Why Your Self Worth Plummets When You Rise Up As A Leader

We all say we want the higher and loftier status, positions and roles. We all say we want to take on more responsibility and pressure because with bigger roles and more responsibility comes more career satisfaction and success - right? 

And to an extent that’s correct - when we love what we do and we love the career path we have chosen for ourselves - rising up and taking on a higher role or position and taking on more responsibility brings us more opportunities, more exposure, more success and more money. 

What most people aren’t prepared for when they achieve the promotion or the new role they have been pushing hard for or saying yes to taking their career to that next level - is just how much their self-worth plummets and their unconscious sabotaging patterns take over. 

Let me explain. As you move through each stage of your career, you get really good technically and professionally at that phase. And this makes total sense right. You can’t transition to the next phase until you master the current phase you’re in.

You became so good at what you do, that the skills and professionalism that you have learnt become your new safety net - your new comfort zone. Over time you become what I call ‘unconsciously competent’ in that role - you can essentially do it with your eyes closed. 

Because you are really good at what you do in this phase, you get used to being able to do it with your eyes closed and you actually unconsciously start tying your self-worth to how good you have become. 

But let’s look at what happens when you up-level yourself to a higher role with more responsibility, more pressure and more exposure. With this rise up there are always going to be elements of this new role that you have no clue about, skills required that you haven’t yet learnt and a pressure and sense of ‘having to perform’ like you’ve never experienced before.

Your previously rock-solid sense of self-worth is completely shaken, and you feel completely out of your depth and outside of your comfort zone. 

What starts to happen when you’re in this state, is your unconscious sabotaging patterns of behaviour rise up and start to take you over. 

You unconsciously start reverting back to doing the tasks that are really easy for you to do (because this makes you feel good about yourself) as opposed to doing the tasks that are the most important and will move the needle the most for you and your team (because often these ‘big rock’ tasks make you feel uncomfortable and require you to step outside of your comfort zone). 

You may (again unconsciously) start hiding and shying away from your team - both above and below you - as this is a protection mechanism because you are feeling so overwhelmed about what is now required of you.

Or you may become quite arrogant, pushy and overbearing towards your team and those around you because you are trying to hide and cover up the fact that you’re feeling overwhelmed and scared about being outside of your comfort zone. 

Whatever your default unconscious programming is, just know this - along with your low self-worth, these patterns will absolutely raise their head during these times of transition because you are feeling scared, afraid and vulnerable and (being honest with you here) these unconscious patterns will absolutely sabotage you being as successful as you could be in this phase of your career - unless you do the inner work required to address and overcome them.

The good news is that if you can become aware of yourself as you transition in your career and can be prepared for your low self-worth and unconscious patterns to rear their heads - you will navigate the transition like a true leader and absolutely flourish in this next phase of your career. 

Live Out Loud 

Josh Stone