The Voice Inside Your Head
The Voice Inside Your Head
I drove home from a workshop once and didn't hear a single song on the radio.
Two hours. And my brain was too busy replaying every moment that hadn't landed the way I wanted. The bit that felt clunky. The question I fumbled. The energy in the room at that one point that I couldn't quite read. By the time I got home I'd practically talked myself into never delivering a workshop again.
Then I didn't sleep. Because apparently two hours of self-critique wasn't enough.
The feedback came back a few days later. It was great. Genuinely good feedback. People had valued it. Things had landed. And do you know what my inner critic did with that information?
Found a way to hold on anyway. Yes but you could have done that bit better. Yes but imagine how good it could have been.
That voice. We all have one. And for a lot of us, it's the loudest one in the room.
It doesn't show up when things go wrong. It shows up when we've done something that matters to us. When we've put ourselves out there. When we've tried. That's when it gets busy. Picking apart the edges. Replaying the moments. Measuring the gap between what happened and what we'd imagined.
And here's what I've come to understand about that voice. It's not trying to destroy you. It's trying to protect you. It's the part of you that cares deeply about doing good work. About showing up well. About mattering.
But left unchecked, it doesn't make you better. It just makes you smaller. Too scared to try again. Too focused on the gap to see what you actually did.
The work isn't silencing it. You won't. I haven't. The work is learning not to hand it the microphone.
Because that voice will always find something. Always. If you let it run the show it will talk you out of the workshop, the conversation, the decision, the room. And the world will lose something it actually needed.
The feedback was great. And I could probably do better next time. Both things are true. The difference is which one I choose to lead with.
The Conversation
Where is your inner critic running the show right now? And what would it look like to hear it, acknowledge it, and then put it back in its place?
Go with confidence this week
Mary-Anne :)
The Hunger Games Effect
There's a pattern I keep seeing in organisations right now. And it worries me.
Two leaders pulling in different directions. Not because they don't care. Not because they're not capable. But because the external message about what was expected wasn't clear enough. And in that gap, the confusion found somewhere to land.
Not on the system that created it. On each other.
I see this play out in a lot of contexts. And it almost never starts with the people. It starts with the pressure.
External change that isn't well communicated. Shifting expectations that leave people guessing. Competing demands that force impossible prioritisation. Comparison that pits teams against each other. Blame that rolls downhill and lands on the people closest to the work.
And when that pressure arrives without clarity, without context, without enough support to make sense of it, teams do what humans do under stress. They look for certainty where they can find it. They protect their patch. They lead from their own interpretation because nobody has given them a shared one.
And suddenly people who were previously good together are working at cross purposes. Not because they don't care. Because they're trying to navigate something genuinely unclear, and doing it without a shared map.
That's the hunger games effect. When external pressure creates internal competition. When the real disruption is coming from outside but it's playing out inside. When the culture you worked hard to build starts fracturing not from the inside out, but from the outside in.
And the tragedy of it is this. The team often doesn't realise what's happening until the damage is already done. Until the trust has eroded. Until the shortness and the distance and the quiet pulling apart have become the new normal.
So what does it take to stop it?
It takes someone being willing to name it. To stand in front of the team and say, the disruption we're feeling isn't us. It's coming from outside. And we're not going to let it take our culture with it.
That's a leadership act. A quiet, deliberate, powerful one.
It means getting clear internally even when the external message is muddy. Agreeing on what you know, what you don't know, and how you'll move forward together until the clarity arrives. Not waiting for permission to be a coherent team.
It means protecting the relationships. Especially when the pressure is highest. Because the relationship between colleagues, between leaders, between a team is the thing that holds everything else together. And once it fractures under pressure it takes far longer to repair than it did to build.
And it means resisting the pull to compare, to blame, to turn inward in ways that cost the culture. Because other organisations are not your competition. Other teams are not your benchmark. The only question worth asking is, are we doing right by the people in front of us and the people beside us?
External pressure is real. The demands are real. The confusion is real. But so is the culture you've built. And it's worth more than any external expectation that wasn't communicated clearly enough to be worth fracturing over.
Don't let the outside in.
The Conversation
Is this pattern showing up in your team right now? How are you managing it? I'd love to hear.
Go with Care this week
Mary-Anne
The Identity Shift No One Talks About
I remember stewing on a conversation for days.
Someone in my team had dropped the ball. It needed addressing. Pretty straightforward, except for one thing. That person was my friend. Had been long before I became their leader.
So I wrote it down. Revised it. Rewrote it again. Ran through how it might go in my head about a hundred times. Then finally had the conversation.
And it didn't go perfectly. Turns out I'd been unclear on a couple of things myself. I had to own that. We worked through it together and got to a good place. But what stayed with me wasn't the conversation itself. It was everything that came before it.
All that stewing. All that second-guessing. Not because the issue was complicated. But because I hadn't quite figured out who I was supposed to be in that moment.
Because something shifts when you move from being part of a team to leading one. And it's not what most people expect.
It's not the skills that catch you out. It's the identity.
One day you're a colleague. A friend. Someone who does the work alongside people. Then suddenly you're the one responsible for having the hard conversation when the work isn't good enough. And the friendship that used to make everything easier is now the thing making it harder.
That's the shift nobody really prepares you for. From doing to developing. From being one of the team to being responsible for the team. And it doesn't happen in a day. It's a slow recalibration of who you are in the room.
What I've come to understand is this. Letting go of the old identity isn't disloyalty to the friendships or the work you loved doing. It's what the role actually asks of you. Because what you hold onto, you limit. And what you release, you multiply.
The conversation I'd been dreading? It worked out. Not because I got it perfectly right. But because I showed up to it as a leader rather than a friend trying to avoid an awkward moment.
That's where it starts.
The Conversation
Think about the role you're in now. Is there a version of your old self you're still holding onto? A relationship, a habit, a way of showing up that used to serve you but might be getting in the way?
What is leadership asking you to release?
Arohanui
Mary-Anne 😊
Why Do We Make Excuses For People Who Treat Us Badly?
I've worked with someone who made me scared to ask a question.
Not because I didn't know what I was doing. Not because the question wasn't valid. But because I never quite knew what reaction I'd get. Would they snap? Dismiss it? Make me feel like I should have already known the answer? So I'd think about it. Weigh it up. Wonder if it was worth it. And more often than not, I'd stay quiet.
And here's the thing. I wasn't alone. Everyone around me was doing the same thing. Tiptoeing. Carefully choosing their words. Softening their approach. Bracing slightly before speaking.
We all knew. Nobody said it.
Instead we said things like, that's just how they are. You get used to it. Once you get to know them you'll like them. They mean well. They're just direct.
And I've been thinking about that ever since. Because those phrases sound like understanding. Like generosity. Like giving someone the benefit of the doubt.
But sometimes they're just a way of making peace with something that isn't ok.
Because when we normalise behaviour that makes people scared to ask a question, we don't just protect the person doing it. We silence everyone around them. We send a message, this is just how it is here. Adjust yourself accordingly. And people do. They get smaller. They stop contributing fully. They save their best thinking for somewhere it feels safer to share it.
And the cost of that is enormous. Not just to the people tiptoeing. To the whole team. To the work. To the culture.
So why do we do it? Why do we make excuses for people whose behaviour isn't ok?
Sometimes it's about power. When someone is more senior, more established, more certain than us, it feels easier to adapt than to name it. The risk feels too high. And the fear of their reaction, of being dismissed, humiliated, or making things worse, keeps us exactly where we are.
Sometimes it's about loyalty. We know the person. We know they're not bad. We separate their behaviour from their intention and give the intention the benefit of the doubt.
And sometimes it's simpler than that. We just don't have the language. We don't know how to name it without it becoming a bigger deal than we feel equipped to handle.
But here's what I've learned. When we don't name it, it doesn't go away. It just goes underground. And underground it does more damage, not less.
So what do you do when you're scared of the reaction? Here are some approaches that protect you while still moving things forward.
Name the pattern, not the person. In a team setting, raise it as a general question rather than about anyone specific. Something like, how do we make sure everyone feels comfortable raising ideas and questions here? It opens the conversation without anyone feeling targeted. Including you.
Use curiosity instead of critique. Rather than naming the behaviour directly, approach it as wanting to understand. Something like, I want to make sure I'm communicating well with you. Can I ask what works best when I need to raise something? It puts the framing on you rather than them, which lowers the defensiveness immediately.
Find one trusted person first. Before you do anything, say it out loud to someone you trust. Not to gossip. Just to reality check. Am I reading this right? That alone reduces the isolation and helps you figure out your next move.
Write it before you say it. If you need to raise something directly, write it down first. Not to send, just to get clear on what you actually want to say and what outcome you're looking for. It slows the emotional brain down and helps you find the words before you're in the room.
Choose your moment carefully. Timing matters enormously with reactive people. Catch them when they're settled, not rushed or stressed. A quieter moment one on one is almost always safer than raising something in a group.
None of these are guaranteed. But all of them are better than staying quiet and getting smaller.
Because the behaviour that goes unnamed gets permission to continue. And everyone in the room pays the price.
The Conversation
Is there someone in your world whose behaviour you've been making excuses for?
And instead of staying quiet, what's one small move you could make this week?
Go with confidence this week
Mary-Anne
The Weight of Responsibility (And Not Carrying It All)
The Weight of Responsibility (And Not Carrying It All)
Imagine strapping on a heavy backpack and climbing a mountain. Not a short walk. Ten, twelve hours. Intense terrain. Thin air.
After a while you stop noticing the weight. It just becomes normal. But your body is paying for it. Your steps get smaller. Your decisions get slower. You're still moving, but you're not moving well.
That's what it looks like when we carry too much as leaders.
And here's the thing. Most of us don't even realise we're doing it.
We're tired. Exhausted. Rushed. Constantly busy. Not stopping to think before we act. And somewhere in all of that, we've become the person everyone brings everything to. Because we'll sort it. We always do.
It feels like leadership. It feels like being helpful. If we're really honest, it feels like being liked.
But every time we solve something for someone else, we put another rock in our pack and take one out of theirs. And over time, without meaning to, we've diminished the people around us. Not by being cruel. By not giving them the opportunity to think for themselves.
We became the rescuer. But we're actually the one who needs rescuing.
A 2023 Deloitte report found that when we consistently step into problem solving, team ownership quietly drops. Not because people are disengaged. Because they've learned they don't need to be. We taught them that.
The shift is simple. Not easy, but simple.
Next time someone brings you a problem, instead of reaching for the answer, try asking: "What do you think we should do?"
Stay with them. Don't rescue them. Let them carry their own pack for a bit.
Because when someone else takes even a little of the weight, something shifts. You stand taller. You can look up and see where you're actually going. The mountain doesn't get smaller. But suddenly you feel like you can climb it.
The Conversation
Think about who you're currently rescuing. And ask yourself honestly, are you helping them grow, or are you just carrying their weight because it's faster and it feels good?
Because the heaviest pack on the mountain isn't always the work. Sometimes it's everything we took on that was never ours to carry.
Go well this week
Mary-Anne