There’s another saboteur I want to talk about this week…
This one tends to be harder to admit to, because it looks so much like a virtue.
In Shirzad Chamine’s Positive Intelligence framework, the Pleaser is defined as the part of you that seeks acceptance and approval by focusing on others’ needs, often at the expense of your own.
The Pleaser says yes even when it wants to say no. Responds immediately to make others feel prioritized. Avoids conflict, accommodates requests, and keeps the peace, even when keeping the peace costs you something significant.
In a leadership context, this shows up in ways that are remarkably easy to rationalize:
- You respond to the message right away because you don’t want your colleague to feel ignored.
- You say yes to the meeting request even though it conflicts with your thinking time because you want to be accessible.
- You check the news obsessively because staying informed feels responsible, like something a good, conscientious leader does.
None of these things feel like self-sabotage. They feel like consideration. Like professionalism. Like exactly the kind of leader you want to be.
But here’s what’s actually happening beneath the surface.
The Pleaser isn’t just trying to help others feel good. It’s trying to manage your own discomfort. The anxiety of being seen as unavailable. The guilt of a delayed response. The quiet fear that if you stop being so accessible, people will perceive you differently.
Constant distraction…checking devices, monitoring news, staying perpetually available is very often the Pleaser’s way of staying safe. If you’re always reachable, always responsive, always in the loop, nobody can accuse you of being disengaged or self-important or out of touch.
The cost of this, over time, is profound.
Because the leader your team actually needs isn’t the one who responds fastest. It’s the one who thinks most clearly. Who makes the best decisions. Who brings genuine presence to the conversations that matter most.
And that version of you requires something the Pleaser finds deeply uncomfortable.
Boundaries. Intentional unavailability. The willingness to disappoint someone in the short term in service of something more important.
Not because you don’t care about the people around you. But because you care enough to show up as your best self rather than your most available self.
This week I invite you to sit with this question: Where are you saying yes when your most important work requires a no? You don’t have to change anything immediately. Just notice where the discomfort lives.
Try this Mental Reflection prompt: “The person or situation I find hardest to disappoint is ________. What I’m actually afraid will happen if I do is ________.”
If you’re ready to lead from your values rather than your discomfort, I’d love to explore that with you. Schedule a call here.