Episode 89: The Hidden Habit Killing Your Executive Presence

Episode Summary

Executive presence isn’t lost in big moments, it’s quietly eroded in the small ones. This episode breaks down the real threat most high-achieving leaders never see coming: approval addiction.

When leaders move from individual contributor to decision-maker, the pressure to prove themselves creates hesitation, disguised as collaboration or alignment. But that pause signals uncertainty, weakens confidence, and slowly chips away at trust and influence.

This episode challenges you to confront the internal patterns driving decision paralysis and overthinking. You’ll learn how approval-seeking behaviors show up in leadership and how to reset using the S.W.A.G. framework to lead with clarity and authority.

If this hit, it’s worth taking a deeper look at how you’re showing up. The Burnout Mirror Assessment will help you identify the patterns draining your leadership energy and reset how you lead moving forward.

https://innerarenaleadership.com/burnout-mirror

Key Takeaways

• Approval Addiction Is Invisible
  It hides as collaboration, but it’s really hesitation driven by self-doubt. 
• Hesitation Signals Weak Presence
  Your team feels uncertainty before you even speak. 
• High Achievers Struggle the Most
  The need to prove yourself creates decision paralysis in leadership roles. 
• You’re Creating Bottleneck Culture
  When everything needs your approval, you train your team to depend, not lead. 
• Discomfort Is the Trigger, Not the Stop Sign
  That uneasy feeling is your signal to decide, not delay.

Transcript

Why High Achievers Chase Approval

Decision Paralysis Disguised As Collaboration

Protecting Your Image Hurts Teams

Bottleneck Culture And Dependent Teams

Get Your Swag Back With Triggers

The Thought Partner Questions

Burnout Mirror Assessment And Closing

SPEAKER_01 0:44

Let's get your weapons. Welcome to another episode of the Let's Think About It podcast. I'm your host, Coach Mo, and I am excited about the topic that I'm going to dive into today. The silent killer of executive presence, approval addiction. Yeah. Sounds weird, right? Approval addiction. It's crazy how leaders get into this role and they bust their asses, right? And everything that they do, and they align at this leadership role, whether it's senior position, whether it's first-time being a leader, supervisor, doesn't matter, CEO, owner, and we seek approval. You didn't land in your your leadership role to seek approval on you know all your decisions. You were hired, promoted, and brought in to decide, lead, elevate your team and an organization. But yet we're constantly seeking approval and validation. If you're chasing approval, your presence is already compromised before you even speak. Think about that. Your presence is already compromised before even speaking. Because your confidence is shy. It's not really shy. Let me take a step back. The hesitancy component when seeking approval can be felt. It can be felt by your team. And here's what I mean. Let me just take a step back as we explore this a little deeper about approval addiction, which ultimately kills your executive presence. I think the best way to get into this is to tap into what us as leaders go through. So take it like this. And I'm sure most of you can relate to this because you're a high achiever, high performer, and that's just what you do. Okay. So you've been a high achiever all through your up and come up. Your head has been down. You've been performing self, leading self at an elite level. You've never had performance issues, and your understanding of what it takes to be successful, you've always been locked in on that. So you naturally have your head down and going, kicking ass and taking names in the process. As you become elite at getting results within your organization and enjoying all the successes that come with being a high achiever, everyone views you as an asset to any organization. So you're naturally encouraged by your peers, by your supervisors, family, friends. You should take that next step in your career. Maybe it's going after a senior exec role. Maybe it's promoting to a supervisor, a supervisory role. But you're being encouraged to take that next leap in your journey to leading others. Okay? Because on the outside looking in, everyone sees your work as elite. If we can get this person to lead this team or lead this organization or lead this department, it can elevate the organization because you're elite. Okay. Because everyone is telling you all of this feedback about self, you explore whether you should do it or not. And ultimately, you are ready to make that leap. You've been extremely successful in the work that you naturally do. So why not take the lead? You take the lead. You put yourself out there to take that next step in that leadership journey, what it entails better communication, collaboration, working through change, all of these leadership competencies that you naturally knew how to lead with within self as an individual contributor. So now you elevate into this role, but there's a dynamic that typically shifts when we move into these new roles. Whether you're the CEO, whether you're a new supervisor, whether you're a director, whether you're a leader, senior leader, executive, doesn't matter. We carry this inner dialogue that we have to prove ourselves. That's number one. The company is invested in me to make certain decisions and do XYZ. Because up to this point, I've been extremely successful in leading self and how I navigate the expertise of what I navigate. I've been a lead. And now I'm in this role in which I gotta lead a team, a department, an organization. Doesn't matter. The first battle that I typically have is within self. I have to prove within self that I can do this, that they made the right decision in putting me in this role. So what happens with that at times, there becomes this approval of addiction because we were hired to make these decisions. And at times, being in the role to make these decisions, we don't want to mess that shit up. So we pause and we seek validation at times if we're gonna make the right decision or not. So we typically, it typically looks like in sound, let me get everyone else's thoughts first before I make a decision. That's decision paralysis right there. And it's described as collaboration. Because in that moment, before you decide, you feel that you need everyone's thoughts first. Or you may say to yourself, I just want to make sure we're aligned, or delaying the decisions to avoid pushback. You don't want to rock the boat. So I need to seek approval. I need to get everyone else's perspective. It's described as collaboration. But within self, it's a little bit deeper than that because of the uncertainty feeling that you have before that decision is made. And high achievers, you know what I'm talking about. Because no one else sees it, you just feel it. Think of it like this you're in this role and you want to prove your self-worth. You've always been achiever, and you want to make sure that you get it right moving forward. And getting it right, because I'm a high achiever, I may feel that I need to know all the answers before I make a decision. Trying to figure out all the answers before you make a decision becomes a weight within itself. It pauses trust within self. It makes you hesitant within self. Because, and I talk a lot about this, that hesitancy in that moment of the pause, it opens the world for judgment on self. And that's where limiting beliefs, maybe it's an interpretation, maybe it's an assumption, or maybe it's that punk ass inner critic that's creating this narrative in your mind of uncertainty. And because of that uncertainty, you need to get everyone's thoughts first before you make a decision. And that puts a hold on your executive presence in that moment, that uncertainty, that spot right there over and over again, because the mind is telling you if I get this decision wrong, XYZ is going to happen and I'm going to be viewed as not successful, not a good leader, not whatever that negative interpretation in the mind creates to be. And we believe that. We believe it. So we seek approval before making a decision. The challenging piece about this is it's a blind spot and it's disguised as collaboration. We fear that we don't want to mess this up. This narrative in our mind tells us a story, this imagery. If things doesn't go well, we're going to lose. And we naturally carry that. As this higher achiever, and we're in this new role, right? We cannot afford others to see us right side. So that means we need to grind harder. And grinding harder means we can't let anyone know that we're wearing a mask. So we just we carry it. Think about it. You as a leader in your role right now, what are you carrying? What are the moments that you hesitate that signals uncertainty, that slows momentum, that makes others question your authority. So in those moments, we seek others' thoughts before making a decision. We want to make sure that everything is in alignment before we move forward with a decision. And the other aspect of it is I'm going in this direction with the assumption that maybe you're new in your leadership role. Not new to leadership, but just maybe new in an organization, new because you were promoted, new because you're in a newer dynamic that you've experienced in the past. That's the view that I'm coming at. And we carry this judgment that we can't mess this shit up. We have to prove ourselves. And part of proving ourselves is we gotta be perfect. We gotta make sure that we don't screw this shit up because everyone is watching and I can't afford to have people looking at me negatively. So what does that look like in leading a team? It looks like one, I'm getting the approval as I've been describing before making decisions. And number two, I'm taking on more. I can't afford my team to mess up because that ultimately affects my image if they mess up. So it's easier for me to just step in and fix it for them. That moves us into like difficult conversations to protect your image. That's the next part of this. You feel like you have this team, and the team has been doing what they've been doing for whatever amount of time, and you've been brought in as the new leader, and you cannot have them messing shit up on your watch. And so a few things happen, right? You carry that, and so you feel like you need to make immediate changes. What's most important is protecting your image from within because you're a high achiever. You don't want people screwing this up on your watch. So you have to protect your image. And sometimes that looks like I need to make changes almost immediately. Or it looks like there's a lot of personnel issues that need to be addressed, and I'm the new person coming in, and I don't want to be viewed as the bad guy. So I'm gonna avoid having these conversations immediately. I need to protect my image. That's a narrative. Or you could come in and be too aggressive and just start changing things up that gets so many people pushing back and it ruins the morale. So, what do you do? You typically delay feedback. Maybe you soften your message too much and then you're not respected. Maybe you do nothing and just hope it fixes itself. But maybe in that moment, you're actually choosing likability over leadership. Think about that. Matt kills executive presence. It erodes your respect, it creates confusion and inconsistency, and it builds this quiet resentment on your team. Is that how we need to show up and continue to show up as high-achieving leaders? And this is the trick here. When you were responsible for self, it's this was no issue. But now you have a team under you, and this dynamic of hesitation that you naturally carry that's disc that can be described, let's say camouflaged, as collaboration, pondering on certain decision making because you're trying to protect your image. Man, that puts a stall in everything that you do as a leader. Your swag is off. And you guys hear me talk about swag all the time self-awareness, white power, aligned action, and grid. You know, avoiding these hard conversations to protect your image, your swag is off. Leadership isn't about comfort, it's about clarity. And in that moment, that hesitation to protect your image is signaling that your clarity is off. When that clarity is off, that moment equivalates to no purpose. And without purpose, the self-awareness, it diminishes. It diminishes in the sense that punk ass inner critic is present. So when the inner critic is present, there's judgment that's present. That judgment equivalents to self-doubt, fear, anxiety, worry, guilt, embarrassment, whatever. That limits your self-awareness. That's the S in swag. Then because the lack of purpose in that moment, there's no aligned action. You're stagnant. You're stalled. Real talk. As a leader, when you're stalled in should I or shouldn't I, with making a decision at the highest level, your swag is off because the judgment is present from what I just described. With grit, how long are you willing to stay in discomfort? How long are you willing to stay there? That's the signal that your grit is off. No swag. And so going to this with every decision, we naturally can be hesitant about certain decisions that need to be made as leaders. But this is what's not taught to us as we are on our up and come up as leaders. How do we self-regulate in those moments of hesitancy when needing to make a decision, which causes us to seek approval? And that's why I call this episode approval addiction. We consistently pause, hesitate when it comes to making decisions, and we camouflage it as collaboration because we need other people's input before making a decision. That's true. It is good to take a collaborative approach, democratic approach, to get multiple teams involved to help with the decision-making process. I agree with that 100%. But what I'm talking about is every decision that you make, you're seeking approval. Right? Because whether you hired to make decisions, I see this a lot with a lot of clients that I coach. Oh, let me run this by such and such. Let me run this by such and such before we make a decision. It becomes a culture too. Certain leaders require you to run everything by them before you submit whatever that action is that needs to be submitted. That becomes the bottleneck culture of an organization. As a leader coming up, as a high achiever coming up, and you reach that stepping stone of being the leader. Now you feel that everybody has to run everything through you before a decision needs to be made. So you're now teaching your team to be dependent on your decision before they can move on. It becomes a bottleneck culture where everyone is seeking approval. It's the silent killer of executive presence, approval addiction. And it becomes like the culture of the organization. Think about it. Before you need to make a decision, how often are you seeking approval from others? And it's actually camouflaged as collaboration, but you're really truly not sure. And you want everybody's input so that you can feel comfortable with making your decision. How about getting your swag back, showing up, being in touch with what's your values of why you are a leader in this moment, and make your decisions based on that? Make your decisions based on perceived actions needed to be taken, the driver to the success of that decision and focus there. Being consistent with the feelings of discomfort, utilizing that as the trigger that I need to move forward and make a decision now. That's the using the moment in your decision process, in that moment of discomfort and worry as the trigger to signal that you need to make the decision now. Maybe that's what this is about. And maybe the signal of hesitation is really the signal to make a decision in that moment. If you take it from that lens, you're always making quick decisions. The awareness is present that, oh, this is the trigger. This is the signal that now I need to make the decision. That's the S, by the way, in swag, self-awareness. What's my purpose? And what are the positive outcomes when I make that decision right now? See, that's why power. And how do we be intentional about the actions that's going to continue to move us forward? Aligned action, by the way. And how do we continue to utilize this signal of discomfort as the moment to make a decision? That's grit. In that process, it makes you feel good. When you feel good, guess what? You got your swag back. And that's what it's about. Feeling good with the decisions that you're making. When you feel good about those decisions, you have swag. Now, I'm not saying that all decisions feel good. There are tough decisions that need to be made. And obviously, there's opportunities where you do need to collaborate. You do need to seek understanding. But what I'm saying about the silent killer of executive presence, disapproval addiction thing, we can go overboard with that shit. And I'm putting consciousness on that. If you're that leader that feels you need approval for every decision that you're making, you have a problem. Your swag is off. And so let's reel that in a little bit, okay? You get your swag back, you feel better, you feel more confident, you navigate from a place of prosperity, abundance, success, achievement. And that's what it's about. Because the we get into these leadership positions, and it's lonely at the top, man. Particularly when you're a high achiever shit, man, you've been doing this solo for a long time. You know what it takes. But now you're in this dynamic when you're managing all of these other different personalities, issues, and you don't get that type of training in leadership. And as you've been on your up and come up, you naturally mimic some of the leadership components that your supervisor had when you were coming up. And so you take part of their leadership on into your new role. If you were this high achiever and your head was down and you always just did the right thing, and the only thing you needed to worry about is self. And then you elevate into this leadership role, and now you have all of these different dynamics of personalities and judgments and all of this stuff that you're responsible for now. Man, it becomes heavy. But you're a high achiever, so you're gonna naturally feel responsible that you have to solve it all yourself. And that in itself is weight. That weight can hesitate certain decisions because you need a you feel you need certain approval before making a decision. Because at this level, you're not getting a lot of feedback anyway. So the way to get the feedback, you're thinking to your mind, let me get everyone's thoughts on this first. Or I just want to make sure we're aligned. Or, you know what, let me hold on this decision because I don't need to push back right now. That's what naturally happens. But here's what you can do I've always got something for you, right? In these roles as leaders, we naturally care about our teams. And you care about your perception of how you're gonna look and making decisions anyway. So instead of always wearing the supervisor hat, that leadership hat, let's put on a thought partner. Hat. Let's do that. So the thought partner hat looks like this. In a moment when you have to make a decision and you're hesitant in making that decision, the thought partner hat would look like, let's pause for a second. What am I really hesitating about when it comes to making this decision? What's limiting me in this moment to making a decision and moving forward right now? Why do I feel that I need to seek approval from others before making this decision? What barriers are making me hesitate or delay my decision? Why am I fearful that there will be pushback in this decision? See, that's the thought partner hat that I'm putting on within self. That's the self-awareness piece of swag. That's something that we all have control to do. It's to just pause and ask ourselves these empowering questions. And that's the thought partner hat. In these high pressure moments, wearing the supervisor hat, the leadership hat, we naturally feel we need to make a decision right now. And I need to tell people what to do, or I expect that I should know the answers to all of this. That's weight because when you put that type of expectation on yourself, what's the answer then? It becomes overwhelming because now you're trying to figure it out. What becomes present is fear for asking help to figure it out because of the judgment. If I ask people for help in figuring this out, they're gonna think they made the wrong hiring decision. They're gonna think I'm not capable. This is the negative notions that we put in our mind. So we feel wearing that leadership hat, I have to have all of the answers. I need to navigate this as quickly as possible. Rightfully, but let's just pause for a second. Let's pause. Because it's silently killing your executive presence right now. Pause. Seek approval for within self. Do that first. Do that and follow through on those questions, and you'll start to feel lighter before making a decision. That's it. That's it. This whole episode was really about creating the awareness of disapproval addiction that we internally carry. And hopefully, it might have been a blind spot for some of us. Some of us may not even have this as an issue. But I really believe it's worth talking about because as we elevate into new roles, into different leadership positions, different organizations, or whatnot, this naturally happens from within. You are a high achiever. You've always done great. You always worked hard to move up the chain, to elevate yourself. And so, rightfully, you want to protect your image. You want to protect the perception of what people think of you and feel about you. So those moments create opportunities to hesitate to question our decision-making process. And we camouflage it as collaboration. We camouflage it to avoid difficult conversations to protect our image as a leader because we don't want to push back. We don't want to be viewed as a hard leader. We want to be respected as a good leader that anybody can talk to. But it's hard to do that initially when you're carrying this weight internally. So get your swag back. And that's key. But at the end of the day, if you're when you're listening and realizing that you've been second guessing your own decisions more than you would really want to admit, man, that's not a leadership issue. It's really an energy issue as well. But check this out. That's exactly why I created the burnout mirror. It helps you see the pattern you've been operating from because most high performers, high achievers, they don't even realize how much approval they're chasing until it's actually draining them. So I dropped the link in the show notes, and then you could take it from there. I think that's important because it really gives you a space to evaluate how are you showing up? Everything that we talked about when it comes to the decision making process, man, that shit can be draining too. It can be a burnout. Check out the burnout mirror assessment. That's something that would really help you. The link is in the notes, and you would really get something out of that as well. But yeah, thank you. Thank you for dropping in. I appreciate you, and I'll catch you on the next round. That's another rep in the inner arena. You didn't just listen, you leveled up your swag. Self-awareness, why power, aligned action, and grit. If this hit home, share it, subscribe to the Let's Think About It podcast, and lock in with me on YouTube at Swag Coaching. Until next time, stay aware, lead with your white, click in a limit, and keep your grid scrolling.