The Sun and the Shadow

By Toufic Hakim, PhD

Gaining self-awareness in unexpected places

I once worked with a VP who was highly ambitious. When she first brought me into her division, we had a mutually supportive relationship. She was thoughtful, competent and affable. We were a good team: I cheered her on; she was my biggest fan. I was all in, giving 300% effort in order to achieve our goals and meet desired organizational success. 

A few months in, I started noticing that things were shifting. She appeared to be deliberately standing in the way of my progress and stifling my ability to perform. I didn’t get it; why was she taking this approach? Was she reeling me in, asserting her authority? Was she counter-intuitively acting out of fear of losing me to another division? Her behavior was frustrating to me and I did not have the fortitude to address it head-on; instead, I let it fester inside. 

One day, my boiling concern led to a significant error in judgment. I copied someone on an email to my VP that I shouldn’t have. I had convinced myself that, by sending the email, I was building a bridge with another executive, pulling him into what was becoming a challenging situation that needed to be addressed. It wasn’t until later that I realized, good communication decorum aside, my true intentions were actually completely different, coming from a place inside of me that I didn’t want to acknowledge.

While I had a genuine interest in solving a knotted problem, there was somewhere in me a desire to provoke my VP, to shake her up—a whisper I had dismissed and disowned. I ended up creating a wedge, which soon led to a major falling out between us. 

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I stood my ground even as she tried to get rid of me, and I eventually ‘won’ the conflict by getting where I wanted to be. This was pure luck, not a clever strategy. I’m not stating this with any pride today; nor was it a win in reality. Beyond the external context, there was an important internal revelation that took me years to uncover: I had refused to acknowledge my place in creating the conflict. I was casting a shadow myself, but all I could do was point out the darkness of my VP’s shadow. 

We all have idealized images of who we are. (We think we are who we want to be and ignore the reality before us.) Meanwhile, the parts we don’t want to acknowledge can be quietly sabotaging us without us realizing it.

When I initiated this conflict with my VP, I failed to see the role I was playing in it. Was I getting knowingly ahead of her? Was I behaving in ways that were insubordinate or rogue? Was I serving myself more than her or even the division? I believed myself to be a good person, someone who would never deliberately provoke conflict; I saw only the ways in which I believed she was in the wrong. (This is why researcher Dolly Chugh underscores that being a good-ish person is a higher standard than being a good person–and unquestionably believing it.) The result for me was that a strong, promising engagement turned into a very tense and broken relationship, one that could no longer be repaired.

Having good character doesn’t mean that we have no blind spots, are immune from exhibiting flawed behaviors, or never cause or provoke conflict. It means having the strength to look within ourselves, with full honesty and willingness to see the whole picture—the seemingly good, the less so, and everything in-between. 

Only by drumming up the courage to view ourselves with greater clarity and accept all aspects of ourselves can we then start to understand and own all of who we are. Only then can we begin leading ourselves wisely—not by being fearful or angry, but rather by being humble and yet confident, proactive and trusting that our core goodness could eventually win the day.

My VP taught me an important lesson, that bright truths often reside in the shadows, if we’re willing to find them. Today, I am deeply apologetic and grateful. I should have paid better attention to Carl Jung and Debbie Ford and their writings about the effects of the shadow archeshape. Never too late; truth will help us change our path.