[00:01.9]
Hello, and welcome back to another episode of Walk into Your Next Grade. I'm Fiona, your host and resident professional development coach and this is another episode in our series about the management and leadership thresholds or kind of moments of identity shift that my clients often bump up against as they are progressing in their career or even just thinking about how to make this whole management and leadership thing feel a bit easier and more steady and sturdy.
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And this one, I'm not gonna lie, this is the one that was probably the most prevalent for me, and I still sometimes stumble around in. So, yeah, I'm gonna take this one a little bit slow because it feels personal.
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So the theme of this one is about when coping becomes a part of your identity and this kind of longing for people to see how hard you're working and how much you're doing.
[01:12.5]
And that feeling of kind of holding it all together and knowing that nobody's really seeing it. But partly that's because you don't let them see it. So let's get into it. The illusion here is I'm working so hard to hold everything together, why does nobody see me?
[01:32.6]
I feel so alone in this.
[01:38.1]
And it relates to the earlier items in the previous few episodes where we were talking about how you need to delegate more. So sort of, you know, getting out of that pattern of doing everything yourself and into the pattern of delegating to team.
[01:55.9]
Then we had this bit about how HR is not coming to save you and how you actually don't want senior managers to save you because they often kind of make things worse. This one's really more about hoping that people around you will see what you need without having to say it out loud.
[02:13.9]
Oh, it hits a little bit more. Hits a bit differently, this one. And what I'm seeing here, same as previous, it's all the diligent, capable, really reliable managers who have kind of built their professional identity around being the people who get shit done, who you can just leave things with because you know that they'll be able to do it all.
[02:42.0]
Who have all the best people on speed dial and they've got favours in the favour bank with all the right people and they've optimised their job to within an inch of its life. And they just are, super quick at stuff. If you need something done, you give it to this person because you know that they'll be able to do it.
[03:00.3]
And often they make coping look effortless. So they've been doing this for so long that nobody has any reason to think that they might be struggling. And if you ask them how they're doing, they're like, yeah, yeah, I'm fine. Just getting on with stuff, trucking along.
[03:18.4]
Actually, what they're really hoping is that you might see that they are exhausted underneath it all and kind of really need a bit of a break. And they're sort of wishing for someone to come along and take some stuff off them or even to kind of give them some more reward and recognition for all that they're doing.
[03:39.2]
And I think there can be a grief attached to feeling unwitnessed in the weight of that. And in my experience and also in what I've seen from my clients, this often comes attached to people who either have a sort of incompetent line manager or a very senior line manager who's quite removed from this person.
[04:07.4]
So often it crops up where people are like in those kind of senior manager type roles and professional services. So you might be like operations manager for a department or faculty, where your line manager is a.
[04:25.9]
The Dean of the faculty or something like that, where the line manager is an academic who just operates in kind of a different sphere than you, and you're the one who's responsible for making everything happen that they are influencing and negotiating to get done.
[04:43.9]
And I do think this is different than people pleasing. I think this is, this is an interesting spot because often this pattern is identified as people pleasing, where it's like, well, you know, you're doing too much. There's like too much people pleasing.
[04:59.1]
You need to learn to say no to some stuff. I don't think that's what this is, actually. I think it's different because that people pleasing has an outward facing sort of, you know, what do people need from me in order for it to be safe?
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So this is where we get people who say yes to stuff because they can't tolerate the idea of saying no or where they sort of suck it up rather than making a big fuss about stuff because they want to keep the peace with the other person. I don't think that's what this is.
[05:35.3]
This is more inward facing and this is about why isn't anyone seeing what I'm doing and it's a different pattern with a slightly different internal experience. The symptoms of it, or like, what might make that feel different or sort of look a bit different is often there's some resentment attached to it because just carrying loads of stuff.
[06:01.2]
Actually, often for my clients in particular, I notice it's where people have moved jobs internally and they've ended up holding on to stuff that belongs in a previous job that's just carried over with them when jobs have changed and people still call them relying on them for those things and there can also be a bit of keeping score, like sort of knowing exactly how many days it has been since your line manager last checked in with you or those kind of things.
[06:33.6]
And there can be a real sense of aloneness that doesn't go away even if you're surrounded by loads of people. And it can, what I think makes it particularly, obviously different than the people pleasing bit for these people, and I know for myself when I was in that situation, there can be a real difficulty answering the question what do you need?
[07:00.7]
So people might offer help and go, you know, there's some resource like what do you need? And you're going, I don't even know, I can't articulate what it is that I need because you're just so accustomed to coping and to just getting things done and holding it all together.
[07:18.9]
But it's like you've kind of lost contact with the part of yourself that knows what it is that you need or want. And it can be a really weird place to be. And I think the roots of this can be quite varied.
[07:36.4]
For some people it's about career related conditioning. Like I said, those people who have moved jobs internally and sort of brought bits of previous roles with them, maybe you're operating in an institutional culture that has particular expectations of things.
[07:54.7]
I think often there's a gender expectations element to this because the other thing to say is often this pattern replicates not just in the workplace, but at home as well. You know, it's often, not always, but often the working mum who's also, you know, doing a full day at work, where they're in a sort of support type of role at work, making sure that everything's getting done and that everyone's like, you know, got what they need to be able to do their bit of expertise well, and then they're going home and being the one who's like the rock at home that everybody leans on and who, you know, is sort of looking after ageing parents or being supportive in the community or whatever it is.
[08:38.3]
You know, this type of person has a lot going on and they're also just the one who makes it seem effortless to do all of that stuff. For others, though, it can have some deeper roots and I don't want to go into this in too much in this episode because really, for some of you, it might be that actually, you want to think about getting some coaching, definitely, therapy, maybe.
[09:05.4]
If you want some help, actually with untangling, whether it is therapy or coaching that you want or need, then feel free to get in touch. I'm really happy to have a totally free conversation with you about establishing the differences there and what would be a better fit for the circumstances that you find yourself in.
[09:22.5]
But like I said, for some of you, where that sort of coaching and, counselling-ey, therapy-ey approaches might be helpful, this might be a survival adaptation from earlier experiences. So it might be that you are somebody who grew up in a context where your needs were burdensome to the family, or it might be that you have a particular traumatic experience in your past.
[09:47.8]
Maybe you were required to start coping with adult life way before you were really resourced to be the adult. I know for me, that certainly resonates, you know, like there were some things in my childhood that meant that I stepped up and started being an adult way earlier than I should have.
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For some of you, it can be a real grief and trauma origin to this experience. And I think it's helpful to just hold all of that quite gently. If this is the first time that you're exploring this pattern for yourself, be really, really kind with yourself about it, because this is not a small thing.
[10:29.5]
And it's also one of those things where, yes, I'm about to share some practical approaches that you can take. They're also the kind of things where if you listen to those practical approaches and go, yeah, but I can't do that because xyz, that's a really good indicator that you might want some therapeutic types of approach of support to help you through this.
[10:49.7]
One of the tricky and sort of insidious parts of this pattern is that the behaviour that you're. Living, expressing, doing. I don't know. What do you do with behaviour, the behaviour that you have? Let's say. The behaviour that you have that is designed to be valuable, right?
[11:07.7]
Everybody knows you as somebody who gets stuff done, who's really capable and on it, is also the behaviour that is just chipping away at you or has chipped away at you and it's the coping that has earned you trust and responsibility and risk respect and has made you at the very same time has made you kind of invisible to people because they don't, because you make it look so easy they don't think they need to check in with you.
[11:44.5]
They just assume because you've always said that you're fine that you will continue to always say that you're fine and that you actually, not just that you're saying that, but that you are fine, right? They ask, how are you doing? You say I'm fine and they just take you at face value and they believe what you say might not be true all of the time, though.
[12:05.2]
And also, there's a real sadness, I think in this, because the truth of the matter is those people around you who are asking if you're okay, and you're saying, yeah, I'm fine, are also often the people who would give you heaven and earth.
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They would move heaven and earth for you to make sure that you're okay because they care so much about you, but you're not letting them help you by coping and being fine and telling people that you're fine when you're really not.
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I just really want to be here with you in that moment of realisation because it certainly brings tears to my eyes. That truth, I feel that so strongly as a real truth that often the people around you would move heaven and earth to give you what you need, but I know that's really hard for you because you might not even know what you need, let alone be able to articulate it.
[13:08.5]
And, you know, those people who are there to help you might not know that you need anything because you haven't been articulating what it is that you need. And then there's this added career dimension which I think we'll probably come back to in another episode where this over functioning identity has sort of trapped you at this level where coping is rewarded because you're in exactly that role of kind of being the "senior manager on duty" kind of identity where you're just keeping everything going.
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But it means that it's really difficult to step out of that pattern enough to step into leadership because leadership requires a lot of the skills that you're not practising.
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That's what it is. You're not practising the skills of leadership because you're such a capable and competent manager. You're managing everything. That's it. That's exactly it. Right. You're managing everything. Everything.
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You're managing people stuff, you're managing tasks, you're managing diaries, you're managing meetings, you're managing committees, you're managing the shit out out of everything. You're managing the home, you're managing the family, you're managing everything. Really difficult to then get known as a leader because the skills that you're avoiding in the managing are, the skills of leadership.
[14:41.6]
It's advocating for yourself and for your team. It's negotiating and not accepting no as the end of the conversation. It is stepping out of being, and I use this word with so much love and tenderness, but stepping out of "mater mode" and into "leader mode", where you can make needs known and where you can ask for what you need and where you can negotiate on that basis, where you can have full integrity with yourself and your work about how much capacity there really is and what can realistically be achieved in, within that capacity.
[15:27.7]
It's because all of that so vulnerable that it's like you're not practising the skills of leadership and so this career cap happens where it's really difficult for you to get promoted beyond this super capable person and often, and I think I've talked about this certainly in HET break episodes, I don't know if we've talked about it on podcast episodes, but often the reality is when these people leave those roles, they get replaced with more than one person because they've been holding so much, they're actually doing two people's worth of work and then they leave and everyone's like, oh, shit, shit that person was doing so much.
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How is that possible? We actually need another body to be able to cover all of this. That should tell us something. That really should tell us something. These people are doing too much and we're letting it happen because, you know, they just make it look so easy.
[16:24.9]
Anyway, I feel like I've wandered off point a little bit. Let me get back on task. So I think for those of you listening, this is what I wish for the younger version of myself who is caught in this very same trap, is to take the time to slow down and to ask yourself who is being served by this pattern and like, what's the fear here?
[16:54.3]
Often what I hear from clients and what I think I would have answered, you know, when I was really stuck in the thick of it, is that it is somehow feel self indulgent to ask for what you need and that you don't want to be a burden to anybody and that there's a sense of like, well you just should be able to cope with it all.
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The thing is, though, when often when I explore this with clients, we come to the realisation that actually it's not self indulgent because when we look at the bigger structure of things, if you continue the way that you are, you're quite likely to end up making yourself sick, going off, probably taking some time off sick, and then actually the whole system starts to break down because you're not there as the grease that keeps everything moving.
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And so if you flip that and start thinking about what your true responsibility is, what if your true responsibility is to be well enough to be present and to let those systems work?
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And as we talked about in previous episodes, to make sure that the responsibility for task lands in the right places. That then brings a really different shine or a different lens on this kind of familiar, martyr-ey flavoured position that has been comfortable in a lot of ways, but where it sort of, you know, kind of.
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I don't know, like, I feel like I'm going to speak for myself because I don't think it's fair to speak for clients experiencing this, but I know for myself, in the past I would have wallowed in the experience of feeling like a martyr to the system and how much I had to do that was unseen and unrecognised.
[19:01.5]
And there was a kind of comfort and a familiarity in wallowing in that, but it also let there be suffering and, I don't think any of us should have to suffer in that way. But in order to get out of that, there's a need to kind of take more responsibility for ourselves and our own well being more, you know, to even that balance between how much responsibility we take for all of the stuff, everything that needs to happen, and evening that balance up with how much responsibility we're taking for ourselves and our own well being.
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And I think that's really tricky and I think that's the gap that is often left unaddressed in assertiveness training, in any of those kind of management type trainings that are just like, well, you know, stop being a perfectionist and just get on with it or like feel the fear and do it anyway or, you know, a lot of those kind of things that don't tend to the fact that actually this is a really tender part of ourselves that may be anchored to a much younger experience that we had where we just had to cope.
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We just had to be the person who stepped up. And now learning to undo some of that and to take better care of ourselves can be really tender, ,ery humbling, very, very humbling and therapeutic in nature sometimes.
[20:34.1]
And I think in doing that and working through that, and being able to then do this when it comes to the practical side of it, we need to be able to separate problems from needs. So what I mean here is I used to work with somebody who would come to every leadership team meeting talking about how her team was really under resourced, but she never quite got to the point where she asked for what she wanted or what she needed.
[21:05.6]
She just repeated over and over and over that her team was under resourced. She never renegotiated and said, because we're under resourced, these are the things that we can't deliver. And she never said, actually, in order to deliver all of the things that we're being asked for, can I please have some additional resource?
[21:22.5]
She never got to that point. She just constantly talked about how she didn't have enough resource and it sounded a lot like complaining and it sort of got to the point where after a couple of years of this going on and on and on, unaddressed, which I think is a leadership issue in itself, that nobody took her aside and helped her with this, but it got to the point where people would sort of roll their eyes and be like, oh, here she goes again, talking about how she doesn't have enough resource.
[21:48.2]
So for you and for my clients that I work with on, this theme, we're looking at separating the problem from the ask. So the problem is you don't have enough resource. That's true. The ask is the what are we going to do about it?
[22:03.8]
That doesn't involve you working all of the hours in order to get everything done in that void at your own expense. How are we going to advocate for the resource that you need or for the reprioritisation of the things, the demands that are being made of you and your team so that all of that becomes more achievable, or whatever that looks like.
[22:24.9]
But that's a practical example of separating what the problem is and what the ask is, so that you can approach that from that leadership lens where you're bringing a really sturdy conversation to the people around you to talk about what's achievable, what's realistic, and to be able to do that with integrity and solidity.
[22:48.6]
And in doing that, it kind of changes the frame. So you move from, I need to do everything and just cope and suck it all up. Not doing that anymore. We're also not in this space of, like, if I ask for what I need, I'm being selfish.
[23:09.7]
We're not doing that. Instead, we're in this other place where I get to have my needs met, but only if I'm brave enough to make the ask. Only if I'm brave enough to make the ask. And this is where I want you to think of this as part of leadership, because it's in practising the ask.
[23:34.4]
Practising these conversations of identifying and then asking for what you need and moving through that conversation all the way to the end. So when some, when your line manager turns around and goes, well there is no resource, you just have to make it work, you're not taking that as the final answer.
[23:51.1]
You're going, okay well, if that's the case, then we need to talk about what priorities they are because, you know, blah, blah, blah, continuing that conversation, not just taking the brush off and going, okay, fine, well, I guess that was a fail and I just have to carry on sucking it up. It's about finding that courage.
[24:08.4]
And on the other side of the courage is then the confidence because remember confidence is an output, not an input. So you need the courage to start off, then the practise, and then the confidence comes on the other end. And I think it's really important to know, you know, and I alluded to this at the top of the episode.
[24:29.4]
This is not a one and done threshold. It's not like moving house where you sell the house, pack up the house, you give the keys over, and then that's it, you're gone. You never go back there. This is more like you cross the threshold, you go to work for the day, you come back, you're crossing the threshold again.
[24:46.9]
Or could be daily practise of reminding yourself that it's actually really important that you start practising learning what your needs are, asking for your needs to be met, and then having those conversations to make sure that, that you're getting your needs met.
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And in doing that, you open up so much more capacity and it's such a more mature way of approaching life, and it's such a more balanced way. And I think actually, often the people around you will be relieved if you go, actually, do you know what?
[25:22.7]
I do really need some help. People love helping other people. Like, you know that. You absolutely know that because you are one of life's great helpers. You will help everybody and anybody. Now it's your turn to start accepting help and letting the other people around you who care for you express that by helping you too.
[25:43.2]
All right, today's episode might have landed a bit hard. I know I had a little, my eyes welled up in the middle of it. I hope that you're doing okay. Go really gently with yourselves. If you see yourself in this pattern and if this is the threshold that you're at, like I said, get in touch.
[26:03.2]
One to one coaching is how I work people with exactly this moment. Equally, if you want to have a conversation with me about whether coaching or maybe counselling would be a better fit, you're not sure, and you're like, what is the difference between coaching and counselling?
[26:19.8]
And how do I know? Get in touch. I'll put my contact details and website details in the caption show notes below. Let me know. Really happy to have a totally free conversation with you about that and get you the support that you need. All right, take good care and I will speak to you next time.
[26:38.3]
Bye.
