitive Leadership Growth Areas

We ask ourselves what makes us happy and work towards that. It turns out that your negative emotions are also a compass for action when they are accepted. Here's how to harness their wisdom.

Many of us did not grow up in a place where we were unconditionally accepted as who we are by those who mattered to us. Early on, we learned to suppress emotions like anger, sadness, or shame to “be loved” or “fit in.” As we grow into adults and senior leaders in the workplace, we carry these suppressed emotions with us and add to them with each conflict. In maintaining these parts of us that we do not accept, we lose out on learning from their wisdom and becoming a more grounded and resilient leader.

The Strain of Not Accepting Parts of Us

I was an opinionated child. When I challenged the strict rules of a Chinese elementary school classroom, my teachers scolded me for a lack of respect and discipline. When I got irritated at my younger cousins for wanting my toys, my elders admonished me for not being generous. When I challenged leadership decisions in the workplace, I was told to “keep my head down and do the work.” I learned from these experiences to tuck away my frustrations and anger to protect my safety and sense of belonging.

Over time, burying and hiding unaccepted emotions became a reflex. At the first sign, I would take a deep breath, stuff it away in that dark corner, and move on. However, like a dam holding a raging river, it took more and more mental strength to repress these emotions over time. Subconsciously, the separation used up a significant portion of my mental capacity and willpower (both precious and limited resources).

This strain became more obvious after I became a mom to a baby and a toddler while juggling a demanding job at Instagram/Meta during the COVID-10 pandemic. I woke up tired as the day was just starting. I felt intense irritation at a small inconvenience. It also manifested as physical symptoms – unexplained muscle aches, headaches, and skin irritation. It turns out that it was taking up a significant amount of my willpower to keep unaccepted parts of me separate and hidden — willpower I no longer had to spare.

Freeing Up Precious Willpower

Facing your buried emotions from your earliest childhood is not an easy task. After all, they were put there out of fear of safety, a desire to belong, or to keep the peace. Here’s how to create the capacity and space to accept these buried emotions and parts:

1. Practice sitting and holding the emotion. Perhaps the moment you feel the emotion is not convenient. If so, try bringing up the scenario and emotion at a later, better time. Resist the urge to put it in a box. Don’t rush it along. Meditation, walking in nature, and journaling are helpful tools for finding this space to sit and hold difficult emotions.

2. When you can sit with the emotion for a bit of time, ask it some questions from a place of curiosity: “What are you protecting me from?” “When else have I felt this emotion?” “Where in my body do I hold this emotion?” “Whose voice does the emotion embody?” These emotions allow you to better understand what triggers the emotion and what wisdom about your desires or values it may contain.

3. Finally, let the emotion go. Rather than holding it in a dark place or behind a dam, let it go. For some, it helps to imagine the emotion flowing somewhere — into an external object, the light, or into space. For others, it feels like grey clouds dissolving.

Sitting with the emotions and asking these questions brings more discomfort. After all, we are used to shoving it aside and replacing it with something positive. It may also feel like you’re not “achieving anything”. This is all normal. Give yourself time and space to hold, reflect, and let go. Fully processing our emotions is a powerful way to “empty the trash” and free up precious space in our lives.

When we accept what was once locked away out of fear and survival, the willpower spent holding up the dam can also be redirected elsewhere. I had more energy and inner strength to tackle my daily life (and toddlers).

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The Wisdom of The Unaccepted

It turns out that the repressed parts of us point us to our biggest areas of growth as a leader. Western media encourages us to desire better and more, buy quick fixes, and replace negativity immediately with positive experiences or purchases. However, it is avoiding the easy way out and instead going through the hard times that we discover our strongest sources of wisdom and strength.

Through working to accept what I previously feared and rejected, I gained a more holistic view of myself. Embracing my opinions and bossiness allowed me to gain more confidence and influence in the workplace. Being comfortable with conflict allowed me to earn the respect of my peers and more effectively accomplish my tasks.

As a coach, I see similarly powerful shifts in my clients. Someone who acts politely to keep peace finds that by facing conflict, they gain new self-confidence. Someone who confronts their fear of being wrong finds their influence strengthened by taking an unconventional viewpoint. Someone who pushes lets go of their need for perfectionism finds more joy and fulfillment in their daily work.

Personally, when my father was fighting stage IV cancer, I pushed past the grief and anger to find the inner courage to be a stable source of emotional support for my family. As an executive, I pushed past the fear of retribution to find my courage to stand against the bullying of others in the workplace.

Many mythologies and movie storylines follow an arc of going through failure in personal growth. The hero confronts their deepest fears, journeys into the underworld (or dark unknown), and comes out with new sources of wisdom and strength. Persephone journeys to the underworld to face darkness and return transformed with greater wisdom. Moana and Elsa from Frozen journey into the darkness to discover their inner sources of power.

Our first instincts (and upbringing) urge us to avoid and shy away from facing our unaccepted emotions. However, it is the same emotions that hide true courage, compassion, and inner strength. As Matangi in Moana 2 sings in the song “Get Lost”, getting past the fear of hardship is what leads to deep wisdom and personal growth.

That’s all folks! See you next week at 3:14 pm.

Yue