Pride and Joy

Rise and Stride is a weekly newsletter for high-achieving women, focused on personal growth as leadership development, and exploring the inner balance that succeeds. The future of leadership success is already here.

At first, responsibility and authority empower us. For a while, success feeds leadership vitality. Later, leadership exhausts—mentally, emotionally, and physically.

That early leadership liveliness often morphs into lethargy in the absence of sufficient joy. The source of the morph is obvious, but hard to acknowledge.

Spoiler: it’s you. As a human leader you’re the source; we all are. Because humans are tribal, defensive, and needy.

These three patterns are genetic. That’s nature. And that’s the problem.

But, yay! Those universal human needs—social bonding, protecting identity, and emotional relief—are also easily met! Sadly, this good-news headline buries a serious lede: the sleazy nature of your easy out.

The “fast food” diet for such human hungers includes negative “what-iffing,” complaints, blame, and criticism. Grousing creates instant relationships via shared enemies. Gossiping juicy details provides a dopamine rush.

It’s the little things that make happy moments, not the grand events. Joy comes in sips, not gulps. ~Sharon Draper, U.S. children’s author and educator

Hourly hits of cynicism cost you. Investing mental and emotional energy in negativity generates an angry, worried mindset. The steepest price is the loss of others’ trust in you as they realize: This is how she talks about ME, too, when I’m not around.

The most tragic loss is how you shortchange the healing of your unhelpful patterns, like gossiping and spending time detailing others’ flaws.

A successful leader creates a culture of celebration sparkling with regular moments of joy. She elevates attention when others triumph over a challenge. Cheers their goal attainment. Applauds “sticking the landing” after a bold leap.

High-achieving women celebrate everyone—direct reports, peers, upline, and one more.

When I see a leader encourage self-pride in others, I recognize a leadership outcome. The input was pride in herself.

A high-achieving woman leader doesn’t ignore complaints about or deny relevant criticism of others or herself. But she knows to look beyond grievance, to locate pride. She “finds the good” to celebrate in others, while expecting accountability and improvement. She recognizes accomplishments and strengths.

And she models appropriate self-pride.

In spite of our agonizing history, Native American people find much to celebrate…all [the] reasons for us to keep moving forward with optimism. ~Deb Haaland, 54th U.S. Secretary of the Interior

If you can’t celebrate you, you won’t celebrate others. Again, all of us are tribal, defensive, and needy.

• A leader seeks a sense of belonging, an identity via tribe. When she reads the room and feels excluded, she will close doors to others.

• Every leader relies on feeling competent. Unless she celebrates her strengths and achievements, soon she will feel called to defend her abilities.

• And a leader needs to be witnessed. If your successes are not allowed a moment of recognition—not even from you—then you’re always hungry, and too needy to witness others.

Leaders who lack these senses of belonging, competence, and witness will turn to the junk food: whining, blaming, and trash-talk.

So, dear leader, celebrate your wins—not as a “superior,” but as a role model. Then keep going: celebrate every precious win for every-single-body you can!