Written by: Asha Ghosh, Executive Contributor
Executive Contributors at Brainz Magazine are handpicked and invited to contribute because of their knowledge and valuable insight within their area of expertise.
The language we use plays a key role in our success as leaders – it can inspire and motivate our team or breed a lack of accountability, mistrust and friction. Yet, how mindful are we of how we speak to ourselves? When did you last consider how your self-talk affects your motivation and self-belief? How encouraging are you of your own success?
What Exactly is Self-Talk?
Self-talk is powerful. It can boost us up with an “I’ve got this” or bring us down with an “I can’t do this again.” That internal dialogue of how we express our feelings, both positive and negative, can manifest itself as encouragement and a sense of approval or take on a discouraging tone, with phrases like, “I’m not good enough” and “it will fail.”
What are the Effects of Self-Talk on Our Leadership?
The insidious nature of negative self-talk can impede our effectiveness as leaders. Studies in psychology and neuroscience have established that our thoughts become distorted by our internal chatter. Left unchallenged, these warped thought patterns become ingrained, habitualand destructive, especially during prolonged times of stress. The effects of this detrimental dialogue creates uncertainty and self-doubt whilst chipping away at our confidence, resulting in an aversion to pursuing ambitions, as well as challenging our mental well-being. One study even concluded that people who battle with more recurrent negative self-talk are more likely to endure workplace burnout. However, research has also demonstrated that positive self-talk can stimulate creativity and leadership abilities. Enhancing the way we communicate with ourselves can grant us the energy and motivation to realise our potential as leaders. Simply put, what we say to ourselves, ready does matter. Here are three steps, backed by research to challenge how we speak to ourselves;
Build new skills; build awareness of how we chat to ourselves
Build new strategy; take advantage of our inner chatter and use it to our advantage
Transform your leadership: role model positive self-talk with our teams and peers
How To Improve Performance and Mental Wellbeing through Effective Self-talk?
Building strategies to regulate self-talk will create moments of calm from the inner chatter, giving rise to the opportunity to be supportive of yourself and space to choose a different course of action that encourages and supports you. However, this requires you to become aware of how you speak to yourself, which can be challenging.
As the Founder of the Honest Partnership, a business dedicated to supporting women to develop themselves and their team to grow and be successful, I have witnessed how hard and uncomfortable it is to start to listen to our inner chatter. My approach is less confronting; by first observe others’ self-talk by watching Netflix.
Three Steps to Build New Awareness Skills
Step 1: Become Aware of Self-talk in Others I encourage my coaching clients to watch episodes of Reality TV; yes I am advocating screen time, but I am also building new skills too and I have seen the benefits to leaders success in doing this. What reality TV showcases amazingly well is distorted thinking. Whilst watching through the lens of self-talk, my clients build the skills to observe, to listening, and identify distortions in thinking. The shows also demonstrate how distortions manifest and effect others. To help this process, to accompany each show I share this list of common examplesof distorted thought patterns;
Polarised - The tendency to view a situation in either/or all-or-nothing terms
Catastrophising - Automatically jumping to the worst-case scenario (big leap)
Personalising blame - Instantly blaming ourselves no matter the situation
Filtering - Focusing on the more negative aspects of a situation whilst filtering out all the positive ones, which could lead to catastrophising
What I’m encouraging is for you to look out for and reflect on:
What language do you hear whilst watching people interact?
How do you respond to the language when you hear it? Uncomfortable? Familiar?
How positive or negative do your rate language? (scale of 1 to 5)
How aware are the people expressing themselves? (scale of 1 to 5)
How are the distortions affecting the situation? (scale of 1 to 5)
How are the distortions influencing decision-making?(scale of 1 to 5)
How are others reacting to the distortions?
This simple process illustrates the effects of self-talk at an individual and a group level and also gives you an insight into how inner chatter is affecting not just you but those around you. Step 2: Become Aware of Self-talk in Yourself
With your new skills of observation and listening and greater awareness of possible distortions, it is time to notice your inner monologue. I’ve two simple techniques. In moments of overwhelm, self-doubt, procrastination or frustration, check in with yourself for a few moments and just observe your thinking. What can you hear? How loud is your inner chatter? What has it got to say? A further approach is to set time aside15 minutes to reflect on your day or a particular situation. Observe; How does your mind re-tell you the story? What words are used? How true is this version of the story? How kind are you being to yourself? What can you hear about your distortions? Step 3: Become Aware of Self-talk in Your Team To keep building on your new skills and increase your leadership capacity a further step is to notice how your team communicates; Dynamics in meetings, via Slack and in moments of team pressure. Listen and observe. How positive or negative are the team? Are they celebrating their achievements? Or is more time spent voicing pressure and frustration?
Who is being blamed? What themescan you hear from the team? In building new skills, what I encourage my coaching clients to do is now recognise they have created themselves an opportunity to make significant changes. Here are a few scientifically backed ideas I have worked with, no Netflix this time.
Take Advantage of Your Inner Voice
1. Be Kind: One study showed kindness goes a long way in improving our performance. It's important to be kind to yourself like you would be to a friend. This can help you feel more confident and successful. If you find yourself being mean to yourself, take a moment to be kind instead. Use a moment of inner judgement to stop. Take a breath. Reflect give yourself a moment to show yourself some kindness, as you would a friend - start small. 2. Distance Self-talk Studies also prove speaking to yourself in the third person benefits is good for your self-esteem. Saying things like Eve, you can do this or Eve, you're enough can help you feel better and stay in control of your inner chatter. 3. Shift Perspective: Alternative perspectives are a further strategy that acts as a buffer from destructive thinking in those moments of challenging inner chatter. When things are hard, it can help to think about what your boss, friends, or family would say or do. They might help you see things from a different point of view and that can help you to stay calm and not get too upset.
4. Affirm: Science has found a way to help us when we're feeling bad; affirmations or statements of positive intent can make a BIG difference to how we feel about ourselves in moments of stress. It's important to use words that come from your own heart, so it feels like it's coming from you. But if you need help, you can look on the internet for things that make you feel better. Now you have built up your observation skills. You are making choices on how you speak to yourself you can now start to embed it into your leadership.
Role Model Positive Self-Talk
1. Leading by example: To be an awesome leader you have to demonstrate your commitment to positive language. This takes practice. It requires discipline to maintain a high level of engagement and awareness on your part to be cognisant of what you are saying and how you demonstrate a genuine interest in the team, their ideas and progress. 2. Start small, pick one meeting, write on your note pad ‘role model’ as a reminder and really really listen to yourself and your team. What are you noticing that you’ve not noticed before? Take on another meeting and keep repeating the process. You are building new skills of active listening and observation that can be taken to your next board meeting…now what are you noticing that you have not seen or heard before? 3. Celebrate Successes: Take time to celebrate the small wins and the accomplishments made by each individual or group within the team. Find a moment for each team meeting or as soon as they happen via Slack to take a moment to say well done. Self-talk is both destructive and a strategy for self-confidence and positive well-being. It can be a barrier to progress or be the motivating force behind your success. These small but significant tips and actions are tried and tested approaches to firstly building your awareness of self-talk, building up your skills and capacity to understand what it's doing and the tools to take advantage of this human trait. By harnessing self-talk you are creating opportunities to effect change for yourself and your family as well as for your team and the organisation you work for. You already talk to yourself, so why not make it a productive and supportive chat, a conversation that builds you, raises your confidence and self-assurance you are a success? If you’re interested in how reality TV enabled one leader to understand toxicity in the organisations understanding of their department and how they were able to challenge this held assumption and work with stakeholders solve the business problem, check out my blog post of working with one of my clients.
Asha Ghosh, Executive Contributor Brainz Magazine
My coaching programmes have already enabled senior professional women globally to unlock new levels of potential in themselves and their teams. Resulting in these professionals being able to lead, inspire and make bold decisions that not only support business objectives, but also allow leaders to find satisfaction within their home life, all underpinned by promoting a proactive approach to personal well-being.
