Guilt – something even people who were not raised by Irish catholic parents can experience.
But what if guilt wasn’t all bad? What if it could be a useful emotion for a leader? How might that occur?
Dr. Becky Kennedy defines guilt as what I feel when I have acted outside of my values.
What often feels like guilt but isn’t, and what Dr. Becky refers to as “not guilt” is the discomfort you feel when you have acted outside of cultural norms or values of a group, family, community, organisation, or your culture.
Notice that guilt is internally focused – a transgression of one’s own values, whereas “not guilt” only occurs when you do not honour others’ norms or values.
Glennon Doyle, on her podcast “We Can Do Hard Things”, ilt), offers four options for every decision we have to make.
Option One: I’ve made a decision that is aligned with my values and aligned with everybody else’s values.
I feel comfortable and happy.
Option Two: I’ve made a decision that is outside of my values.
I feel guilty.
Option Three: I’ve made a decision that is aligned with my values, but am not meeting somebody else’s expectations of me.
I feel discomfort, but it is not guilt.
Option Four: I’m acting consistent with my values, but at the same time inconsistent with my expectations of myself, i.e. my self-narrative or identity.
I feel torn, but it is not guilt. I am honouring my values but I am acting out of line with how I see myself (value: spending time with family; self-image: I work hard all the time)
Use this simple heuristic to discover if you are feeling guilty or if it something else. Ask yourself: Am I acting in line with my values? If not, then I feel guilty. If yes, I am either happy, or I am feeling something that is uncomfortable, but not guilt.
The way forward
- Get clear on your values.
- Get clear on your self narrative and explore how you define yourself. If you define yourself externally, i.e. vis-a-vis what others think of you, you will feel uncomfortable whenever you act in a manner inconsistent with other people’s expectations. You will likely be living from a place of “I need to be seen as X in order to be accepted.”
- Get clear on the boundaries you need to create and practise holding those boundaries. Remember, setting the boundaries is often easier than holding them when someone else tries to push them.
If you find it hard to hold boundaries, you may be feeling reactive because of a fear of not being liked, not being seen as smart, or not being seen as successful. The “not guilt” discomfort you feel is the fear of not being accepted or respected or or seen as worthy of love.
In which case you have work to do on your inner leader.
I help leaders do that work so that they can act from purpose and values, and not lead from a place of fruitlessly searching for externally validated safety.
You can be a guilt free leader.
