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Welcome to the Internally Guided Leadership Blog!
If you think, "there's got to be a better way to navigate leadership," you are in the right place. We need a radically different type of leadership in the world. Things look pretty bleak out there, and people's eyes are opening to that fact.
Who am I?
I'm Kayla. I used to think that leadership was an immoral pursuit, and I wanted nothing to do
with it. I took note of the dark side of leadership: power, control, manipulation, harmful hierarchies, and a money-before-people mentality. I mainly had seen toxic leadership that caused as much harm to the leader as it did to the people around them.
That is until I kept reluctantly finding myself in leadership roles. Spaces opened where leadership was needed everywhere I went. Good leadership is needed everywhere, after all.
When I noticed these leadership gaps, one part of me wanted to blend into the background, do the job, and go home unnoticed. However, I couldn't help but step up and into roles that influenced and impacted others.
My Leadership Burnout Experience
My early days of leadership were not easy. I fought so hard against the ideas in my head of what bad leadership was that I wore myself out almost entirely. I wanted to be there to support my teams and ensure their success, but I struggled to do this effectively and efficiently.
In those days, I pushed myself to do more, take on more, fix everything, say yes to every request, self-sacrifice, be on-call 24/7, and people-please everyone I interacted with. You probably know where this is going, but it didn't end well for me. I burned myself out completely and quickly.
When I was in this place of burnout, I was no good for anyone. I wasn't able to show up energetically and authentically with my team. I also wasn't showing up as my best self at home. I was tired, irritable, and frustrated. Even when I was on the brink of collapse, I kept taking on more. I wanted to help my team, but I wasn't sure how.
I wasn't ultimately doing anyone a favor with these behaviors. I wanted to be an impactful and supportive leader, but I didn't know what balance and harmony in my leadership role could look like.
My emotional landscape seemed filled with sharp objects, brushing up against me at every corner as I strove to do it all - and be it all - for everyone - all the time. It was too much, not to mention impossible. I knew I couldn't sustain it. I was exhausted and confused. And that could have been the end of my leadership journey, I could have given up and decided that it just wasn't for me, but I didn't.
Even then, some part of me knew that each of us holds a powerful leadership capacity that, balanced with authenticity, creativity, and a moral compass, can change the world.
Learning, Growing, and Leading
A lot has changed for me in my life and leadership since those early days of trying to find
balance and make an impact without knowing where to start.
In my quest to figure out how to lead well, I diligently studied psychology, consciousness studies, and leadership theories.
I learned to practice emotional and social intelligence skills to create meaningful, healthy, and transformative relationships.
I worked through deep personal healing and internal reflection.
All of this, combined with a lot of trial and error, allowed me to become the type of leader I always thought the world needed - an internally guided leader.
I've learned that the compass guiding me through rough waters can be found within myself.
I've learned to create harmony and balance in my life, giving me the energy to pour into others and act in alignment with my values.
I'm still on my journey, making mistakes and learning with each step. I'm excited to use this space to share what I'm learning and connect with you wherever you are on your journey.
Even through the most challenging days, weeks, months, and years, we are capable of transforming ourselves, our workplaces, and ultimately our world. As leaders, we are responsible for doing this transformative work and creating environments that foster life instead of depleting it.
This excites me and gives me hope as we encounter challenging times because I know we can do remarkable things together.
Leadership is Changing
The leadership landscape is changing, and we've each got a part to play in developing this new breed of leadership. This new leadership is generative, creative, life-giving, and value-oriented. This leadership seeks to restore harmony within individuals, the workplace, and our larger communities.
So much of how we've historically "gotten things done" in our society is outdated and highly toxic.
How we think about leadership must transform as we seek a path toward sustainability, authenticity, inclusion, and purpose.
This new leadership road starts within us, and we are in for quite an adventurous ride. Did I mention we will have to make the map as we go? The old leadership maps are no good for where we are going. So, this journey will be an offroading leadership adventure to places no one has gone before.
The old leadership methods centered around power and maintaining the status quo are no longer effective. Externally validated leadership focused on fancy titles and climbing toxic corporate ladders hasn't created a world we can be proud to live in. Our workplaces are an anxiety-filled, stress-riddled, imbalanced, and unsustainable mess. Gallup found that workplace stress is the highest it's been, even higher in 2022 than it was during the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020.
It's time we toss out the useless maps created by people unfamiliar with the terrain we are now navigating. We must make a cartograph that will guide us toward a future we can enthusiastically embrace.
Those still clinging to outdated systems and innately harmful ways of leading others are in for a rude awakening because people aren't putting up with it anymore. The great resignation and the quiet quitting phenomenon are evident everywhere.
People are speaking up through their actions and no longer dealing with inequitable, unsustainable, and downright toxic environments. Highlighting this, Gallup's fall 2022 data reveals that only 32% of U.S employees are engaged with their organization. Those actively disengaged have increased to 18%, leaving the rest of the workforce in the middle.
Further, Gallup estimates that 50% of the workforce are "quiet quitters." Quiet quitters are the folks that are doing the bare minimum of the job expectations and going home. This phenomenon results from poor management, toxic culture, and failure of organizations to create environments that align with people's values.
People aren't willing to go above and beyond for organizations that don't value, support, and respect them. If we want to transform workplaces and engage employees, we have to rethink everything and create something new that aligns with what people want and need in their lives.
Paving New Leadership Roads
For those who want to pave the way forward with new, sustainable, healing, and authentic systems, we are in for many road bumps and unexpected detours. This path requires courage, heart, creativity, grace, humility, and resilience. We need each other as we navigate this journey and create new life-giving and empowering ways of being and leading.
This blog is my attempt to find you, my fellow offroad leadership travelers, and let you know you are not alone on your journey. I'm here to walk alongside you on your journey and offer support, guidance, and techniques I've learned during my decade-long leadership adventure. I'm here with you, exploring new ways of leading aligned with values and igniting passion, presence, and purpose each step of the way.
The "Why" of Internally Guided Leadership Blog
This blog is an offering from my heart to yours. My purpose is to inspire loving action in the world so we can move towards a future we can be proud to have co-created. I want my experiences, insights, and perspectives to inspire, empower, and enliven others. So, I am sharing them here: the good, the bad, the ugly, and the transformative.
The goal is to learn and grow together so we can move through the challenges we face. I want to empower you to live a life of passion, presence, and purpose because I genuinely believe this is possible for us all if we are willing to direct our time, energy, and attention to the generative things in life.
I don't have any miracle solutions for you here. There's no magic pill.
There's only showing up with openness, ready to learn, and ready to co-create something worthwhile.
How Does This Blog Serve You?
The Internally Guided Leadership Blog will release new weekly content to serve and support you on your leadership journey. Topics that will be covered include but are not limited to burnout, work-life harmony, presence and mindfulness, social intelligence, emotional intelligence, navigating professional relationships, boundaries, the dark sides of leadership, authenticity, vulnerability, sustaining passion, aligning with purpose, leading consciously, creating inclusive spaces, making work a place for transformation, and so much more.
I'll connect you with books, articles, podcasts, and other resources that I've found helpful on my journey and offer you my unique perspectives on new issues in leadership as they arise.
I invite you to give me feedback along the way. Let me know what you want to read about and what you are personally navigating, and I'll do my best to integrate it into the weekly posts. I want to hear from you.
Conclusion
We need a new type of life-giving leadership for the leaders trying to create sustainable paths of living and leading and for those impacted and influenced by them.
Internally Guided Leadership Consulting embraces leadership that is internally defined and guided rather than legitimized by external sources or illusions of power.
An internally guided leader intentionally embraces their whole Self from within and leads from that place. We are authentic, honest, compassionate, and always learning.
We seek balance and healing through our actions and understand that the changes we hope to make in the world, we must first make in our hearts.
I'm happy you are here. The world needs you.
If you want to take your leadership journey deeper, connect with me for a discovery call to see how my 1:1 coaching services can amplify your impact and move you toward a life of passion, presence, and purpose.
My signature course, Burnout to Balance, is enrolling now!
Click here to schedule your complimentary discovery call!
Until next week, Kayla
Kayla M. Sweet is the owner, operator, and primary service provider at Internally Guided Leadership Consulting LLC.
Kayla has her BA in Psychology and her MA in Consciousness and Transformative Studies. She specializes in Transformational Leadership and Consciousness and Healing.
Kayla has over a decade of experience in leadership and management and has served in retail, food service, human resources, and mental health settings. She currently offers leadership coaching, consulting, and training in alignment with her mission of inspiring loving action in the world by empowering heart-centered leaders.
Sources:
Jim Harter, "Is Quiet Quitting Real?" Gallup, accessed 10/14/2022 https://www.gallup.com/workplace/398306/quiet-quitting-real.aspx
Mari Carmen Pizarro, "Identifying Toxic Leaders And How To Handle Them" Forbes, accessed 10/16/2022 https://www.forbes.com/sites/forbescoachescouncil/2022/08/09/identifying-toxic-leaders-and-how-to-handle-them/?sh=72cadf2226b9
Shweta Jhajharia, "Team Leaders: Here's How to Manage Your Leadership Burnout" Linkedin, accessed 10/16/2022 https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/team-leaders-heres-how-manage-your-leadership-burnout-jhajharia/
Ashley Maier, "We Are All Leaders, Whether We Know It or Not" Psychology Today, Accessed 10/16/2022 https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/psychology-in-the-real-world/202203/we-are-all-leaders-whether-we-know-it-or-not
Harvard Business Review Staff, "Leading By Feel" Harvard Business Review, Accessed 10/16/2022 https://hbr.org/2004/01/leading-by-feel
Daniel Goleman, "Leaders Who 'Get' Their Teams" Korn Ferry, Accessed 10/16/2022 https://www.kornferry.com/insights/this-week-in-leadership/social-intelligence-leadership
University of Massachusetts Global Staff, "What is transformational leadership? Understanding the impact of inspirational guidance" University of Massachusetts Global, Accessed 10/16/2022
Gallup Staff, "State of the Global Workplace: 2022 Report" Gallup, Accessed 10/16/2022
Srikanth Karra, "The Great Resignation As An Opportunity For The Great Reshuffle" Forbes, Accessed 10/16/2022 https://www.forbes.com/sites/forbeshumanresourcescouncil/2022/09/27/the-great-resignation-as-an-opportunity-for-the-great-reshuffle/?sh=294a5de5a5e4
Don't forget to read the fine print:
The Internally Guided Leadership Blog is the property of Internally Guided Leadership Consulting LLC. It is not to be reproduced, sold, or distributed without permission and appropriate credit given to Internally Guided Leadership LLC and content creator Kayla M. Sweet. This blog is promoting Internally Guided Leadership LLC's services, including but not limited to coaching programs, 1:1 coaching, and leadership consulting.
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