Rise and Stride is a weekly newsletter for high-achieving women, focused on personal growth as leadership development, and exploring the inner balance that succeeds. The future of leadership success is already here.
“Be ever engaged…,” advised St. Jerome, original translator of the Catholic bible and patron saint of libraries. TA-DA! I found the origin of workaholism! Here’s the full version of his advice, gender-neutralizing the “bad guy.”
“Be ever engaged, so that whenever the devil calls, it may find you occupied.” Another version is, “Idle hands are the devil’s playground.” I quote these two only to debunk them, along with a few other metaphors that bedevil women leaders with advice counter to their success.
Women who lead—in organizations, families, and communities—often first stumble on workaholism as an unhealthy interpersonal pattern.
“Better the devil you know than the one you don’t,” encourages people-pleasing. It’s safer to stay with a toxic boss (or organization) than leave for an unknown.
“Give the devil its due,” then tells me I owe grace to the challenge (or the challenger)! I must acknowledge the one drop of positivity somewhere in a massive barrel of deviltry. Ah! People-pleasing lesson #2.
“The devil is in the details,” sounds like encouragement to run down a rabbit hole of self-sabotage.
And, as an excuse for flimsy boundaries, you may laugh-off the associate pushing on them because she is—oh, well—just “full of the devil today.”
Some advice about how these “demons” appear in our leadership is a little helpful. For example, “If you sup with the devil, use a long spoon,” is a lesson for collaboration. And it also serves when I catch myself grasping with hands of demonic expectation at unlikely outcomes.
The devil-may-care maxim I find most relevant is, “between the devil and the deep blue sea.” Forced choice between two unpleasant options is a regular requirement for leaders. Many turn to the ocean, building canoes, rafts, sailboats, and cargo ships of emotional intelligence out of whatever is at hand.
My advice is: first face the other direction.
Your personal devils already run your leadership show through overt patterns like people pleasing, self-sabotage, and flimsy boundaries. Addressing those daily behaviors is a serious challenge to undertake. But ultimate success comes when you confront the devils that drive you onto those spikey pain points every day.
“Your shadows are unpolished gems that, when brought into the light, turn into majestic strengths.” — Unknown
Therefore, St. Jerome’s advice to stay ever-engaged, always occupied, is antithetical to mine. I say: Never be so busy that you fail to hear your personal devil’s knock at your mental and behavioral door.
Fear of confronting your “shadow” is the first and fiercest limit to your success.
So, “Give the devil its due” in this way. Acknowledge there is power and good inside that “fearsome” shadow you ignore. Beyond a simple silver lining in a cloud, you may discover a blazing sun of generativity inside your long-silenced shadow self.
Give that devil of yours an honest examination. Face what you’ve silenced. Look with courage at those bits you’ve thought too shameful to speak aloud—like craven self-doubt or ruthless ambition.
Welcome to the shadow work of leadership.