A Thick Skin, or High Internal P.S.I.?

Posted on October 04, 2010 by Tom Patterson, One of Thousands of Leadership Coaches on Noomii.

Every leader knows from experience that there are certain pressures they face in their role that they didn’t face before they got there. With “helpful” metaphors and sayings like: “the buck stops here” and “The fish rots from the head,” leaders have to come to grips with the reality that they may well get blamed when things are less than ideal, or when things just plain go south.

One form of conventional wisdom has been that leaders have to have a “thick skin” in order to deal with the complaints, the criticisms, and the sabotage that often accompany their role. I understand experientially the reasons why people say this, but I have also come to believe that there’s a very different way of approaching the challenges of leadership.

The difference can be thought of in the contrasting terms of being “defensive or offensive,” having “external toughness or internal clarity,” or having a “thick skin or high internal p.s.i. (pounds per square inch – think air pressure in your tires).”

Let’s consider it in terms of the latter: having a “thick skin or high p.s.i.” A thick skin is all about creating and maintaining an exterior toughness that protects our emotional well being from the threats of external jabs and potentially crippling criticisms. A thick skin creates a protective shell (or crust) from outside attacks. It does little to help us stay open, teachable, flexible, approachable, open to innovation, etc. We might even legitimately ask if it really does the job of protecting our hearts, or whether it simply forestalls having to grapple with the cumulative effects of the “slings and arrows” that come our way.

Having high internal p.s.i., on the other hand, is about becoming so clear and comfortable with what we’re about, what our vision is, what our strengths (and non-strengths) are, what we want out of life when all is said and done, etc., that the internal pressure offsets the external pressures of leadership. Like a tire that is inflated to its proper air pressure (or p.s.i.) to offset the irregularities in the roads it rolls over, our increasingly clear, internal sense of who we are and what we’re about has the same effect for us. We become “positively offensive” with those around us, rather than “self-preservingly defensive” with them. Our “internal pressure” offsets the “external pressures.”

Let’s say for the sake of brevity that these two perspectives – a thick skin at one end, and high p.s.i. at the other – represent the two ends of a whole spectrum. What’s your sense of where you are on the line between those two points? Toward which end do you find yourself naturally defaulting? In your life and in your leadership, where would you like to find yourself on that line? What will it feel like when you are noticeably closer, and what will it take to begin moving a little more in that direction?

And this may be the “rubber-meets-the-road” question: What will it look like for you to step out and act on your growing internal clarity?

I have to say that I think I get as exhilarated with the experience of seeing clients get clearer about this, as they do themselves.

Give me a shout if you’d like to explore this for yourself. And meanwhile…here’s to your internal p.s.i. increasing!