Today I spent the day learning from Richard Schwartz, founder of Internal Family Systems (IFS), one of the fastest-growing therapeutic approaches in the world.
I thought I would learn about therapy, but I realized the lesson was really in self-leadership.
One of the core ideas in IFS is that we all have different “parts” inside us. A perfectionist part. A people-pleasing part. An ambitious part. A protective part. A fearful part.
Most of us spend our lives identifying with being perfectionists or people-pleasers or bouncing between a few of these parts of our identity.
But Schwartz suggests something different. We are the leader of all of the parts.
As I listened today, I couldn’t help but think about the managers and executives I work with.
The leader who struggles to delegate often isn’t lacking skill. Their perfectionist part has taken over.
The leader avoiding a difficult conversation often isn’t weak. Their conflict-averse part is running the show.
The leader working late every night may not be driven by commitment alone. Their achiever part may be convinced that slowing down is dangerous.
One of the insights that hit me today was realizing that there are times when I’m not doing a particularly good job of leading my own parts.
Take delegation.
Like many professionals I know, there are moments when I hold onto work that I should hand off to someone else. I’ve often justified it by telling myself that it’s faster if I do it myself, or that I know exactly how I want it done.
But listening to Schwartz, I started to wonder whether that’s really what’s happening.
Maybe I’m not making a rational leadership decision at all.
Maybe I’m letting my perfectionist part get away with murder.
That part isn’t trying to hurt me. In fact, it’s trying to help. It wants things to be excellent. It wants to protect me from mistakes. It wants to make sure the outcome is successful.
But when it takes over, it creates problems.
The team gets fewer opportunities to grow. I become a bottleneck. Work piles up. And ironically, the great results I’m trying to protect often suffer.
That’s what I found so compelling about IFS. It doesn’t ask us to judge these parts or get rid of them. It asks us to get curious about them. To notice when they’re helping and when they’ve quietly grabbed the steering wheel.
The most effective leaders aren’t those who eliminate these parts.
They’re the ones who develop enough self-awareness to recognize who’s currently steering the direction.
Because before we can lead others well, we need to learn how to lead ourselves.
And perhaps the one question we need to ask ourselves more often throughout our day is:
Which part of me is in charge right now?