Why Leaders Fall

: 00:02

Dr. Angela Aja

Welcome to Summoned to Soar Radio. This podcast was created for bold female leaders who are ready to rise above the hustle and create a life of purpose, impact and influence. If you've got a big vision and a deep desire to make your mark on the world and a hunger to step into your next season with clarity and confidence, then let me tell you're at the right place at the right time. Here's what we're all about. We're about helping women rediscover their authentic voice, reinvent themselves as powerful, influential leaders, and then reclaim their authority with a thought leadership book. With simple, actionable mindset strategies and the SOAR method, which is our proven framework for transformation, you'll discover how to turn your challenges into stepping stones, lead with authenticity and boldness, and share your message in a way that leaves a legacy.

: 01:03

Dr. Angela Aja

Join me and my inspiring guests as we share personal stories, practical tools, and strategies to help you align your life with your purpose. Whether you're looking to shift the narrative around women and leadership or cement your legacy as a spirit led visionary, this podcast will give you the courage and clarity to soar. It's time to embrace your story, own your journey, and amplify your impact, even if life hasn't gone as planned. Transform. Breakthrough. Soar. Are you ready?

: 01:41

Dr. Angela Aja

Welcome to Summoned to Soar Radio, the podcast for bold female leaders. I'm so excited about today's episode. This episode is going to tackle one of the most unspoken yet universal fears of leadership falling. Whether it's falling from grace, falling from influence, personal burnout. Leaders often find themselves really teetering on the edge without even realizing it. In this episode, we're going to unpack why leaders fall and more importantly, how to stay standing strong by building an unshakable internal foundation, especially for female leaders, so that they can leave a legacy and pass it down to future generations without sabotaging it. You know, I've grown up around leaders. All my life. I've sat in some circles like a fly on a wall with some incredible leaders, and I've really soaked in every word they've spoken.

: 02:51

Dr. Angela Aja

I've mentored leaders, I've trained leaders, I've raised leaders, and I've been a leader myself. But one of the most profound things that I've realized over the years is that women have a very unique opportunity to lead differently. And I believe that we're being called to step up into that right now. I've seen leaders build incredible organizations, and I've also seen leaders fall, but get back up again and I'VE seen some leaders fall and stay laying on the ground, face down, wallowing in regret, shame and blame for their mistakes. But I've seen leaders who have focused on their vision go the distance and built in such a way that they pass down what they've built to the generations to come. And I love that. That's what I look for in leadership. Here's the thing. As women, we often carry a different weight in leadership.

: 04:06

Dr. Angela Aja

You know, we not only build organizations, but we build homes, we build communities, we build relationships and we build our families. We lead with our hearts as well as our heads. And despite all of that, female leaders often face an internal battle. Trust me, I know this battle all too well, that if it's not addressed, will lead to the very failure that they fear. You know, this episode is very crucial for female leaders who feel like maybe they've hit an invisible ceiling or they're getting weary in their well doing and they're maybe getting close to feeling like they're about to burn out. Women in leadership a lot of times unknowingly sabotage their vision. And here's why. Because their inner foundation isn't strong enough to support the success that they've built.

: 05:12

Dr. Angela Aja

And so today I'm going to share some of my journey and overcoming my own self sabotage and what I've learned about leadership. You know, we've all seen in the news Christian leaders, even the leaders of big companies who have failed morally destroying what they've built or even been arrested for illegal activity. But as women, you know, we have a critical opportunity to lead differently from the inside out. You know, I've often pondered this question, what would cause a man or a woman who has a powerful presence, powerful anointing, they're impacting their communities, they're impacting the world, but they sabotage it all. What would cause them to do that? Is it just an attack of the enemy that could not be withstood? And that may be part of the problem.

: 06:22

Dr. Angela Aja

But I also think there's another factor at work that I see happening over and over again. So today I want to explore the challenges and the triumphs of bold female leaders. Because I don't think I'm alone. I'm your host, Dr. Angela Aja, leadership coach, impact strategist, and author of a bestselling book called Summoned to the Five Stages of the Rise of a Woman. And today's episode is called the Inner what Every Bold Female Leader Must Master to Stop Sabotaging Her Vision and Legacy. I've come to realize that leaders fall for one simple reason. They build their vision bigger than their inner foundation. Bold female leaders are visionaries, and I'm one of those too. And we have the ability to rally others around our vision and literally turn our vision into a reality. We are anointed and appointed for such a time as this.

: 07:37

Dr. Angela Aja

But when our inner foundation, our identity, our emotional capacity, and our belief in ourselves, when that is not growing at the same pace of our vision, then we inevitably sabotage it to fit on the size of our internal bedrock. Here's the harsh truth, girls. Women who lead from a place of unresolved self doubt, hidden insecurity, or even emotional depletion always hit a glass ceiling. Not because they're not capable, but because their inner foundation cannot sustain what they've built. So what is your inner foundation and why does it determine the sustainability of your success? I believe that your inner foundation can be summed up in one word. Well, two words hyphenated into one word. Self leadership. Self leadership, I've learned over the years, is emotional responsibility.

: 08:53

Dr. Angela Aja

Not taking things personally, not blaming others and not making excuses, not believing in others more than they believe in themselves, and also not feeling responsible for the feelings of others. That's emotional responsibility. You have to learn how to be responsible to people and for yourself. Another piece of self leadership is mental resilience. And I believe that includes relating to failure differently, that, you know, success is not a lack of failure, but the only way to get to success is to fail over and over again. Mental resilience is also relating to rejection and judgment differently. I like to say this, that rejection was their action, not your identity. And then when people are judging you, I found that a lot of female leaders suffer from the fear of being judged. And when someone is judging you, the Bible says, judge not lest ye be judged.

: 10:15

Dr. Angela Aja

And in coaching we say, you spot it, you got it. So a lot of times when you are being judged, they're not judging you. They're judging the parts of themselves that you make them uncomfortable. And when they see you rising up, it highlights something in them. And they begin to judge themselves where maybe they should be. They know there's something they should be doing, or maybe there's something they should be saying or an excuse that they should not be blaming. So when someone is judging you, they're not really judging you, they're judging themselves. And your actions highlight an area where they're missing it. And then the third part of self leadership is energy management. And this is where we are setting boundaries. Come on, girls, we need to be babes with boundaries.

: 11:18

Dr. Angela Aja

And then also empathy management and allowing empathy to be your superpower instead of your kryptonite. So here's some signs that your inner foundation is weak. If you feel stuck, if you are on the verge of burnout, if you're second guess your decisions, if you have a fear of visibility, if you're struggling with confidence, or if you notice that you sabotage yourself right on the brink of a breakthrough. And a lot of times this sense self sabotage disguises itself as perfectionism, procrastination, or even playing small. The misconception is that external strategies are going to fix the real issue, you know, like shopping or, you know, spending money on Amazon or even drinking alcohol or shutting down. There are so many external strategies that we use. But here's the key is that transformation begins from within.

: 12:37

Dr. Angela Aja

You know, I think every leader has an opportunity to fail or they come dangerously close. But the real question is, will you survive it or will you thrive through it? You know, failure is not the problem here. It's when you don't see what's coming that causes it. And so today I want to just give you five silent killers of leadership and how you can protect yourself from these silent killers. These are often unforeseen forces that cause leaders to get weary in their well doing, especially female leaders. And it allows them to give up before they've really made their mark on the world. And the first one is, boy, this one hits hard. This is coming from my own life. This is not just something I've pulled off the Internet here, but it's the isolation trap. Female leaders often isolate themselves because of their position.

: 13:49

Dr. Angela Aja

Have you ever heard it's lonely at the top? Well, I sure have. And I built my beliefs about leadership from that foundation, believing that it's lonely at the top. And, you know, I grew up a PK pastor's kid, I married a pastor, were in the ministry. And there was a very real unspoken rule that you couldn't be vulnerable. In fact, I'd never had a best friend until I was in my 40s because I was afraid of what people would think about me, if they would judge my leadership if I was really vulnerable. And not only that, but I think leaders stop asking for help and they suffer in silence. And then, you know, their inner world crumbles while they appear to be strong on the outside.

: 14:49

Dr. Angela Aja

And if you want to go back and listen to my last podcast episode, and that was the downside of being a strong. So I know the isolation trap all too well. But we have to build a circle of safe and trusted advisors and peers who can speak into our lives and learn to not just trust other people, but trust ourselves. And one of the things I realized is that, you know, the Bible never tells us to trust people. And I think that becomes like a false belief that we have to trust people. So we do trust people and then we get burned and then we don't trust people. But the Bible never tells us to trust people. But the Bible does say keep in step with the Spirit.

: 15:40

Dr. Angela Aja

And so, and then we have to trust ourselves and trust the red flags that we're seeing. And if we'll do that, then that will allow us to build those circles of safe advisors and peers who can speak into our lives. And as if it doesn't feel right at any time we can leave the circle or we can find a new circle. Well, the second one is success without a foundation. And this is where I've been talking about really growing that inner foundation. And that's what I do through coaching. I help women expand their inner foundation so that they can grow internally and they can sustain the weight of their influence. You know, a lot of times rapid growth without a personal, a solid personal foundation, it leads to an internal collapse. And the solution is we have to commit to doing the inner work.

: 16:45

Dr. Angela Aja

And this is where, this is why I'm so passionate about helping women, whether they are leading a home, leading in their communities, leading an organization, leading a company, leading a ministry. I'm so passionate about helping women grow internally, grow their in self leadership so that they can build those big visions and make their greatest impact without sabotaging it and really committing. We have to do the inner work so that we can build the outer success. And it matches. We have to prioritize personal development and self leadership. The third thing that I find, one of those unforeseen forces that causes female leaders to get weary in their well doing is empathy fatigue. Now this is kind of a catchphrase, but I find that it is so true.

: 17:58

Dr. Angela Aja

And this is where, you know, as women we care so deeply for other people, but we feel way too responsible for their feelings and for their breakthrough and for their success that we carry the emotional burden and then we end up burning out because it's too heavy of a load to carry. You know, we are constantly pouring out, right? We give and we give, but we, we put our needs on the back burner and then we end up pouring from an empty cup and you end up feeling overwhelmed. And even I hear so many women tell me that they're just numb. But we have to create powerful, empathetic boundaries and replenish our emotional resources and learn how to protect our energy. Now, I'm not talking about new age energy here. I did a whole teaching recently about the.

: 19:02

Dr. Angela Aja

What the Bible says about energy and how powerful it is when we protect our energy and we stop allowing people to drain us of our energy because we can't be effective when we are running on empty. Well, the four unforeseen force is the pressure to perform. And this is where I find that leaders often feel the burden to maintain that success and then operate from a place of fear rather than flow because they're afraid of losing it. And you know, I, I've been caught up in the, you know, hustling and striving to build this vision that God has given me, but underneath it was striving for perfection, fear of failure, and, you know, allowing secretly what I built to prove my worthiness and my value. And so.

: 20:08

Dr. Angela Aja

But we have to shift the focus from performance to purpose and learn how to operate from alignment instead of anxiety. And this, one of the things that I teach and coach from this perspective is that you are not a human doing, you are a human being. And so when you are operating from a place of doing, then you're doing has to prove your being, has to prove who you are. But when you decide as a powerful chooser, this is who I am. I am a woman of excellence. I am a woman who is nurturing. I am a woman of confidence. When you decide who you are at your being, then you operate from a place of being, and you still do.

: 21:04

Dr. Angela Aja

But when you operate from a place of being, then you're doing flows out of who you are instead of to prove who you are. And that's a real shift that I often help women make when we're going through coaching. So the fifth unforeseen force that can take us out as women is unprocessed, pain of the past, and even fear of failure. And you know, I always say that what you focus on gets bigger and failure, it becomes an identity that you're avoiding. So when you're afraid of failure, why are you afraid of failure? And I think if you dig even deeper, it's because if you fail, then who are you? Well, maybe I'm not good enough or maybe I'm not worthy of being a leader. And so when you are of avoiding failure, what are you focusing on? And then you're focusing on Failure.

: 22:16

Dr. Angela Aja

And then what you focus on gets bigger. And so the more you focus on failure, avoiding failure even, all you see around you is failure. And so you have an opportunity to shift your mindset instead of avoiding failure, to know that failure is just a part of the process. And I always tell women, I want you to get out there and fail as fast as you can. And here's where I learned that. After my world fell apart, I had to go out and get a job. And the only job I could find was selling windows door to door. And I do not wish that job on my worst enemy, let me tell you.

: 23:03

Dr. Angela Aja

But I was trained by an old school salesman, and he would drive me up to the door and he would say, now get out and go up to the door and say this. And I would go say this. And they would slam the door in my face and I would come back crying. Well, after days of this, finally he said, okay. He said, quit going after the yeses and go get as many no's as you can. And he said, because then the yeses are just going to be there. Well, I took him up on that. And guess what? I went and got as many no's as I could. I went out and failed as fast as I could. And I became number one in the company. I became number one out of five states. And so this unhealed trauma and unresolved pain eventually surfaces.

: 23:53

Dr. Angela Aja

When you are under the pressure of leadership, trust me, it raises its ugly head. And sometimes, you know, because of that unresolved pain and pressure, we can make reactive decisions, sabotage things. We lash out in the moments of stress. But again, we have to do the deeper work of healing our past. Not from a perspective of going backwards, but how do we want to show up in the world differently? And from the perspective of where we are now, you know, what is the impact we want to make on the world going forward and how has what we've been through prepared us to make that impact? Our job as bold female leaders is to stand strong and go the distance and to make our mark on the world. And how are we going to do that?

: 24:59

Dr. Angela Aja

We're going to build a personal inner circle surrounding ourselves with people that call us up to a higher level, not just flatter us. You know, having one or two people that you can be transparent with. And I'm building that community, I'm building that circle of women. And if you want to know how to join that circle, you can reach out to me@AngelaEngelaja.com or you can Find me on Facebook. Angela Asia coaching. But I am building that community of queens because we need one another. We need to support one another. The second thing we need to do to stand strong is to anchor in our identity and anchor it in something that is stronger than success. In other words, going back to that being versus doing. Anchoring your success from the standpoint of who you already are, not what you're lacking.

: 26:02

Dr. Angela Aja

Leading from your identity, not achievement. And then detaching your worth from your work. Number three, designing sustainable rhythms of rest. I cannot tell you how important this is. And I've learned this over the last few years. After running hard and running fast and becoming a high achieving woman, I've had to learn to step back and prioritize rest and recovery, not just productivity. I've had to create weekly rhythms that refuel me emotionally, spiritually and mentally. And here's the thing, if you've read my book, or if you haven't read it yet, go get my book. Summoned to Soar. The five stages of the rise of a Woman. And the reason I named it Summoned to Soar is because when the butterfly is out there living with purpose, she's not afraid of being judged. She's showing up in the beauty of who she was created to be.

: 27:05

Dr. Angela Aja

She's flying, flapping her wings and living with purpose. Something incredible happens. She catches the tailwind. And when she catches the tailwind takes her farther and higher than she could ever go on her own. And the tailwind does all the work. In fact, she has to stop flapping her wings when she catches the tailwind. If she's flapping her wings, she's actually working against the wind. And so this is why we, as bold female leaders, we have to design sustainable rhythms of rest in order to succeed and go the distance. And then we have to heal what's hidden. We have to do the inner work, the deep inner work of finding that unprocessed pain so that we don't sabotage our success. You have to hire a coach or a mentor that can help you do that. And guess what?

: 28:03

Dr. Angela Aja

You just happen to be listening to a coach and a mentor who does that very thing. So if you need me, I'm here for you. And then we have to lead with empathetic boundaries. We have to become that babe with boundaries, protecting our emotional capacity so that you're not pouring from an empty cup. Your inner foundation is the core of who you are. It's your belief in yourself, your mental and emotional well being. It's the clarity of your identity, and it's your ability to hold the weight of what you've been built for. And we must not neglect our inner foundation. We think, you know, if I can just keep on going, if I can build it bigger, if I can hit the next milestone, then I'll finally have arrived.

: 28:56

Dr. Angela Aja

But the truth is that no amount of success will ever outgrow a weak inner foundation. And if you don't address it, then you will subconsciously sabotage your success to shrink your success to the size of the level that you can handle it emotionally. This is why leaders burn out. This is why female leaders crumble under the pressure and they make poor decisions. But you have the capacity to build an internal infrastructure that can sustain your success. And as bold female leaders, we can do it differently, girls. We can intentionally expand our inner foundation so that our vision can keep growing without having to crumble. Women who lead well have learned how to build themselves powerfully. As they build their organization, their inner foundation has become their greatest asset, not a liability.

: 30:12

Dr. Angela Aja

And I believe that as women, as bold female leaders, that we are being invited into a new era of leadership, one where we lead from a place of wholeness and strength, not depletion and burnout. So your vision is too valuable, your legacy is too critical, and your calling is too divine. The greatest work you will ever do is not building your business or ministry. It's building you. Now is the time to lead differently.

: 30:53

Dr. Angela Aja

Thank you for tuning in to Summoned to Soar Radio. This is where bold female leaders just like you embrace the call to rise above the ordinary and step into a life of greater purpose and impact. Hey, don't forget to hit that subscribe button so that you'll always know when.

: 31:11

Dr. Angela Aja

The next episode drops.

: 31:14

Dr. Angela Aja

I want to remind you that you have everything you need to turn your challenges into stepping stones, amplify your message, and leave a lasting legacy. Whether it's writing a thought leadership book or leading with more purpose or designing a life that's fulfilling and meaningful, it is your time to soar right now. So go. Boldly align your work with your calling and let your leadership inspire change, shift narratives, and make your mark on the world. If you're ready for the next step, then head on over to Angelaja.com and join the Crown membership. It's a sisterhood of women who are reigning with grace, wisdom, and purpose. Together, we'll transform your story, your leadership, and your legacy into a movement that lasts for generations. Until next time, keep rising. And remember, transformation begins the moment you answer the call. To soar.