See Your Shadow and Become a Better Leader
As a fan of pretty much anything Bill Murray does, I find there is little to no humor in the movie Groundhog Day. In fact, if I had the power to do so, I might reclassify this comedy classic into the horror genre.
Starring Murray and the timeless Andie MacDowell, Groundhog Day follows TV meteorologist Phil Connors, who’s tasked with covering annual Groundhog Day festivities in Pennsylvania just ahead of a terrible winter storm.
Unfortunately, Phil and his crew get stuck in town that ill-fated February 2 due to the blizzard and are forced to stay overnight. Our protagonist wakes up the next day, only to realize he’s living in a time loop …. over and over again, ad nauseam, during which time the audience is entertained by some seriously self-destructive antics.
The humor of it all begins to be overshadowed by some underlying themes: fear of change, poor decision making and putting one’s best interests ahead of others’.
Like Phil Connors in the movie, these themes can become central to one’s own character, and they can also become central to how many leaders are operating businesses and nonprofits. I don’t need to extrapolate the works of Carl Jung here, but we all carry around a shadow — the parts of our innermost selves that we don’t want to admit exist. This is what Phil personifies. This is why it makes the movie so terrifying — and so very relatable.
The Value of Seeing Your Shadow
Everyone has their darker moments. Just like Phil in Groundhog Day, leaders struggle with fearing change, making bad decisions, and sometimes even with putting their own business interests ahead of the interests of their employees or partnerships.
Often, when I’m working with leaders on building better strategic communications for their businesses, we begin to unravel some more difficult, larger obstacles — the operational shadows — that exist underneath the need for a better brand presence.
For example, I had a client ask for a content calendar that included blogs that would highlight the movers and shakers in their industry.
“But don’t include Bob Wilson from XYZ Sprockets. He’s a jerk,” one leader said. (Names changed to protect everyone’s shadows.)
I asked this client what made Bob Wilson such a bad person that we wouldn’t want to include him in a blog, even though he was a notable leader in the industry.
When my client fumbled to come up with an answer, I knew the underlying issue wasn’t Bob Wilson; it was my client’s fear and totally unwarranted sense of inferiority.
So, I asked another question: “Is there something about Bob that doesn’t align with your own mission, vision and values?”
To which my client responded, “No, it’s just that when we wanted to partner with him on a project, he went with another company instead.”
Bob wasn’t a jerk at all. Bob just hurt my client’s ego a long time ago by choosing to partner with a competitor, and that bad feeling had stuck ever since.
I then challenged my client to include Bob in the blog series about leaders in their industry. In doing so, this leader had to face some shadows and figure out how to overcome them.
In the end, we interviewed Bob together and the story turned out great. Not only did my client get a great piece of earned media out of it, but she gained trust she’d lost in her own confidence as as leader, as well. And Bob agreed to partner with my client on an upcoming project, too.
“That wasn’t so bad, was it?” I asked my client after she signed a 6-month agreement with Bob.
My client overcame a shadow that was holding her back from seeking partnerships with people who made her feel inferior. She gained confidence in making decisions despite a less-than sense of her own abilities, and she put down her own defenses for the good of her business.
It’s About More Than Just Good Content
In Groundhog Day, things start to turn around for Phil when he switches his narrative away from self-destructive behavior and into doing some good deeds, thus eventually ending the time loop suck (and beginning a budding romance with MacDowell’s character).
It’s no surprise, then, that once Phil addresses his own shadows, the light begins to shine on him. He becomes a better person. He recognizes the patterns that resulted in the horrifying time loop to begin with. If he continues to act, make decisions and put his own interests ahead of everyone else’s, he fails to overcome his shadow self.
It isn’t just about being stuck in a po-dunk town in Pennsylvania on February 2 due to a blizzard. It’s about being stuck in behaviors that no longer serve him.
Just like Phil, the clients I work with every day come through my door looking for some good content, but once they sit down and see their shadows, they begin to understand that exceptional operational excellence and strategic communications can only happen when we first address core values, consistency, showing up at the right times, and making sure we aren’t acting solely on our own interests.
Address those shadows. Then your brand will truly shine.