Your Power Unleashed

Self-Validation: A Leadership Discipline

One of the most overlooked leadership skills isn’t strategic thinking, decisiveness, or influence it’s the ability to validate yourself. This is something that surprises my clients because it seems so basic, a little trivial and maybe even indulgent. However, self-validation boosts Emotional Intelligence specifically the aspect of having high self-regard captured by the research backed EQi 2.0 model. Your relationship with yourself is the foundation of EQ, which we know is a fundamental predictor of leadership effectiveness. Without self-validation, even high performers outsource their confidence which creates reactivity, approval-seeking, and burnout especially at senior levels (because you are burning a lot of energy trying to be liked versus being effective and making tough calls). Here is the thing, when you understand yourself it allows you to better express yourself. This leads to healthier interactions with others, which then leads to making good decisions. Making good decisions allows you to manage stress better, which leads to understanding your emotions better. So the simple act of validating yourself has ripple effects across multiple dimensions of EQ. Don't under-estimate the power of this activity. So how do you validate yourself?You do so by: 1. Owning Your Achievements 2. Developing positive inner self talk around those achievements 3. Celebrating those achievements Which one will you use in 2026 to develop the discipline of self-validation?