Think of a time that you’ve experienced truly great leadership. What made it so great? Were they assertive, forceful, and dominating, or were they passive, understanding, and supportive? There are many different leadership styles, and a good leader doesn’t always have to lead.
Stress is a sensation experienced by both humans and animals, and there is a continuum of signals that can be used to indicate stress levels. When leading others, it’s important to understand how stress manifests in different people, as well as the effect you have on them as a leader. By focusing on the impact you have, you’ll be able to lead people more effectively and get the most out of yourself and your employees.
Tune in this week where we’ll discuss why it’s more important than ever to pay attention to your internal state and why doing so can enable you to become a better leader. We’ll discuss different leadership styles and how they affect stress levels in others, and how you can transform stress into enjoyment and feel fulfilled by your work!
If you want to learn how to deal with conflict more effectively, as always, we are both available for individual one on one and couples coaching. For the next couple of months, we are also offering free virtual training to organizations. Our goal is to support you, your team, and your business both at work and at home during this pandemic. Get in touch with us to find out more!
If you enjoyed the show, please share the podcast with your family and friends, or post a five-star review on iTunes. Rating and reviewing the show helps spread the word, which means less friction and suffering for everyone, and who doesn’t want that?
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Learn More:
A key question to ask yourself when analyzing your own leadership.
The ways stress manifests itself in both horses and humans.
How to be aware of the impact you’re having on others while being mindful of your own emotions.
Why it’s important to create space when you’re leading somebody who is stressed.
How to recognize if you’re in fight, flight, or freeze mode.
The importance of creating enjoyment for yourself each day.
How to use awareness to become a better leader.
Resources:
If you want to learn how to deal with conflict more effectively, we are both available for individual one on one and couples coaching. For the next couple of months, we are also offering free virtual training to organizations. Our goal is to support you, your team, and your business both at work and at home during this pandemic. Get in touch with us to find out more!
Email us on thrive@thriveinc.com
Full Transcript:
CrisMarie: Welcome to The Beauty of Conflict, a podcast about how to deal with conflict at work, at home and everywhere else in your life. Hi, I'm CrisMarie.
Susan: And I'm Susan. We run a company called Thrive, and we specialize in conflict resolution, communication and building strong, thriving teams and relationships. Conflict shows up in our lives in so many ways. Most people, unfortunately, are not very good at handling conflict. Most people have never been taught the right tools for dealing with conflict, and then it leads to unnecessary friction, arguments, passive aggressive emails, tears, hurtful comments, stuck-ness, all kinds of things we don't want. We're on a mission to change all of that.
CrisMarie: We've spent the last 20 years teaching our clients how to handle conflict in a whole new way. We're here to show you that conflict doesn't have to be scary and overwhelming. With the right tools, you can turn a moment of conflict into a moment of reinvention. Conflict can pave the way into a beautiful new system at work, a new way of leading your team, a new way of parenting, a new chapter of your marriage where you feel more connected than ever before. Conflict can lead to beautiful things.
Today we have a different kind of podcast. Susan and I are here and we are going to talk about leadership. We’re going to talk about the stress of leadership and actually different styles and how to transform stress into enjoyment, which is really different. We’re going to talk about it related to horses and we’re going to talk about it related to people.
Susan: Okay. So this all came about because I recently did a workshop with Elsa Sinclair who is known for her documentary called Taming Wild where she worked with a wild mustang without any ropes, called freedom training, and got the horse to the point where she could ride on this horse. I was at this workshop at the invitation of Stillwater Horse Whispers Ranch where I work. And most of the people attending were horse owners, and I was not. But I was fascinated by the two days that I got to spend with her.
And so much of it was appliable to what I believe about leadership and the work that I’ve done with people and horses in leadership.
So I want to start off by saying that we want this to be interactive. So I am inviting CrisMarie at various times because I have no doubt she’s quite capable at taking control of this podcast. And I’m sure there will be times where I will be saying something that she doesn’t agree with or she’ll say something that I don’t agree with.
And we actually wanted to have this be sort of an open dialog because I’m digesting these things I learned into my system. This is a subject matter she knows a lot about, stress and kind of the science behind stress and how it is in the nervous system and all sorts of things. So we actually are excited about making this like a real time conversation.
CrisMarie: And just a little bit of background, Elsa Sinclair is from Seattle and Andrew Green brought her out here, sponsored her to come out. And she does things like trains the Seattle police horses, no?
Susan: I don’t know anything. I don’t know where you got that. No. She’s done a series of documentaries and she does work with all sorts of different types of horses. And she does what’s called freedom training, so it’s without any ropes, nothing. It’s different than natural horsemanship even. And she would say herself it is the slowest style of getting a horse into relationship and into the situation you could possibly deal with.
CrisMarie: And she is very focused on the horses’ enjoyment, and that’s very different than the work you do with your Equus leadership work, tell me where that’s different.
Susan: I love it when the horse enjoys it. But mostly I am focused on the fact that I think the horses are giving really great feedback to the leader who I am coaching, the two-legged person who’s out there and helping support them and getting more embodiment and clarity, in giving and suggesting movements. Now, when I work with clients sometimes they do have a long line or something, but it’s not attached to the horse or any of that. So there’s some very similar things.
CrisMarie: And just to give you a mark in time, we are in July 2020, so this is post Covid, but still…
Susan: Apparently post, let’s just be clear.
CrisMarie: Yeah, I know, our numbers are skyrocketing, however, working with the horses is done outside, you can do socially distancing, she wore a mask so I just want to give you that picture just so you know.
Susan: So you know that we are doing all the things we need to be doing.
CrisMarie: Yeah, and don’t come to Montana because our numbers are rocketing, okay.
Susan: So let’s start off by a simple thing, defining leadership. And I love this because she had such a simple definition, which she assumed we were going to be surprised by. Not me, I loved it, it was basically leadership is when one person makes a decision and someone follows it.
CrisMarie: Pretty basic.
Susan: It’s pretty simple. Now, any of you out there who are leaders also know that doesn’t mean it’s easy.
CrisMarie: Well, and I think just even thinking about when you take a leadership role. How do people follow you? Often what happens, and I can be this way is I can be very dominating and insisting. I can use control, speed, force to get people to follow me, so I’m using my role, my power. Susan is nodding her head. It can even go so far as to scare or intimidate or shame people into doing things into, “Why haven’t you got that done? My gosh.”
Susan: We talk about this in couples. There is the dominant style in someone within a couple who is clearly exerting overt measures of force. And then there’s the passive person who is actually doing a lot of things that passive aggressive, well, it might be the word for it, which are under the table which are equally designed to control.
CrisMarie: Yes, both are designed to control. Exactly.
Susan: Yes. And now, the thing that’s interesting, so if you bring a horse into this equation you cannot push a horse around. And yet in the way that we historically have trained and kind of domesticated horses, one would say it’s been a sort of a brutal process.
CrisMarie: Well, it’s even called breaking the horse, right?
Susan: Yes. And now that has changed. There is a lot more things like natural horsemanship, things like that. There’s still this continuum where it is about control, dominating, insisting, that’s more the style that is used with horses than what Elsa talks about is this idea of passive leadership and supportive leadership. And it’s all designed to get you to assertive leadership. And assertive meaning, it’s an interesting concept she has about leadership which I love.
You have a great relationship with your horse. It’s not that you’re always leading. You are actually very clear about the relational aspect of that going back and forth.
CrisMarie: I would think that it would be not good if the horse was leading. I wasn’t being respected if the horse was leading.
Susan: Yeah, I think there’s a lot of horse people that think that too, but the idea being, so I love this concept too, because she talked about, so if you think of leadership is about someone who is making decisions that people follow. So you want the person who’s leading to be emotionally stable and making good sound decisions.
So there are always times in any given relationship, like think of us, where I am more emotionally stable. So maybe I should be making more of the decisions. And times where you are more emotionally stable, and would be good to make a decision. The same is true when you’re riding a horse.
CrisMarie: I have to say, so there’s the riding the horse, there’s you and me and then there is just me inside of me. I have a part of me, especially on Monday mornings that can get quite driven and dominating and insisting. And it’s probably not a good idea for me to be making decisions from that part of me.
Susan: I would agree.
CrisMarie: It’s not very emotionally stable.
Susan: But however, it’s not that you are in a place on Monday morning, let’s just say, where you’re not as emotionally stable. If I decided, okay, I’m taking over the lead. That is me coming and insisting on being the leader, likely not going to have much effect on you because you are already in a state of…
CrisMarie: Probably fight.
Susan: You’re feeling intolerant, you’re uncomfortable, your stress level’s high. And you’ve probably gone into fight, flight or freeze. In that moment I’d go with fight myself too. And the idea is that that’s not a good time to apply more dominant leadership and take over. So what might be helpful and often if I can somehow come into play where we have enough of a relationship where maybe I could get – we’ve talked a lot about fight, flight and freeze.
And when she was talking about this in terms of the horses she said, “They’re always on some form of the stress curve,” as are we, between intolerant of whatever’s going on.
CrisMarie: Not good.
Susan: That’s very stressed, tolerant, still stressed but not, you know, acceptable levels of stress, which means they’re going to be a lot more compliant and willing and accepting the assertive leadership. And enjoyment, that’s sort of the range of stress in a horse’s life according to Elsa.
CrisMarie: And in a human’s life too, yeah.
Susan: Yeah, and I agree, and in our life. And so Monday mornings you are in intolerant. So within that range of intolerance when stress is that high we usually go through another curve of fight, flight or freeze. And the idea being that that’s kind of like a reactive pattern, when we are so stressed out. You talked a lot about this in the high end of that curve, that we go into reaction, which is a form of separation from ourselves really.
CrisMarie: And from our resources, from other people, for sure.
Susan: And the idea being that there is an opposite to that. And she introduced it with the horses as the opposite of freeze is thinking. And this was kind of fun to actually see the horses, like they’re frozen, they are eating the same things, they’re moving but it’s very – you could see it.
CrisMarie: Is that when they’re frozen or thinking?
Susan: That’s when they’re frozen. But you want to get them to where they’re – because with horses they can…
CrisMarie: Yeah, I think actually back up for a little bit because I think it will help our listeners. Listeners, I think it will help you, if you actually paint the picture of how you are just having a session with the horse. And then we’ll tie these concepts in.
Susan: Okay. Now, you need to understand two things as I’m doing this. I am not an experienced horseman. I have a lot of experience with horses, but that’s not been my study.
CrisMarie: Yeah, you study people.
Susan: I study people. But I have really begun to pick up because I’m working with horses a lot. They’re in their body, so you’re seeing what’s registering in them usually through physical movement and things like that.
CrisMarie: They’re not trying to hide what’s going on.
Susan: They’re not trying to, no, not at all.
CrisMarie: They’re not pretending, “I’m not doing that...”
Susan: Yes, they’re very clear. And so that can be really wonderful, especially if you start to recognize those signs.
CrisMarie: Like what?
Susan: Okay, so when horses are engaged in listening, you’ll often see their ears move. So they’ll lock on to whatever they’re hearing in the environment. And if they hear you coming up from a very long ways away, you become potentially the leader or in relationship with that horse from a long ways away. And if you pay attention to that you can start to read, are they – if they go into more of a freeze, maybe their ears go up and they’re just rigid.
CrisMarie: Straight.
Susan: Or you’ve got to look out, if their ears go straight back, you don’t want that.
CrisMarie: Because that’s a fight.
Susan: Yeah, but you want – let’s say their ears are just kind of moving, but they may lock on to something, maybe in our case we were out in the pastures so they were loving the grass.
CrisMarie: So their head’s down.
Susan: And they’re just chowing down on the grass, but sometimes their head would hardly move. And that was a sign that they might be more in freeze. And you want that movement.
CrisMarie: So they’re in an intolerable stress state and they’re in a frozen version of that?
Susan: Well, in this case because of the grass, it might have even been tolerable because they could keep eating grass. But it was more of a freeze than it was anything else. And you want to get them thinking, so the way you might do that is start to notice if you came closer, do they pay attention or do they move away? So you’re always watching for what’s the movement pattern that happens next. And you’re not trying to force any movement, you’re just trying to observe.
So if I pay close attention and I notice okay, their ears are solidly on me and they are interested, they even may look up and engage, they’re in more of a thinking mode. They’re less; they’re not in that intolerant state.
CrisMarie: So it’s like you’re really focusing on the impact you are having basically, and reading the cues, which is really good leadership. Just so you know, listeners, that’s a really good leadership development skill to notice the impact, because usually we don’t, we’re just kind of so in our own world.
Susan: You bring up an interesting point, because a lot of times, yes, notice the impact, but don’t get so focused on the impact that you actually stop paying attention to your own emotional curve. And noticing am I so focused over there that I don’t notice my own when I get stressed, when I’m uncomfortable, when I’ve gone into override.
CrisMarie: And that often can happen when we work with people, oh my gosh, the horse doesn’t like me or I’ve done something wrong. Do you notice these phrases, folks, things that you say even at work? I’ve done something wrong. They don’t like me. I’m going to get them upset.
Susan: And that thinking is actually a good space. But once you start ruminating, you notice ruminating, when I’m just repeating the same is more in that freeze state. It’s like your head is just spinning on the same thought, “you’re not worth much.” In horses it’s easier to see.
Now, flight, which would be the next thing with horses, because they, you know, they don’t really ever really want to fight, they want to get out of there, and so do we generally. But flight usually looks like they, you know, they’re actually going to move away. And the opposite of flight is yield, which means…
CrisMarie: The opposite of flight?
Susan: Flight, so like I was saying in the reactive stage it’s flight. In the more relational, like this, you know, like let’s say with a horse, maybe I lean in and then they lean and we lean. It’s very clear that they don’t lean too far away, they don’t actually move away but they just go a little bit.
CrisMarie: They give.
Susan: They give then they come back and give, and there is a difference.
CrisMarie: You can’t see this, folks, but she’s doing this, I’m like the horse.
Susan: I know, we need to have a video for this one. We could be doing horse things and all sorts of stuff.
CrisMarie: Yeah, she’s had the ears moving over her hand.
Susan: And that’s the more relational aspect of it. And with fight, you know, fight with a horse, their ears go right back, you really want to be aware.
CrisMarie: Their heads go down too, don’t they?
Susan: Yeah, and they poke, that’s not a good…
CrisMarie: Or they kick.
Susan: Yeah, and that’s not a good sign.
CrisMarie: No, that’s not a good sign.
Susan: And you really want to kind of get it before it gets there. But the other side, some, you know, just close on the frame of fight in the relational side is play. So I don’t really want to get too much into the horse story but she had some wonderful stories. What I loved about her style was she said, “Sometimes there’s a time and a place for the dominant, insistent, assertive self, some horses need that.”
The fight style is very large and that’s actually how they engage, so you can – she doesn’t make any of it wrong. She’s just saying we’ve been way overdone, kind of like we talk about that in terms of we’ve been in leadership way over on this power over. I found that fascinating, because she was describing at one point a horse…
CrisMarie: I did want you to say a play example.
Susan: Okay, so she was describing, she said, “You don’t want to practice this with your horse.” So I should probably not be telling people because they’ll go practice it.
CrisMarie: Don’t worry. I don’t know how many horse people we actually have who listen to our podcast.
Susan: Okay. So you’re trying to eventually through this whole styles that she works with, maybe you put your hand on the horse. But the horse quivers and moves away or whatever else. And so you realize, okay, that’s not good. But maybe you could tap the horse or rub the horse sometimes or like she was describing, sometimes she’s done it because you want to actually be able to work around their mouth. And the horse might want to bite you. And she’s like, “Okay, well, I’ll come up and kind of…”
CrisMarie: Bite you, make sure she’s poking…
Susan: And she said, “Make sure you don’t do that.”
CrisMarie: Don’t do that?
Susan: Well, don’t go do that with the horse because they’re not going to because – unless you’re skilled, she says, “Yeah, you take a risk.”
CrisMarie: Well, she was doing it though more – it created more of a play because she was poking. And so Susan has three of her fingers and she’s poking in the cheeks like, hey, I’m making contact a little.
Susan: Yeah. And see what the horse does, because some horses may want to play like that.
Susan: Or they have a more aggressive, what seems like aggressive style, because even while we were there, there was one point where the mares would get – we had a bunch of mares out in pasture. And there were a few things going on with the mares where – actually she said that the horses out of Bobbi’s, which I already knew were probably some of the most – spend a lot of their time in acceptance and enjoyment.
CrisMarie: They have really happy horses.
Susan: Yeah, very happy horses. But the mares, you know, it’s hormones, brings hormones into any equation and so there was a lot more activity. And it was at one point there was clearly some stress that had arisen in the one horse and Elsa had been working with this particular horse. But it was really not, nothing she was doing was working particularly well. And eventually the horse just ran over to the – just sort of leapt, kind of looked like it was about ready to come, you know, she was watching the signs, so she just moved, that’s enough.
And the horse ran over to this other horse and bit it and kind of got – and she goes, “Now you see I knew that that was not going to be okay with me, bite was not okay, I left.”
CrisMarie: So she fled.
Susan: But she went to fight with the other mare and that was okay with the other mare. Sometimes they can seem kind of like whoa, they are kicking me, they’re getting really – that’s just play to them. So the way you tell if something is play or something is fight, and I love this line too, does it get better or does it get worse? So it’s like if it gets better.
CrisMarie: If it escalates, okay.
Susan: …then that’s a good sign, you’re going in the right – if it gets worse for either you or the horse, they’ll keep doing it.
CrisMarie: So I want to actually – because this is a really good segway just to make the linkages back to humans and leadership. Because I think so often in some organizations and even inside myself, I can spend a lot of my time in fight, flight or freeze in my intolerable or tolerating. And I’m doing my work and I’m working hard, but not so much in the thinking or the yielding or the play.
Susan: Or acceptance or enjoyment.
CrisMarie: Which is the acceptance and enjoyment aspect, yeah, and think about that for yourself, listeners, how much of your work is intolerable or tolerable? Or do you actually move over to the acceptance and the actual enjoyment? Now, there’s certainly things that I enjoy like our podcasting, our presenting, but if I’m left alone with my to do list, I’m in that fight, flight or freeze. Oh my God, I’ve got to get it done; I’m not going to be able to figure it out, that sort of energy, not so fun.
So how do you move from the Elsa world from that fight, flight or freeze over to the play, yield, think?
Susan: So I’m going to tell you, I’m not necessarily – I don’t want to say all of this has to do with Elsa though, because I may not be giving her teaching justice here. So we’re going to call it Elsa via Susan.
CrisMarie: Susan, what do you think helps move horses and then people?
Susan: So I mean when she talked about it from the horse perspective, she talked about what’s traditionally the way you work is dominating, insisting and you get to assertive. The other is passive and supportive, and then assertive. So let me talk about what passive…
CrisMarie: They all lead to assertive is the middle.
Susan: Yeah, so that concept that I assert earlier, leadership is when I make a move and others follow. So that could be as simple as if I – let’s just take something like I move my chair over there, and you don’t do anything. That would be a passive form of me leading, I’ve decided. Or if we get on this and you start talking, and I don’t, you know…
CrisMarie: You don’t say much.
Susan: I don’t say anything. I’m good with you leading. It’s a passive form of leadership. Let’s say you start and then I interrupt you, it’s like whoever gets the last word was the person who was…
CrisMarie: That must be more the dominating.
Susan: Well, that, yeah, that’s more. Well, but that can also be you’re going back and forth. If you’re going to be the assertive leadership and this would be in horse world, you want to take that last step; you don’t want to give the last step to a horse.
CrisMarie: Let’s see who gets the last word, folks, today.
Susan: And remember this is all happening without any…
CrisMarie: So I kind of was making fun there but when you’re working with a horse you want to make sure they get the last step?
Susan: No, you get the last step.
CrisMarie: You. And why is that?
Susan: Well, because that’s – and remember, we’ve got nothing…
CrisMarie: There’s no right or wrong, yeah.
Susan: Yeah, because they can do whatever they want, they’ve got no reins, they’ve got nothing. And I’ve got nothing and they’re much bigger than me. So if I take the last step or we take it in sync, that’s fine. But if they’re always taking one more step then they are kind of in the lead, which is okay if that’s what I want. But if I’m actually trying to help them gain trust in my decision-making and they’re always making the last move, think about that even in terms of us making decisions. If every time you say something and I just repeat what you said with slightly different words.
CrisMarie: That’s kind of mansplaining. It’s totally mansplaining, that’s what happens in meetings and that’s that very…
Susan: Yeah, very frustrating.
CrisMarie: It is very frustrating, right.
Susan: Okay, so okay, so yes.
CrisMarie: Not that you’re a man, but when that happens with people that is that sense of…
Susan: And we do it all the time, like just now I did it, you were in the middle of finishing.
CrisMarie: You were and you interrupted me.
Susan: Yes. Okay, and I think she’s going up and down the stress curve.
CrisMarie: I am, I’m a little bit in my intolerable. No, I’m just kidding.
Susan: I should poke your face.
CrisMarie: We didn’t say this in the beginning, we kind of assumed, which hopefully it made sense; all of this is on the ground, no writing. It’s like coming up to a horse and you were even saying, like moving your feet to see if they would move their feet.
Susan: Yeah, or moving your feet with them, which is a style, that’s a mirroring. Now, supportive might be let’s say – because remember we talked earlier that whoever’s emotionally stable. So if a horse – because this came up with mares, not so much with any of the other horses, but when horses are showing more signs of stress you might want to engage in supportive leadership. So in this case it was much harder to get the horses to come in horse – you want to come into flow with the horses and to some sort of harmony. That’s where you’re mirroring those steps, that’s a sign.
CrisMarie: You’re moving with them.
Susan: Yeah. That’s not happening, then you need to go to looking at maybe they’re stressed, so either I need to move away or do something different. And one thing I can do if somebody is in stress is sort of begin to walk around more. I walk away, give them more space, maybe do other things. Because that will help them know that I’m not just forcing them, I might connect to them periodically, but I’m not just being – do we still have contact? Yeah, okay, never mind, I’ll walk.
CrisMarie: This is so applicable to when humans and a leader, think about it, when you’re leading somebody and they’re stressed, it’s never helpful to kind of micromanage at that time.
Susan: Closer, horse.
CrisMarie: But to actually create more space, maybe, why don’t we take a break and take a walk, even that, or it’s no big deal, put that lower on your priority, like creating less pressure.
Susan: And that would be considered supportive leadership, you’re still not forcing anything to happen but you’re giving a supportive environment for that potential reconnection.
CrisMarie: When I do that with let’s say you and I say, “Hey, let’s take a,” if I see you stressed, “Let’s take a break and take a walk,” I am creating a relationship with you probably to support you creating a relationship with you, if you’re in that separated fight, flight or freeze.
Susan: Yeah. And again, I really love the simpleness of the concept, is it getting worse or is it getting better? And a question to ask, I think in terms of leadership, if I’m in my role but I am never really in enjoyment, some people I’ve mentioned that to and they’re like, “No, I come home to enjoy my life.” And it’s like wow, okay, that’s sad. No, but what she was saying is that’s actually the same with people and their horses.
A lot of times traditional training teaches you a whole lot of techniques and things so that you can be predictable that your horse will – anything you ask them to do will be accepted. But there’s often not enjoyment for either – well, you might be enjoying yourself riding a horse, but the horse may not be.
CrisMarie: How would you know the horse is enjoying itself, now that I know you have assertive leadership on me?
Susan: She’s raising her hand, which means there’s something, you see, I’m following, so okay, how would I know?
CrisMarie: Let’s say you are a horse person, and you think, well, I am having fun but how do I know my horse is in that enjoyment mode, versus just compliant or accepting my leadership?
Susan: That is where a lot of time and attention watching horses pays off, because you begin to really notice when, just like people, we can get into a frozen state and no one would even know.
CrisMarie: Yeah, I know, I lived there, yeah.
Susan: Horses can look, can be very frozen and we may not know, we may think it’s just a compliant horse. But that could be just a horse in acceptance.
CrisMarie: This is so applicable for my earlier career when I was working at Arthur Andersen. I literally was in a trauma state, a frozen trauma state and I was people pleasing, working really hard, trying to do everything. And people, pull out my résumé and they thought it was awesome, so I looked fine. But I was in such misery, I had the back injury, skin issues, allergies, gut issues, and was so, was definitely, I knew inside I was in tolerating or in tolerance. But I just thought that’s what I had to do, and didn’t even know.
Susan: Yeah. I think what I would want to talk about and sort of emphasize here is if you can get to the point where you recognize that continuum, intolerant, tolerant, acceptance, enjoyment inside yourself, where am I? And using freeze, fright, you know, using the signs of stress.
CrisMarie: Versus play, yield and think.
Susan: The more collaborative, yeah.
CrisMarie: I think this is really powerful for me and maybe you listeners, just noticing when I work, am I in that tolerating or intolerable, which is usually I put so much pressure inside of myself, nobody else is doing it, with the time. And actually recognizing how can I create more enjoyment today? What would be – like I was thinking about when I started working in the 80s in New York City, we would really work nine to five. We didn’t have laptops, we could work on the train, we were commuting.
And we would take lunch, we’d go out to lunch, chat with folks and develop relationships, that does not – certainly doesn’t happen in Covid. But it hardly happens in our – even before Covid, people are like, “No, no, I can’t take a break for lunch.” So we really minimize our own enjoyment knowing that enjoyment has a lot to do with, “Hey, I got this thing done and I feel really good.” But it also has to do with am I actually just having fun, connecting, doing sensual things like eating something really yummy or having a nice space around me.
Those things that I think so often we downplay, “That’s not necessary,” because we’re in the tolerable intolerable state.
Susan: Yes. I mean I think of it like, if you can begin to recognize your own signs of enjoyment, because sometimes it can be, thinking about some new ideas, popping, painting, creative, that sort of thing. That might be in the thinking category, like are you able to…
CrisMarie: Which is over on the acceptance side, right? Yeah.
Susan: Yeah, able to be interrupted, that’s fun, can you yield? If somebody doesn’t want to do it your way, can you yield and say, “Wow, we’re going a whole different way than I thought. Okay, let’s go.” Because then you’re more in that place of accepting and enjoyment.
CrisMarie: And it feels much more like a flow.
Susan: And can you play, can you actually like, “Okay, I’m going to poke at you and we’re going to go back and forth?” You’ve got to know your own internal how much of that are you aware of? How much of that do you pay attention to?
CrisMarie: How much are you allowing of that versus I’ve got an agenda, I’ve got to get it done? My career is based on this, my money, my security which is so much how people tend to think about their work.
Susan: Yes. And so I mean the first invitation is to get much better at your own ability, because that to me is emotional stability. And it’s not about always being in play, yield and thinking relational, it’s about knowing when you are and when you’re not. If you’re really a great leader, masterful, you don’t mind if somebody else takes over because you’re not emotionally stable to do it.
You just sort of let it, you know, your team, you’re relational with your team, you know they can do it. It’s kind of, she described that in horsemanship, like actually Bobbi Hall, she’s the owner of the ranch was talking, by the time she was in some sort of bog with her horse, she couldn’t see or do anything. And she just knew I cannot leave, but the horse will do what the horse does.
CrisMarie: The horse will figure it out.
Susan: And the horse led her through it. So it’s like there are times where if you are good with your team you know they can lead. And so you pay attention to, and you don’t think of it as a threat to your leadership.
CrisMarie: It’s the type of leader that can have smarter people on their team, doesn’t have to be the smartest in the room, willing to…
Susan: The leader doesn’t have to lead.
CrisMarie: Yes, that’s true.
Susan: A good leader doesn’t always have to lead. But they will know that place and that movement for themselves really well.
CrisMarie: I’m just thinking of the dominating insistent is a lot about control, speed, pressure. And the supportive passive is more relational, a bit slower, a bit spacious, and that assertive is that kind of sweet spot in the middle which you hope you can leverage. But knowing where you tend to fall, I think you’re right, inside of me, if I’m in my fight, flight or freeze, my style will be more dominating and insistent.
Susan: But remember, passive is not collapse, there is a difference.
CrisMarie: That’s true.
Susan: And that’s actually something to pay attention, because I think sometimes people don’t realize somebody who’s actually doing something passive, they’re not forcing something, they’re just moving, they’re still making decisions. Now, there are times where we have gotten to the point where we have actually stopped making decisions, so that’s probably more when you’re over there sinking.
CrisMarie: Yeah, and that’s when the team is like, “Oh my gosh, my leader isn’t giving me feedback, I can’t get them on the phone, they’re just out of,” yeah.
Susan: So I mean we wanted to do this today because of course we don’t have this all exactly. But it so fit into what we are doing and what we believe that I really wanted us to kind of even play with it here, who’s leading, who’s following, how are we doing this? And it has been a bit like that.
CrisMarie: And how does this show up in your own coaching of leaders in your Lighthouse coaching?
Susan: Well, first, I’ve really enjoyed asking someone, “How do you measure enjoyment? What does it mean to you? What does it look like?” And so many times that question just is like, you know, getting your job done, making money, getting the work. And it’s like…
CrisMarie: Getting the promotion.
Susan: Yeah. But when we go deeper, and a lot of times I think the first thing is getting in your body and paying more attention to, this is what I love about the horses, not that your ears are going to start going side to side. But you actually start taking big breaths, you’re aware of how you feel, sensations, movement, all sorts of things like that. When I’m working with people I think of it a lot of trying to help them get better at regulating their own, Taming Wild, really didn’t come to her because of the horse.
She actually said, “Taming Wild has to do with taming my wild because I become impatient, and I want the horse to do it.” So I thought that is perfect, I’m kind of like taming wild, I think of it with leaders, develop your patience, develop your emotional stability. Develop that depth to have a relationship and trust yourself and your team to do things.
CrisMarie: And that’s what you help leaders do.
Susan: Yes.
CrisMarie: That’s fabulous. I mean I can relate to this with my Olympic background, and performance, ands tress, and all this stuff I’ve done around trauma and the nervous system, recognizing freeze response, flight and fight. And how much, how many habits we have that are engrained in our nervous system that are stuck over on that tolerable, intolerable side and they’re not serving.
And so often I’m doing the same thing, helping people recognize there’s more than just that reaction inside of them. And developing the capacity inside of their own self to hold for that and make a different choice.
Susan: Yeah, I mean that’s what I love for both of us, this is such a powerful model. And I think about right now where we are in the world with Covid and everything going on, like a lot of the leaders I’m talking to, they’re used to being in the workplace. It’d be like watching horses in the pastures, they can see things there. And a lot of the people I’m talking to have a little more built in paranoia because they’re not so sure, they’re not able to figure out, are people in agreement with me? Are they doing what I want? Are they doing, you know.
So it’s a really critical time to pay attention to your internal state and also you have to lead differently because you don’t get to see as readily are people following me or not. So you have to have a lot more faith that all those people out there and teams are doing what they said they were going to do.
CrisMarie: Well, and it is a great time and we have been doing this now, some virtual team building with people because it’s so easy on a Zoom or team’s meeting to go right to business, we’ve got to solve this problem. And there’s not the, “Hey, how was your weekend,” that sort of light just relaxed.
Susan: Relational work.
CrisMarie: Where I can tell, we’re okay, yeah, you and I are, not so much of a herd, we’re testing in the herd, where do we fit in this herd? But having some experiences where you can get those deeper conversations so you know where you fit in the herd is helpful, even virtually.
Susan: We did this testing of the mic beforehand, that we should have put some of that on as now take because it was just hysterical. Now, that was a push pull.
CrisMarie: And hopefully we got the right settings so that you hear both of us equally. If you need support, I am a performance stress management leadership coach. So I help you settle your stress so you have more resources and create more of that enjoyment inside yourself and on your team.
Susan: And I’m a Lighthouse leadership coach. Did you know that’s a thing too? And I enjoy helping people find their way through difficult situations, through giving them feedback and…
CrisMarie: And even showing up more authentically in their role.
Susan: Yeah. So that’s us.
CrisMarie: And together we do team building and leadership development, even virtually and speaking, which we’re doing. So we hope you enjoyed this. If you have any questions, feel free to reach out to either CrisMarie or me, or Susan and you can just email us at thrive@thriveinc.com. That’s t.h.r.i.v.e@t.h.r.i.v.e.i.n.c.com. Okay, have a good day.
If you want to learn more about what we discussed today, or how to deal with conflict more effectively, Susan and myself, CrisMarie are both available for individual one-on-one coaching. We also offer couples coaching, which now as we live and work 24/7 together, may be more important than ever.
Susan: We continue to do our team facilitation, both live and now virtually. Let’s get real, until you’ve had a tough conversation over Zoom, you may not be building the trust you need on your team. For the next couple of months we are offering free virtual trainings to organizations. Our goal is to support you, your team and your business, both at work and at home during this pandemic.
CrisMarie: Right now you can find short videos on my, CrisMarie’s LinkedIn and Facebook with tips, tools and inspiration. To contact us, email thrive@thriveinc.com, that’s t.h.r.i.v.e@t.h.r.i.v.e.i.n.c.com.
Susan: Okay, stay safe, stay healthy and remember, together we’re better and stronger.
CrisMarie: Take care.
CrisMarie Campbell and Susan Clarke
Coaches, Business Consultants, Speakers and Authors of The Beauty of Conflict
CrisMarie and Susan work leaders and teams, couples in business, and professional women.
They help turnaround dysfunctional teams into high performing, cohesive teams who trust each other, deal with differences directly, and have clarity and alignment on their business strategy so they create great results.
Connect with CrisMarie and Susan on LinkedIn.
Watch their TEDx Talk: Conflict – Use It, Don’t Defuse It!
Order their new book The Beauty of Conflict for Couples: Igniting Passion, Intimacy, and Connection in Your Relationship.