I was coaching a senior leader who’s been working on decreasing his tendency to micromanage his employees. He’s been making good progress but he received some feedback from his team that he was, once again, directing their day-to-day activities and failing to give them the freedom and opportunity to run their own projects.

“Sometimes I am my own worst enemy” he told me in our coaching session. “I just always think I have to make sure everything gets taken care of and the only way I know to do that is to take over.” he exclaimed to me with an air of frustration.

I suggested to him that he could rethink how he conceptualizes this problem and could definitely change his self-talk language as well. My perspective, I told him, is that he cares deeply about the work and his team and he wants to make sure that success and results are achieved.

I asked him to consider the possibility that there could be multiple paths to success and that instead of sabotaging his thoughts with ideas of enemy action, he could instead consider that he is actually his own best friend and with that idea he could spark the possibility of alternative thinking which could include letting his team take their shot at managing their own work.

Speaking to ourselves in positive ways is another key to being resilient. Life is tough enough without berating our own actions. After all, we need all the friends we can get.

© Richard Citrin, All rights reserved, 2015