Few leaders get to the top of their organizations and for those that do, the journey can be a very isolating experience. When it comes to some of their biggest decisions and challenges, the ones that go with their leadership roles, they have very few with whom they can talk and think things through. The more success a leader has, the more isolating they become. At the same time leaders are also being challenged to lead in new ways that they have probably not encountered before. Leaders are at the top because others believe only they know what needs to be done.
So, as you gain success and become more isolated what do you do if you are one of those leaders who want to get better at their leadership effectiveness? Were you do turn to be vulnerable about your weaknesses? To whom can you honestly and authentically admit that you do not have all the answers and need help? To grow, you must intentionally engage personal development on your own.
When leaders come to me who believe something is missing, I tell them they possess everything they need to be a better leader; they are just not using all of it. Maybe 60 - 80% of their potential, but not 100%. That's why they need a new leadership model to close that gap. Are you aware of your gap?
One of the concepts I use with leaders to become the best version of themselves focuses on four leadership dimensions: Physical, Emotional, Intellectual and Spiritual and how leaders are using these dimensions in all their situations and conversations. These all define how we are showing up and interacting with our life and our world and the resulting outcomes. This tool really helps the leader become much more aware of themselves in any and all situations, conversations and relationships. It really breaks up the Autopilot of racing through our day, our interactions and situations and pausing to look deeper at ourselves.
This article is going to only focus on a few elements of the Emotional dimension.
In the course of any given day, as I listen to leaders, I am highly aware of the variety of emotions that fill their rooms: Fear, Anger, Gladness, Sorrow, Guilt and Shame. What I know about emotions is that they play a key role on how we behave, how we react, how we are showing up as leaders. Emotions give us a way that helps explain things for us. How's that?
Here is a simple formula: EVENT + EMOTION = EXPLANATION. Every one of us makes meaning in this way. This is basic DNA on how we view and interact with life. What's important to our effectiveness as leaders is do are emotions have the best of us (reactive) or do we have the best of our emotions (creative)?
As for me, in a variety of past leadership roles I can honestly say that I was reacting to all situations. I was trying to stay above the water line in an angry sea. I reacted and responded quickly without much thought ~ just trying to survive with my head trash, constantly pissed off, wanting to punch the next sea wall that came my way. And it would not let up. Gulping down seawater while riding wave after wave. I wanted desperately to make the right choices, but not understanding my emotions blinded my clarity. As such, my reactions were negative and unproductive. And they were harming everyone involved.
I was on edge and it was dark, cold and wet. Each time I was triggered, I behaved the same way and got the same results. Looking back I can tell you I was responding by being on Autopilot. Not having to think, just an automatic response. Autopilot blinded my clarity. We have all been on Autopilot. The numbness of making decisions as life comes at you. It is like being on a hamster wheel that brings us the same outcomes as before.
Sure Autopilot can bring on successful results, until it doesn’t. Then what….. well for me I got focused and chose to get off Autopilot to better understand how to control my emotions instead of them controlling me. I started to define, feel and recognize (to be more aware) of my emotions, the triggers that set them off and being accountable and owning them ~ I found this as my only path to understanding my emotions and consciously choosing different responses that led to healthier outcomes.
One of the many things I do in my line of profession is to work with leaders in helping them see and understand for themselves that they must get off autopilot for things to really change. Nothing changes until the autopilot is turned off and that’s when real and transformational change happens.
Emotions are not good or bad. They are neutral but what is good or bad is whether or not they are in charge or if we are in charge. What I have learned about myself and working with leaders is our emotions impact what we are thinking and our thoughts lead to our actions that result in our outcomes. The key is to be always conscious and curious of emotions that are driving you. When we run on Autopilot that is often to our detriment, especially the more extreme the situation and the intensity of the emotion. The more we are on autopilot during an intense emotion we are more vulnerable to behaviors that are controlling and managing us as opposed to recognizing our emotions and adjusting our behaviors accordingly and more productively.
Here is a quick primer on Emotions. There are a lot of words in our vocabulary to describe emotions; maybe 170 - 180 adjectives we use to describe our feelings and these adjectives can be broken down into 5 main emotions. Those five are broken down into 4 primary and 1 secondary emotion: Glad, Mad, Sad, Scared and Shame. The distinction being that our primary emotions are hard wired into us from birth. Emotions are really our first language we communicate with without using language. No one had to teach us any of these 4 emotions and that is why they are primary.
As we age, we continue to get certain messages about our emotions. We are either told to suppress or express our emotions. We are emotional beings and when we try to suppress or completely negate our emotions they will eventually show up in our behavior at the wrong time and place and we lose our ability to identify what is making us tick, what is setting us off, what we are thinking, why we are behaving the way we are?
Each of the primary emotions can be defined as the relationship between me and what I want. A lot of times we are vague in defining what we want. Sometimes we don’t even feel entitled to what we want. As defined then……………………..
GLAD is an emotion that expresses “I have what I want”. I am GLAD that I have…
MAD is an emotion that expresses “There is a barrier between me and what I want.”
SAD is an emotion that expresses “What I want has been taken away from me.”
SCARED is an emotion that expresses “What I want could be taken away from me.”
Notice by the way that each of those takes place in a different reference of time.
GLAD and MAD are generally experienced when something is happening in the moment. I have what I want or there is a barrier right now to what I want. It is very present. SAD has to do with the past. It has happened in the past. SCARED or afraid is about the future. Being SCARED or afraid is an emotion of the head. Our intellect creates scenarios that cause us to feel scared, fearful or anxious. We are imagining what can happen. We make stuff up even if we do not have good reasons to do so. It is about the future and it is all in our head emotionally.
The 5th emotion is SHAME. SHAME is the single secondary emotion because it is not hard wired into us and it generally comes from our exterior world. SHAME comes as a result of a painful experience, something we did or we were shamed by someone else, such as a teacher, a coach or other authority figure and in some cases our qualifier that we are not enough, that we do not measure up, not adequate enough, not worthy.
SHAME can be linked with GUILT, but they are different. The best way to define SHAME and differentiate it from GUILT is: SHAME is: “I am Wrong.” SHAME is within me………… while GUILT is “I have done something wrong.”
You may not have SHAME but at least a third to half of the leaders I work with experience this emotion on a frequent basis on some degree. SHAME shows up when you feel embarrassed, lack self-confidence, I am not good enough; I don’t have what it takes. It is a notion of imperfection not adequate enough. This is how SHAME shows up.
Let’s conclude by asking what are the emotions are you feeling as you read this? Are you feeling or ignoring your emotions? Is there someone/something else outside of this article that is also impacts your emotions? What do you want to do with that? Are you letting your emotions show? Is this helpful? What emotions might others detect in me?
It is my hope you got one or two nuggets from this article so you have a little more clarity on emotions and how to modify and ultimately transform your behaviors for better outcomes and greater leadership effectiveness. We would love to hear from you with comments or questions. Send me a note via email at brad@aperiocoaching.net or on Twitter @bparcells.
In Latin, Aperio means to reveal, uncover, to make clear. Coaching is a powerful process of coaching leaders through personal transformation that enables the leader to reveal and illuminate their authentic leadership style.
