Welcome back to our Leadership Wellness series! This month, we’re diving into a fascinating concept from Carl Jung’s theory: the “shadow.” We’ll explore how acknowledging and integrating our shadows can profoundly support leadership development and personal growth.
Given my background in psychology, the concept of the shadow is one of my favorites. For high-achieving leaders, often masters of conscious self-reflection, engaging with the shadow represents the ultimate frontier. It’s an invitation to confront deeply held truths and rechannel powerful, often hidden, energy to lead with greater authenticity and impact.
What Exactly is the “Shadow”?
Simply put, the shadow isn’t just about personal blind spots. It also encompasses those collective, unacknowledged traits within groups and organizations. It represents aspects of ourselves—and our collective—that we’ve deemed unacceptable, inconvenient, or simply haven’t integrated into our conscious identity. While we are often unaware of the shadow, it’s always at play, subtly or overtly influencing our decisions and behaviors. Bringing the shadow into awareness is crucial for clear-eyed leadership and living a more mindful life.
To illustrate, I’ll share some composite stories, highlighting examples of highly effective leaders and the unexpected manifestations of their own shadows.
The “Need-to-Know” Leader
You might recognize this type of leader. They possess impressive credentials in their field and are deeply dedicated to their work. Imagine a director, highly accomplished and detail-oriented, who was dumbfounded to learn that multiple team members had complained to HR about “harassment” behaviors. From her perspective, she was simply doing her job by tracking everything that happened in the office.
Can you recall a time when your good intentions might have been perceived differently by others?
In my coaching work with this director, we began by reviewing her actions and understanding the motivations behind them. After multiple conversations, she revealed that her intense “tracking things down” sometimes involved inquiries into personal matters unrelated to work affairs.
As we delved deeper, a pattern emerged that we eventually called perfectionism. She described having profound difficulty with not knowing, not because she intended to invade her colleagues’ privacy, but because she feared any imperfection in work. Her underlying belief was, “I must know everything that could possibly get in the way.”
Related to these behaviors, a significant shadow she confronted during our coaching was the experience of being parentified as a child. Growing up with busy parents, she’d become accustomed to taking on responsibilities far beyond her age since middle school. While this pattern of over-conscientiousness had initially propelled her rapid ascent to a director position, it also fostered a subconscious enjoyment of the power and control that came with these unasked-for responsibilities.
At her current leadership level, however, these inquiries into colleagues’ personal lives clearly stepped beyond the bounds of healthy workplace behavior. The multiple complaints from her team served as a crucial opportunity. She began to closely examine her shadow, humbly readjust her expectations for herself, and compassionately address her emotional needs. She learned to set healthier boundaries, specifically by “slowing down” before reactively inquiring about information she believed she needed. She consciously reminded herself to first check if the information truly fell within her role and responsibility.
The Leader Who Only Sees Sunshine
Several years ago, I worked with an emerging leader in higher education who consistently struggled to deliver on his ambitious projects. When we first met, I found him to be easily relatable, passionate, and clearly driven by strong values. Yet, after several sessions, I began to realize that his easy-going manner was built on an excessively happy and relentlessly positive demeanor.
This leader sought consultation due to persistent, yet unrealized, difficulties in project execution. He proudly spoke of his highly accomplished team and the beautiful plans he had meticulously drawn, garnering numerous accolades from stakeholders. Still, despite extensive strategizing, problem-solving, and troubleshooting, we continuously failed to identify the root cause preventing results.
Have you ever found yourself or your team stuck in a loop, unable to pinpoint what’s truly holding things back?
One day, I finally shared my observation: “I feel like we’re circling around the block, and something is missing. Am I way off?”
He paused for what felt like an eternity—about ten seconds—before responding. His “highly accomplished team,” he admitted, had actually been grappling with significant internal conflict, both among themselves and with him.
What he had been trying to do, both with me and with his team, was simply to maintain a positive attitude, continue refining strategies, and implement new procedures, all in the hope that the team would miraculously coalesce and deliver the intended results. As you can imagine, this approach was not working.
I pointed out that even in our consulting meetings, he had exclusively shared the positive aspects of his team and the project. This, inadvertently, prevented us from getting to the heart of the issue, and I apologized for not catching the pattern sooner.
Confused, he explained that he had always believed a good leader needs to be inspiring and unfailingly hopeful. He didn’t think our strategizing was unhelpful; rather, he thought he simply needed to believe in the strategies and plans more deeply for them to succeed.
I applauded him for his positive energy, and we explored how it had previously benefited him. He quickly cited multiple examples where his positive attitude had been an asset, especially in his youth, growing up in a military family from a small town with limited resources, often needing to “pull himself up by his bootstraps.”
As we acknowledged the genuine benefits of maintaining hope and positivity, we then dove into the potential shadow of excessive positivity. This leader revealed that he “simply ignored” negativity and conflict in his life, including within his team. He believed that paying attention to them was “unproductive” and sheepishly admitted he “didn’t know what to do with them.”
In discussing his work-related struggles, he recognized similar patterns in his personal life. While his family had their share of conflict and disappointing situations, negative emotions were rarely, if ever, discussed. He had learned to “hold his head up and keep going.” Professionally, while he achieved great success, he had sporadically received feedback like “loses touch with reality,” “disconnected,” or even “was a robot.”
Consistently, he had interpreted these comments as fuel to achieve even greater and more difficult tasks, believing people didn’t appreciate his positivity because “they are weak.” Since positivity had always been his path to success, he had never truly sought new wisdom behind these critical comments.
I then asked him what it would be like for him to talk with his team, starting by simply acknowledging the conflicts and tensions that had been ongoing for months. He confessed fear, believing that addressing tension would only make it worse, since he had never done so before.
I invited him to reflect on his own experiences and imagine what it would have felt like if someone had acknowledged the negative feelings he felt growing up. After another long pause, he said that while it would, in some ways, make the negative feelings more real, it would also feel validating, and therefore liberating. He would have felt lighter.
Would you have guessed that excessive positivity could actually backfire for a highly effective leader? Examining the shadow of excessive positivity ultimately helped this leader explore additional leadership practices, including actively accessing and embracing vulnerability, and practicing greater compassion for himself and his team.
By facing his shadow, he was able to develop more constructive ways of proactive and emotionally attuned conflict resolution. Surprisingly, the team then moved forward with the project, not exactly as initially planned, but with more cohesive collaboration and shared direction. He even found the refined approach led to more creative and efficient improvements. Without directly facing his shadow, his team had spent immense time and energy navigating unaddressed emotions. By looking into his shadow with curiosity and openness, this leader began a journey of leadership truly integrating emotional intelligence.
Confronting the Shadow of Emotional Numbing
Perhaps one of the most common and pervasive shadows among high-achieving leaders is emotional numbing. I can’t count how many leaders have come to me on the brink of burnout, sharing sentiments like:
- “I just wanted to share my knowledge, but people seem uninterested, so I keep trying harder.”
- “I’m not afraid of getting my hands dirty; I love getting into the trenches with my team. Why don’t they appreciate it?”
- “I enjoy working, and I pride myself on working after hours to get things done. It helps me be better at my job. What’s wrong with that?”
Emotional numbing is a visible pattern of unacknowledged shadow for many competent individuals. Initially, when we numb our emotions, we might indeed feel more productive and accomplish more. However, this success and its outcomes are not accompanied by the genuine joy and accomplishment that replenish us because we are emotionally numb. This forces us to seek additional or bigger external outcomes to feel alive again, perpetuating a vicious cycle—a recipe for burnout.
Have you ever felt that disconnect between your accomplishments and your sense of fulfillment?
Catching ourselves numbing our emotions is the crucial first step to exploring the deeper shadows we might be facing. Ask yourself:
- Is there something going on in your personal life that deserves more care and attention?
- Was there a recent loss—of a friend, mentor, family member, or pet—that required time and space for grieving?
- Are you perhaps not as excited as you pretend to be about a work assignment, or an arrangement that took place, and you don’t feel like you can affirm those feelings or reactions?
- Are you feeling exhausted by balancing work and parenting, tired of putting on a happy face when you actually crave a 12-hour nap?
- Do you miss the days when you didn’t have so much responsibility and felt effortlessly effective in everything you did?
- Do you miss friends you no longer have time for?
- Was there a scary thing that happened that you haven’t told anyone?
- Is your health not as impenetrable as you once thought?
There are a myriad of reasons why competent leaders might numb their feelings, often because they want to do a good job and be of service to their team. Yet, this approach rarely leads to sustainable long-term outcomes.
Perhaps, try to attune to these shadows and listen to the wisdom they’re trying to convey. Rather than numbing, embrace these human reactions as an invitation to examine what may have been difficult or uncomfortable to face. Allow your true feelings to shine through the light, so they don’t have to stay hidden in the shadow. Recognizing the shadow with compassion and honesty helps diminish its power over you. This will allow for not just good outcomes, but sustainable, long-term success, in an aligned and authentic fashion.
Your Call to Action:
Consider reviewing some of our earlier posts on emotional intelligence for yourself and others.
If this post resonates with you, please share your thoughts and ideas in the comments below.
If you’re interested in coaching or consultation to examine your own leadership shadow, check out our services and reach out to us today!
