Bonus Episode - Reflecting on Stage 2 of the Bold Leaders Roadmap

This bonus reflection episode brings together Stage 2 of the Bold Leaders Roadmap: Managing the Inner Load.

If you’ve listened to Bold Move 4 (Protect Your Boundaries), Bold Move 5 (Stop Taking on Too Much), and Bold Move 6 (Quiet the Inner Critic), this episode gives you space to pause and reflect on think about what those conversations brought up for you.

Stage 2 often catches leaders off guard.

Responsibility increases. People rely on you more and suddenly leadership feels heavier. On the outside not much has changed, but internally you've got a lot more to carry.

In this reflection episode, Liz recaps the core themes of Stage 2 and explores:

• Why leadership fatigue is often about inner load, not workload
• How boundaries, delegation, and self-trust work together
• Why capable leaders over-function without realising it
• How much pressure is self-generated simply because you care
• What changes when you stop holding everything together on your own

This episode is about giving yourself permission to stop absorbing everything, stop being the buffer for everyone else, and stop confusing responsibility with over-responsibility.

You’ll be invited to reflect on what you’re still carrying that may not belong to you.

This episode closes Stage 2 of the Bold Leaders Roadmap and sets up the transition into Stage 3: Strengthening Judgement, where decisions start to carry real consequence.

🎧 Listen if leadership feels heavy — and you want to understand why, without judging yourself.

🔗 View the full Bold Moves Roadmap at BoldMovesCoach.co.uk

Making Bold Moves is a podcast for people who are capable, thoughtful, and quietly questioning how they’re showing up at work and in life.

I’m Liz Boswell. I work with leaders and professionals who don’t need more advice, but do need space to think clearly, especially when the pressure is on.

Each episode is a calm, mentoring-style conversation grounded in real client moments. We look at the stories people carry, the behaviours those stories create, and the small, practical shifts that change how things land day to day.

You’ll hear honest reflections, psychologically precise questions, and simple actions you can try immediately, without overhauling your life or becoming someone else.

If you’re stepping into more responsibility, more visibility, or simply feeling the weight of decisions that matter, this podcast is here to help you slow things down, think more clearly, and move forward in a way that feels grounded and real.

A quiet companion for people who want to make better moves, not louder ones.

Transcript

S3 Ep 2 – [Reflection stage 2] (audio)

[00:00:00] Hi. Welcome back to Making Bold Moves. This is Liz, and today is a reflection episode for Stage 2 in the Bold Leaders Roadmap where we're gonna recap the Bold Moves 4, 5, and 6, which are all about managing the inner load. If you've not listened to those episodes yet, I recommend that you go and do that, and then come back to this Reflection episode.

If you have listened to those episodes, then this is a great opportunity to think about what you've learned, what you might have been doing differently, and what's shifted for you since you've been doing that. So managing the inner load is what happens internally when responsibility increases and leadership starts to feel more challenging.

This isn't necessarily about learning anything new, just noticing where you've been doing things differently. And as you've been [00:01:00] implementing those challenges I've given you over the last few weeks. Stage 2, when I'm working with clients, often catches people off guard, and it's what I refer to as shift-shock. You know like when you drive a fast car and you put your foot down and it knocks you back in your seat 'cause you weren't quite expecting the jolt. The same thing happens, I think, for leaders when they step up into a more senior position. They're doing well. They're trusted. People rely on them.

They give them more responsibility. They feel more tired, they're exhausted, much more than previously. Head feels busy, replaying conversations that you've had during the day. You're still thinking as you're driving home or as you're having your tea at night, you're still replaying the day in your mind.

Your brain's having to work a lot harder and probably a lot differently as well. You've gone from working quite a [00:02:00] tactical job - maybe, if you are a manager - to a more strategic job, which requires different level of thinking. So, you're probably doing more leadership than before, and without realizing how much you've taken on internally.

So this was really the purpose of this stage in the roadmap, and I will give you a quick reminder of what we've covered so far in this stage. So in Bold Move 4, we talked about protecting your boundaries, noticing when it's leaky, replacing unspoken expectations with clarity... you know, and being really clear with people about when you can do things and what you can't do as well.

Bold Move 5 was all about stopping taking on too much, prioritising and delegating, right? Yeah, delegating to your team instead of protecting them without letting standards slip. And Bold Move number 6 was [00:03:00] about quieting the inner critic, understanding self-doubt as protection for ourselves. And each of these,

it's not about doing less. It's not about saying, no, I don't do that anymore, it's about carrying less in your head so that your head doesn't feel quite so heavy. When leaders work through this stage with me, a few things often happen. They stop over functioning for everybody else. They notice they don't need to hold everything together and that, you know, everything's not on their shoulders.

And they realize that some of the pressure they're under is self-generated, not because they're wrong as such, but because they care. And what's most important is they start to feel more space, start to feel like they've got more thinking time. Not necessarily because their jobs got easier, but because they're managing themselves better within it.

They're leading themselves better. So [00:04:00] let's just pause for a moment and think back over the last few weeks, what have you noticed in yourself? Have you stopped prioritising other people? Have you started checking what they need and what capacity they've got without assuming it? Have you stopped taking responsibility by default and maybe delegating that responsibility to other people, and have you stopped replaying decisions inside your head and instead started trusting your judgment?

So just notice this and ask yourself, what's one thing that you are carrying right now that might not actually belong to you that you could let go of? So here's something that I want to say really clearly. At this stage when I work with leaders, it's not more tools that they need. They don't need time management.

And that happens, a lot of people come and say, oh I really need help with my [00:05:00] time management, Liz. And it's never about that. They need permission; permission to stop absorbing everything for themselves, stop being the buffer for everyone else, and stop confusing responsibility with over-responsibility.

So managing the inner load is a leadership skill in its own right, and it's one that many organisations don't talk about and leaders don't talk about. You know, it's almost like, well, that's expected at this level, but it is about developing the skill to manage that. And if more leaders work on that and develop this as a skill, I think we'll get less burnout.

We'll get less needing people to go off sick because they're stressed out or they need a break. We'll get more people feeling good about themselves because a lot of these are wellbeing, you know? Setting boundaries, protecting yourself, managing your inner critic; they're all [00:06:00] wellbeing.

So if you stay in Stage 2 for too long without addressing this, you might edge towards burnout. So, please think about how you can put these things into practice. If you've not done so yet, maybe go back and listen again and actually apply the challenges. So we're gonna move on to Stage 3 next, which is all about strengthening

your judgment. And it really does matter because decision-making can start to feel heavier and slower and take longer, because once you've stopped carrying quite so much internally, you can create space to decide more clearly. So this week, I'm just gonna leave you with a reflection; what would I do differently if I trusted that I don't need to hold everything together on my own?

I'm gonna say that again 'cause it's really important; what would [00:07:00] you do differently if you trusted that you don't need to hold everything together on your own? Notice what comes up. Notice what you're holding and where do you feel that? Just to recap, Stage 2, feeling heavy doesn't mean you're failing. Inner load grows as the responsibility grows. Boundaries,

delegation, and self understanding are all about wellbeing and reducing pressure and stress. And managing yourself is a part of leading others. That brings us to the end of Stage 2, Managing the Inner Load. If you'd like to see the full Bold Moves Roadmap, and where we're at and what's coming next, you can find it on our website,

boldmovescoach.co.uk. Next time, we'll move on to Stage 3, Strengthening Judgment; talking about what changes when [00:08:00] decisions start to carry real consequence. And so I will see you then. But until then, please take care of yourself and notice what you don't need to hold onto today and let it go. Bye for now.