Overcoming Fear and Reflexive Reliance - Managing the Shadows of Your Superpower
Your biggest strengths are likely also holding you back. Out of fear, habit, or ignorance, we don't manage the very real downsides of over-reliance on a strength or superpower. Let's change that.
Hi! I'm Yue. Chief Product Officer turned Career Coach. My mission is to support more women and minorities to reach the executive level.
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When it comes to being an effective leader and executive, it is critical to focus on your strengths and superpowers. Every leader needs to develop and nurture his or her unique gifts and talents. This allows you to stand out in a competitive space, do more with less, and exceed expectations without burning out.
It is equally important to identify and regulate the dysfunctional side of the superpower. Carl Jung called this the “shadows” of our strengths. Nikhyl Singhal, VP at Meta, also speaks to the idea of Shadows of Superpowers. If not managed well, the shadows will create conflicts in collaboration, reduce creativity and new ideas, and ultimately block your advancement.
Why do we have shadows? Why do most of us fail at managing it without proactive reflection and practice?
Ignorance: Our strengths are our strengths because they are effective at solving problems for us and, generally speaking, work well. It simply may not occur to us to employ other tools or to look beyond our current capabilities. It’s working — let’s worry about the 1000 other priorities and problems instead.
Reflective Reliance: Our shadows come from overused strengths. As humans, we are wired to create patterns and repeat them. We form stereotypes to help us shortcut social interactions. We use emotions to make decisions quickly. We develop habits to get through life with more ease. However, repeated reliance on a particular set of tools can blind us to alternatives, and we begin to tell ourselves that those superpowers are our only powers.
Fear: Sometimes, we are afraid of change and scared to try. I don’t mean you’re actively running away. This fear is more subtle and hidden. It comes from the fact that we often strongly associate our identity with our superpowers. Our fundamental sense of worth is connected to our current behavior. Changing something that will affect our sense of self-worth is scary. We fear that change will result in a loss of self-confidence.
As the saying goes: What gets us here, won't get us there. Letting fear, reliance, or ignorance run the show means that sooner or later when you encounter a different or more challenging setting, your superpower will become your Achilles heel.
Examples of Shadows of Superpowers
Your strengths and your shadows are two sides of the same coin – if you have superpowers, you also have shadows. What are some examples? How does this play out in the workplace? Here are some common scenarios:
A confident leader can become arrogant when they over-pivot on their intuition or experience and not the input of others (the classic Achielle’s heel story of hubris)
A leader who is a fantastic public speaker may become overly protective of their spot in the limelight.
A leader who is a gifted critical thinker may become overly critical of others.
A super-helpful leader may struggle with saying “no” firmly and take on too much, ultimately dropping the ball
A leader who is very empathetic and considers everyone’s perspective can be too slow in decision-making
A leader who is super-driven can dominate a team or conversation, and become intimidating to others
Understanding the shadow of your superpower is particularly important when working in a new environment or with a group. If you’re joining a new workplace, the culture may be extra sensitive to or put an additional spotlight on the shadow of your superpower, making it more detrimental to your success than before.
For example, let’s imagine your superpower is verbal communication and you join a new company that values written communication. Likely, you’ll see that your previous methods of verbal communication aren’t working well. To compensate, you work harder. You try even more ways to talk to others — setting up more meetings, taking up more airtime in group conversations, or stopping people in the hallway. This leads to more frustration from your teams and decreased trust in your effectiveness as a leader. (Hello hamster in a wheel furiously working itself into a deeper and deeper hole).
Similarly, if you’re taking on a stretch role or a different project, it may require you to collaborate differently or come up with new ideas, leaving you unable to reflexively rely on your superpower.
For example, when I was moving from IC to manager, one of my superpowers was seeing a creative “answer” to a customer problem quickly, and then moving on to execution. It frustrated me that my team didn’t see it, and often, in the spirit of moving faster together, I would “give them” the answer. This led to my team feeling disempowered, rushed, and at times intimidated. I outranked them, so it was difficult to push back or even give me critical feedback. My superpower, which served me extremely well as an individual contributor, was quietly but quickly harming my effectiveness as a manager.
Managing the Shadows of Your Superpower
The are three basic steps to effectively manage the shadows of your superpower: Identify, Experiment, and Rewire. As with many other soft skills, it comes down to understanding yourself and your impact on others, trying out new approaches, and then making what works a new habit. Here are some important shortcuts and notes about this process as it relates to managing the shadows of your superpower.
Identify
The first step is to identify what the shadow of your superpower is.
When does it show up in your collaboration with others?
What different forms does it take? What are some specific examples or situations you can point to and replay in your mind?
How do people react when they see or sense the shadow? What expressions do you see? What do they do differently?
What conditions make it stronger (e.g. when in groups? when you’re tired or stressed? when you’re in a room where you lack power?)
When you are understanding your shadow, keep in mind that curiosity and sensitivity to others are key.
Be curious about your emotions
Recognize when you are feeling angry, frustrated, or defensive in the workplace. Consider, “Why am I worked up right now? What just changed?” Perhaps someone just raised their hand for a speaking role you wanted. Perhaps you’re trying to verbally explain something to a group and getting frustrated that they’re not following your logic. Perhaps you have such a high bar for quality that you’re angry that no one has met it so far. By becoming aware of surges in your emotions that are disproportionate to the situation at hand, you can recognize that a shadow has been triggered.
Be sensitive to unexpected reactions from others (and feedback)
Pay attention when you get an unexpected reaction from a coworker or in a meeting when you’re leaning on your superpower. Pause and ask: what just happened? It may be counterintuitive, but it helps to reflect on how others are reacting when you feel most in your element. This is when your superpower is shining its brightest, and you’re most likely to think: “Oh this is easy / obvious / so simple!” This is also when the shadows will come out the edges, and you may notice a creased eyebrow or a person looking defensive.
A lot of coaches will advise seeking feedback. While I completely 100% agree that feedback is a gift and so valuable, it’s rare to find places where people will actively give you critical and honest feedback on your superpower, proactively or even when asked. This is because they don’t want to hurt your feelings or your sense of self-worth. So if you can get the feedback, treasure it. Otherwise, try putting up a strong antenna to detect small unexpected reactions, particularly when you may be in your “shining moment”.
Experiment
When you have an idea of what the shadow of your superpower might be, look for alternative ways to handle a situation. Often, as mentioned, our strengths are so strong that we simply don’t even bother thinking about if there is another way. And our initial reaction when asked to try another way is “There isn’t one as good.”
When you’re trying to figure out how to tame the shadows of your superpower, keep an open mind and be open to possibilities. There is almost always more than one way to solve a problem or get work done.
Seek Discomfort
This process of identifying the shadows of your superpower will not feel fun or comfortable. You are actively looking for fault in a place that you associate with positivity and strength. It may feel like you’re trying to ‘ruin a good thing.”
Growth happens outside our comfort zone. We need to clearly and realistically recognize that too much of a good thing can be a bad thing. Get out of your reflexible reliance on your superpowers within your comfort zone, and seek positive growth.
However, don’t get too extreme and actively seek out situations that heighten the shadows of your superpower. Often, walking away is still a great tactic that allows you to continue to play to your strengths rather than shoring up your weaknesses.
Fear is not your enemy
Some people see courage as being fearless. This is wrong. Acting without fear is generally irresponsible and reckless. The definition of courage is “acting despite being afraid.” It is okay to feel fear, to worry about experimenting with something that touches your sense of self-worth. It is important to keep moving forward to identify and understand the shadow, even when there’s a knot in your stomach, a lump in your throat, and sweat on your palms.
Re-wire
Once you have identified new approaches or ways to manage the shadow of your superpower, it’s time to make that a new tool in your toolbox.
Change the talk track in your head
The first step to adding this new tool is (no surprise) a mindset shift. It requires you to make space for this new tool by coming up with a revised talk track in your head.
For the person who is trying to be considerate to everyone, it may mean playing a tape that says “Making a timely decision to move forward is critical, even if not everyone is thoroughly heard.”
For the logical leader who tends to view others as irrational or “not getting it”, it may mean more commonly asking: “What logic are you using? What is the context you’re operating with?”
For the go-getter annoyed at their colleague who takes too many breaks, this might sound something like, ‘That person knows how to take a step back to go two steps forward and not burn out.’
Once you change the talk track, you’ll be able to make space for new behaviors.
Make time for an actual response
Once the initial situation passes and you have reflected and developed a plan for what you want to do differently next time, make the time to go back to the uncomfortable situation. Rehash the situation with a peer and practice your new response. Whether it is talking explicitly about what happened together, making a formal apology, or analyzing the shadow of your superpower explicitly, prioritizing the time and space for explicit conversation on the topic will help ingrain it into your memory.
When you reflect on the shadow of your superpower to understand when it shows up, how it affects others, and how that affects you, you make your superpower stronger. Raw power gains strength when it is shaped and molded into its most useful form. Through getting deep with the shadow side, you will get better at wielding that power and strength responsibly, knowing when it is a “go all out” situation versus when a “thread the needle” approach is better. And then, when inevitably you cause some unintended damage with your superpower, you know exactly how to make it right.
See you next Thursday at 3:14 pm PST!
Yue
Want to learn more about Leadership Superpowers?
I’m teaching a live course on Maven about unleashing your superpowers. In two weeks, we work through how to identify your superpower, how to find projects that unique value it, how to build it into your brand, and how to adjust your delegation and time management so you can do more with less.
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Unleash Your Leadership Superpower: Do More with Less. Featured course on Maven in Exec-Track Collection.
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Love this, Zhao! Re-stacked ❤️
Really helps with understanding your strengths and the negative impact of your strengths more deeply.