Saying "I Don't Want To" is Also A Form of Leadership
Saying “I don’t want to” is also leadership.
An entrepreneurial friend said to me this week, “I’m not going to grow a team. I don’t want to be responsible for other people. I just want to have enough clients per year to live minimally.”
I find that to be a very powerful form of leadership.
An overlooked leadership quality is the ability to make decisions that prioritize inner peace, especially when there’s a risk of being misunderstood or perceived poorly for it.
It’s maybe acceptable to say, “I’ll decline the promotion at work because of burnout.”
It’s not yet that cool in some environments to say “I’ll decline just because I’m happy with where I’m at and don’t need more.” Or “Because I don’t wanna trade my privacy for visibility.” Or “I don’t wanna become the type of person that I’d need to be to do well in that new role.”
You might get judged for lacking ambition, letting people down, not being a team player, wasting your potential, being too sensitive... (Maybe you are sensitive, but that’s cute 🙂).
But I think that refusing to spend your energy on anything that doesn’t feel like the right fit for you is a form self-respect.
Am I doing this because it actually fulfills me? Or because this is what is expected of me, for whatever reason?
Not everyone recognizes this as leadership, but the ones who do will see it and applaud you for it.
If you need help with figuring out where to go from here, you can either book a doll call or speak to one of our career dolls!