Dear Leader,

When you become a leader, a part of you is reborn.

The question is, are we ready to answer the call to not only lead, but to become a stronger and more capable version of ourselves in the process?

That’s what I’ll be reflecting on in today’s edition of The Leader Within.

If you’d like to go deeper on this topic, I’ll share an opportunity to connect deeper with me and get support in how you can use rebirth in your leadership this week. Stay tuned at the end of this letter for more on that.

My struggle to embrace rebirth

Becoming a leader is a calling to integrate hidden parts of ourselves.

Regardless of if we have a formal leadership title, leadership is an invitation to confront our shadow and move toward our true selves.

The big question is whether or not we take advantage of that opportunity.

Looking back, I failed to embrace rebirth in my corporate leadership roles.

When I was first promoted to a manager, I quickly realized that areas I could often neglect as an individual contributor became impossible to ignore as a leader.

Asking others for help to keep work moving? It became something I had to embrace.

Avoiding conflict to allow my days to run smoothly? No longer an option.

Worrying about leading “by the book”? The fear was still present, but I had to get comfortable leading my way.

The call for rebirth, not only as a new leader but as a person, was staring me right in the face.

Only, I completely ignored it.

My struggle with burnout, conflict, and leading authentically ate at me so much that I eventually changed careers completely.

These struggles didn’t just happen in year 1 as a new manager, but in subsequent years as well.

I was beyond burned out from working 50-60 hours almost every week. It got so bad that I’d stay up until 3 AM or later to make sure every job was benchmarked for our annual salary review and the presentations were polished for each executive to know where their people were paid versus the market.

Granted, some of this was my doing. Even though my team was understaffed, I struggled to delegate to my team members.

Had I learned to trust myself enough that I could delegate, and trust my team members to get the job done, I could’ve saved myself many restless nights.

Addressing conflict was another area calling to be reborn in me as a leader, but I refused to answer it.

No one enjoys receiving criticism, especially me. My hatred for being criticized made it difficult for me to give tough performance feedback to my team members that weren’t performing.

It took a lot of coaching from my manager and one of my HR Business Partner colleagues for me to even sit down with one of my employees and share my concerns about their performance. While I got through the conversation, my fear of conflict prevented me from being proactive when I noticed this same employee slipping back into bad habits.

I share my struggles with these areas because I never fully embraced the archetype of rebirth in leadership.

I hadn’t fully embraced my role as leader and was instead more interested in growing as a fiction author on the side. I loved writing because it was the only way I felt I could connect with who I authentically was, even if I didn’t consciously know it.

Had I embraced rebirth in leadership and learned to delegate better and be more comfortable with conflict, perhaps I wouldn’t have given up on my leadership role so easily.

Little did I know that by neglecting the theme of rebirth in my leadership role, I was actually embracing rebirth in my personal life.

This led to finally coming out of the closet and changing careers starting at age 30.

This was the true rebirth I needed to allow me to do my best work as a leadership coach today.

Rebirth lets us become who we truly are

The archetype of rebirth has many contexts.

You’ll find the idea of rebirth and reincarnation in many world religious traditions, from Buddhism to Vedanta to Christianity.

But the archetype of rebirth most resonates with me through the work of Swiss psychologist Carl Jung.

Jung came up with the idea of individuation during his reign as psychology’s preeminent figure.

Individuation is best described as overcoming the conditioning of your upbringing, getting in touch with the parts of yourself that you reject, and integrating them to become your true self.

When we’re born, we need to develop a healthy ego to survive and fit in.

As part of this ego, we create a persona for how we’d like others to see us in the world. For me, I created a persona of a “good son,” straight A student, and high achiever.

If I wasn’t meeting the expectations I felt my family, teachers, and bosses place on me, I felt like I was failing.

I didn’t want to be seen as lazy, unsuccessful, or a failure, so I did everything I could to push those traits away into my shadow.

Which is why when my high achieving persona allowed me to land multiple promotions and large raises, I was rewarded with a middle management role with lucrative career prospects.

Yet my same high achieving ways led to burnout.

At the time, I didn’t consciously know I was afraid to fail.

With failure and laziness in my shadow, I worked so hard to please my bosses’ and colleagues’ demands. But the constant people pleasing caused so much burnout that I had to make a career shift. The persona I so strongly identified with during my first 30 years wasn’t working anymore.

As Jung said, I needed to embrace my shadow. I needed to accept that I can be lazy and fail at things.

My “failure” of needing to leave my own career behind and embrace my rebirth as a UX Writer (as well as being a fully out and proud gay man) was my first step in integrating this shadow material into becoming who I truly am.

I continued to integrate my shadow more and more over the years to become an individuated man.

This started with therapy and coaching. It continued through coach training, becoming a coach myself, and beginning to work with clients on integrating their own shadows.

Like my client, Erik, who went from not wanting any part of leadership to realizing the only way to positively affect change at the university he teaches at was to embrace leadership in his own way.

While I failed to embrace the archetype of rebirth in my leadership role, there’s no doubt I wrapped my arms tightly around it in my personal life.

Embracing rebirth lets you lead to serve the world

If you’re anything like me, you probably recognize that parts of your leadership style aren't working.

It may surface in feedback from your team, your boss, or even in burnout, like I mentioned above.

But 60+ hour workweeks or fed up staff don’t have to be the norm.

When you embrace rebirth and allow a new way of being to emerge in your leadership, it isn’t just you who benefits.

Whether it’s allowing yourself to let go of work and delegate to your team or the willingness to be seen as the “bad guy/gal” when giving tough performance feedback, accepting and integrating parts of yourself that you fear are the key to becoming the best version of yourself.

You’ll not only experience more psychological well-being, but become the type of Responsible Leader that others want to follow.

We must continuously embrace rebirth to serve our cause, our world, and those that count on us better.

An opportunity to work with rebirth

I’m taking the lessons I’ve learned about rebirth—from my middle management journey, Jung’s work, and my time as a leadership coach—and am sharing them with you here in this newsletter.

Beyond that, I’d like to invite you to a unique opportunity to work with the theme of rebirth in your own life.

This Thursday, July 17th at 11 AM central time, I’m hosting my first-ever Responsible Leadership Roundtable around the theme of rebirth in leadership on Zoom.

In this free, 1 hour call, I’ll share important reflection questions about what needs to emerge in your leadership style, and what makes sense to change. Then, you’ll benefit from group coaching and support others on their leadership journeys as we discuss this transformational theme together.

I really hope to see you there–reply if you plan to attend!

Wishing you the best on your leadership journey this week,

Spenser

How I can help you

As a Leadership Coach birthing the way forward for Responsible Leadership, there are a few ways I can help you beyond reading this newsletter each week.

1. ​Step Into Your Leadership Discovery Call: This free 45-minute discovery call is meant for you to explore the leader you're becoming—and awaken the one already within. We'll chat about what feels aligned, what no longer fits, and what’s calling to emerge.You’ll walk away with greater clarity, renewed energy, and deep insight into stepping into a more aligned version of leadership—and how my coaching can support that transformation.
2. The Responsible Leadership Roundtable (This week!): Join me this Thursday, July 17th @ 11:00 AM central time for an intimate 1-hour conversation about the idea of Rebirth. We’ll discuss how to apply the theme of Rebirth in our leadership styles and in our businesses. Here’s the Zoom link!
3. ​1:1 Coaching: If you’re ready to take the leap with one of my customized 1:1 coaching programs for leaders, you can find more information by visiting the link.

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