Why founders need clean mirrors
Everyone has their own ideas of what coaching involves.
Some positive, some negative. Most of them well deserved.
Here’s how I explain it to the founders I coach:
You’re a mirror.
To excel in your job, you have to reflect back everything that’s going on around you: code, team morale, stakeholders, deployments & KPIs.
But your decisions don’t happen out there. They happen inside you:
- You absorb everything around you.
- You filter what’s important.
- You act.
Because your decisions take place in your inner world, they’re fighting for bandwidth alongside your struggles, fears and insecurities.
And when our inner struggles grow out of control, our mirror becomes distorted.
If you’re feeling less effective and doubting yourself daily, dust starts to settle.
If you’re not maintaining a healthy work-life balance, your mirror starts to fog up.
If you’re perpetually in a fight-flight response from overwork and unmanaged stress, your mirror might start to warp.
You react rather than respond. Your vision narrows. You start seeing a pretty distorted reflection of the world around you.
Leaders have so much to absorb. They need clean mirrors.
That means practising internal hygiene alongside technical skills.
This is so easy to overlook and yet so effective once addressed.
Tending to your own mirror means getting out of your own way.
Neglect your mirror and watch the world warp around you.
—Dan
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