by Guest Author | Mar 10, 2023 | Personal Mastery
Think about each time you swallow a lump in your throat, swallow the words that are on the tip of your tongue in anger, or inhale deeply to keep from expressing frustration.
Where do you think those negative emotions go? It would be nice if they just disappeared but they don’t. They actually get stuck in our bodies.
However, we swallow, stuff, and stifle many of the uncomfortable emotions we feel because it’s either not the right time to express them or, perhaps we don’t even want to feel them. This was the case for me for much of my adult life – I spent years holding back tears of anger and frustration, which were my swallowed lumps. What I discovered was that these emotions lodged themselves in my body in various forms – mostly as chronic aches and pains or repetitive illnesses. I also discovered that many of the repetitive swallowed lumps, stifled cries, and stuffed away anger represented themes in my life- areas where I was doing things to please others or for others’ approval while ignoring my own needs and desires. The emotions I felt, but stuffed away, were actually the cries of my inner self, trying to let me know that something was off; however, I ignored them. It was easier to shift my attention elsewhere than deal with feeling angry, sad, or frustrated, right? Maybe not.
As I said, emotions are energy in motion so they need to move. Think about when you feel joyful or are rooting for your favorite sport’s team or feel proud of your child – you move your body in various ways to express those emotions. You smile, laugh, dance, jump up and down, clap your hands, or open your arms in pride and joy. You are moving those positive emotions and expressing them. It’s very natural for us to do this when we feel good. And, the same needs to be done for negative emotions. Even though it might not be as natural or as accepted in our society, it’s still vitally important to our physical, mental, and emotional health. The way we release these emotions from our body is to allow them to move. So how exactly do you do this?
Acknowledge that you are feeling negative emotions – whatever they are
When you feel sad or angry or frustrated, name the feeling. You don’t have to say it aloud. Just silently notice. Don’t judge what you’re feeling. It’s a feeling. It isn’t right or wrong until you label it as such. Simply acknowledge the emotion without judgment.
Let yourself feel the negative emotions
Where do you feel the emotion? Heart? Stomach? Face? Feel it. Describe it to yourself. Is it hot? Tight? Tingly? Clenched? Heavy? Now, let it move through you. Often times this means you will need to cry. Or, if it’s anger, you might need to get up and walk, run, move your arms, use a punching bag, or whatever your body indicates it needs to do to allow that emotion to be expressed. I know what you’re thinking: “But what if I’m in public and I can’t do this?”
Then put it on hold and find a later time and place to express the emotion. Perhaps by the time you get to a place where you can cry or punch the punching bag, the feeling of anger or sadness will be gone. Yes, the emotional feeling of that past moment is gone but it doesn’t “go” anywhere but into your body, until you allow it to move out of your body. I know this because for both myself and many of my clients what tends to happen is the emotions build up over time and then you might suddenly find yourself in a situation where you cannot keep it inside anymore. Often this is what causes people to have fits of rage or temper tantrums. I remember when my dad passed away I’d been through such a difficult year of watching him get sick and pass along, all while watching one of my dogs go down the same path I was unable to swallow anymore lumps in my throat. They needed to come out. Whether I wanted them to or not, my body had reached its limit. This was due to many years of unexpressed swallowed lumps in my throat.
Process your negative emotions
So, even though you may not feel the same emotion when you have the time to express it, you still want to create space for it to be expressed. Even if it’s the next time you go for a walk or a hike or go to workout, simply set the intention that during that time of movement you’re going to release any blocked negative emotions that may be stored in your body. And, your body will know what to do. You might be amazed at the things that start to move through you. One of my clients loved to dance so after a frustrating week of work, when she couldn’t even remember all the things that frustrated her, she would put on “rage dance” music with the intention of “dancing out” all the negative emotions stored in her body that week. As she’d do this, flashes of her week would appear in her mind’s eye and she’d dance them out of her. She always felt rejuvenated and lighter after taking the time to dance away her anger.
Release your negative emotions
Once you allow the emotions to move through your body without judging them, they stop plaguing your mind. When they are stuck in our bodies, you tend to replay them in your mind. They can keep you up at night with thoughts of “I can’t believe he talked to me that way.” Or, “I’m so worried about my sick dog and afraid something is seriously wrong with him.” Or, “My boss is impossible to deal with and doesn’t respect my time or contribution.” Behind each of those thoughts are emotions: disappointment, fear, anger, frustration, etc. And each of those emotions contains energy that needs to move.
Once you allow it to move through your body, you begin to release it from your mind and heart. If you’re anything like me, you’ve carried some emotions in your body for a long time without even realizing it. These may need more than one or two rage dance sessions, punching bag outings, or crying fits to get out of your body so be patient with yourself. Know that each time you acknowledge an emotion without judgment and allow it to move through your body, you are releasing its grip on both your body and your mind.
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Updated-Originally published May 2016.
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by Guest Author | Mar 8, 2023 | Across Generations, Commentary
From the Huffington Post today:
“President Barack Obama may have a problem with confrontation, but First Lady Michelle Obama certainly does not. Ellen Sturtz, 56, a lesbian activist protesting President Obama’s delay in signing an anti-discrimination executive order, paid $500…at a private Democratic Party fundraiser in Washington, D.C. Ellen Sturtz claims in an interview with The Huffington Post, that she didn’t plan on interrupting First Lady Michelle Obama, but her fundraiser speech triggered her emotions and she couldn’t hold it in:
“I want to talk about the children,” Sturtz said. “I want to talk about the LGBT young people who are … being told, directly and indirectly, that they’re second-class citizens. I’m tired of it. They’re suffering. … We’ve been asking the president to sign that ENDA executive order for five years. How much longer do we need to wait?”
Refusing to be intimidated, the First Lady let her know how they do it on the Southside of Chicago and shut her down. The Washington Post reports:
“One of the things that I don’t do well is this,” Mrs. Obama said to applause from most of the guests, according to a White House transcript. “Do you understand?” A pool report from a reporter in the room said Mrs. Obama “left the lectern and moved over to the protester.” The pool report quoted Mrs. Obama as saying: “Listen to me or you can take the mic, but I’m leaving. You all decide. You have one choice.” The audience responded by asking Obama to remain, according to the pool report, which quoted a woman nearby telling Sturtz, “You need to go.”
Sturtz was escorted out of the room. She said in an interview later she was stunned by Mrs. Obama’s response. “She came right down in my face,” Sturtz said. “I was taken aback.”
This presents an interesting question. Will people say that Michelle Obama was assertive or aggressive in her handling of the situation? Because for a woman as powerful and strong as Michelle Obama, that question is bound to arise. And as all women in leadership roles know, this is complex, tricky and loaded territory. Here is how I’ve been making sense of that, spurred by this recent Huff Post story.
1. Context. The first question is, “Did Mrs. Obama do the right thing?” There is a time and place to challenge authority, but this was not it. By explicit agreement, this was Michelle Obama’s stage. Her role at the fundraiser was to deliver a speech, not to engage in dialogue. I believe it was also implicitly her stage. As First Lady, she is due the highest possible level of civility and deference. Both formally and informally, this context granted Michelle Obama the right to speak without interruption. Thus, I believe that Ms. Sturtz was out of order and that Mrs. Obama was justified in asserting her right to the floor.
The second question becomes, “Did Mrs. Obama act skillfully?” And that’s where the second aspect of context comes in: filters. Like it or not, we see each other through a multitude of lenses, be they gender, age, race, sexual orientation, economics, education, you name it. These filters sharply shape our interpretation of each other’s behavior. Look at how The Washington Post described Mrs. Obama’s actions: “Refusing to be intimidated, the First Lady let her [Ms. Sturtz] know how they do it on the South Side of Chicago, and shut her down.” Wow – really? I find this a thuggish way to characterize the behavior of a First Lady who is known for her graciousness, class, elite education and impressive accomplishments.
Put a different filter on the situation. Let’s say it was First Lady Barbara Bush, whom I imagine would have also handled that situation directly. Dollars to donuts, I’ll bet that the language used to describe the same behavior coming from Mrs. Bush would be something like “forthright” or “charmingly feisty.” Now put a white male president’s face on the scenario, and you’d likely have a man who was ‘firmly in command of the situation.”
This happens every day in every work place. I’ve already gotten comments to this blog like “Welcome to my world, Michelle,” and “This happens to me every day and I’m so frustrated.” If you don’t believe that this is still true, ask any woman leader who has gotten feedback for being aggressive. She’ll tell you that her actions were mild compared to her male colleagues, but that it was she, not they, called out for inappropriate behavior.
2. Definitions. Whether we label behavior as ‘assertive’ or ‘aggressive’ also depends on how we define those very words. Joe Weston, author of Respectful Confrontation, offers useful guidance. He defines ‘assertiveness’ as “any behavior, action, remark, gesture, or facial expression that impacts another with the goal to empower, and/or is received by the other in a positive way.” On the other hand, he defines ‘aggression’ as “any behavior, action, remark, gesture or facial expression that impacts another with the goal to disempower, and/or is received by the other in a harmful, threatening way.”
In other words, whether an act is assertive or aggressive depends on three very different ingredients: the sender’s objective behavior, the sender’s (invisible) goal or intent, and the receiver’s subjective experience. I imagine each of us has our own opinion about whether Mrs. Obama’s actions were assertive or aggressive. But based on the definitions offered by Joe Weston, the only valid perspectives on this are Mrs. Obama’s and Ms. Sturtz’. And I would not be surprised if their perspectives differed from each other.
3. Words and music. There are two components of any interaction: the tangible, behavioral aspects of the communication (which I call the ‘words’) and the spirit in and from which that behavior arises (which I call the ‘music’). There’s often a miscue when the two are out of sync. For example, if you’re coming from a spirit of judgment or hurt, even the most innocent words can come across as an attack. Conversely, when coming with an open heart and mind, it is possible to deliver even the most confrontative message in a skillful, supportive and productive way. Those of us reading the account of last night’s fundraiser have no window into the music behind either Ms. Sturtz’ or Mrs. Obama’s words. So we can’t judge the full impact of that exchange. But there will be ample opportunity for both women to reflect and decide if their words and music lined up with their intent.
When I look at Mrs. Obama’s actions, I see someone who handled a very dicey situation in a strong and assertive way. I don’t know how this particular incident will play out in the media; I hope that the ‘aggressiveness’ label avoids Mrs. Obama altogether. But I share these reflections because the incident reminds me that the line between “assertiveness” and “aggressiveness” continues to hound and confound so many of the women leaders that I know and work with. We are often so quick to levy the “aggressive” label (almost always negatively) against powerful women, and behave as if that characterization were objectively true. But the distinction between self-respecting assertiveness and attacking ‘bitchiness’ is anything but clear and face-valid. The way we view a woman’s strength is still driven as much by our inner and outer contexts as by her own behavior.
What about you?
Think of a communication that was questionable in terms of where the actors fell on the assertiveness – aggression continuum.
- When you look at that interaction through these three criteria (context, definitions and words/music), what do you see?
- How does it shift your original assessment of the exchange and of the various actors’ behavior in it?
- What was the role of context in defining how you and others interpreted and/or dealt with the behavior?
- What filters were likely at play in how people (including you) viewed it?
- If you could rewrite the script, what would you change to make the interaction more effective?
- Have you ever engaged in behavior where your words were skillful, but your music had an aggressive undertone? Can you see how this affected the communication?
Originally on: Leading With Grit and Grace
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by Dana Theus | Mar 3, 2023 | InPower Women Blog, Women in Leadership
Between Maggie Thatcher in The Iron Lady and Miranda Priestly in The Devil Wears Prada, Meryl Streep has played some pretty tough bosses in her movies. So when I got the umpteenth request from professional women – readers, clients and friends – to explain the phenomenon of lady bully bosses (i.e., biologically grown up mean girls), I thought I’d turn to her movies for enlightenment. You see, I’ve never worked for a mean girl boss, I don’t have sisters or daughters and it’s been way too long since I was in high school where I have faint memories of studying them in their breeding grounds.
The movies were only slightly more insightful than my long-lost memory. Streep is so good at giving characters depth (the reason she keeps winning Oscars!) that even her lady bitches have potentially admirable motives. And that’s the catch. Based on my interviews of real professional women who have worked for mean girl bosses, the big difference between Streep’s characters and real bully bosses is that, as seen through the eyes of their direct reports, queen bee jerks have no motive other than to win a competition that is usually only played by other jerks (of both genders).
How Can She Be So Mean?
Everyone wants to know how women can be so mean to other women, so I set about to see if I could discover answers. Many people had theories – like the cave girl needs to compete for the attention of men to father good-gened babies – but there really seemed only three credible core motivations that came through in every story.
Insecurity: The most common characteristic of the real mean girls I found was insecurity. One client, D, found herself working for a woman VP who kept her door shut, arranged every meeting so she came in late, controlled the agenda from the moment she entered the room, used passive-aggressive techniques to be “in control”, made decisions without telling anyone and wouldn’t discuss them after they’d leaked out. My client, being a very straightforward woman, very secure in her knowledge and expertise and inexperienced with such bosses, was unprepared for this and didn’t realize that she was inadvertently threatening her boss by refusing to play the game – until it was too late and she was on her way out (in one of those decisions that no one knew about until the CEO signed her demotion papers.) She never really saw it coming.
Competition: Another common characteristic I found was competition, which is often stimulated by insecurity. My friend N described a mean-girl-down between two female VPs (N being the third woman VP, a neutral party who both would talk to about the other) that had broken out into straight-out competition. But they weren’t competing for work bennies (e.g., raises, authority, budget); they were competing to win the catfight against each other. Any benefit, attention from the CEO, acknowledgment of unhappiness from the other – anything that could be construed as a “win” over the other – counted in their invisible scorekeeping. One of the women literally pulled a stunt out of the movie Mean Girl by putting fattening treats in a bowl on her desk that she put out for the other woman to eat – who did! And gained weight! And the first one admitted gleefully (win!) that her plot had worked!
The Gender-Neutral Bully Virus: There is one other common factor I find in the real world, which is that most mean girl bosses work for bully bosses as well – both men and women – who tolerate their behavior. The typical “man” meanness and “woman” meanness might manifest slightly differently, but a jerk boss is a jerk boss and the pattern seems to repeat and reinforce itself across gender lines. I came away from the stories I heard feeling that bully bosses seem to be a bit like a virus that can take over an organization’s culture. The virus rewards and promotes itself, twisting the environment to be unpleasant for everyone, rewarding to those who can play underhanded betrayal games and fulfilling the game-player’s warped sense of self above competence and company goals. Once it’s reached these proportions, you’re not only fighting an individual mean girl (or boy), you’re fighting an entire dysfunctional culture and your individual chances of winning go down exponentially.
The Hollywood View
The Streep movies played primarily on the competitiveness theme, and even so I found them a bit out of sync with the real women I spoke to. Although mean girl competition was played up in The Devil Wears Prada, it didn’t manifest as a tempt-her-to-get-fat catfight. Rather, the game was played out on a male game board instead. Miranda Priestly (Streep’s character) thwarts a coup by her boss and another female colleague, pulling a masterful chess move, to keep her job. Through the movie camera lens, the queen had to sacrifice her knight, who took it royally and opted to stay in the game despite the betrayal, but she did lose a would-be apprentice pawn in the process (Anne Hathaway). Miranda Priestly had mastered the man’s game of chess, but she could have been so much worse, she could have been a bitchy cat fighter too. The way Streep played her, Miranda Priestly was worthy of grudging respect in the end, even if you didn’t agree with her values.
In a recent interview, I heard Streep quoted as saying that Miranda Priestly is the only role she’s ever played (in 30 years on film!) that a man told her he could empathize with. To me this speaks to the strong possibility that The Devil Wears Prada may not have been an authentic mean girl story, but a Hollywood fabrication mixing male and female patterns.
In The Iron Lady, Maggie Thatcher was raised to play the man’s game and played it masterfully, to the point that her foibles and flaws were portrayed as identical to any man’s: family neglect and stubbornness. The movie never even put her in the room with another woman unless it was to contrast her with the kind of woman she wasn’t. In her generation, of course, there really weren’t other women playing the game of top-level, cut-throat politics of party leadership – so perhaps it portrayed reality quite well. I don’t really know, but I didn’t gain much insight into Thatcher’s unique feminine challenges other than that she had to give up her hat, update her hairstyle and that she won (and ultimately lost) the male game – on the male game’s terms.
I came away from both movies unclear whether either story was authentic to the reality of what women in top positions can be, or are, when they have to be tough to get the job done. I also didn’t see that the actual Streep characters – unlike the movie posters and trailers – were true mean girl bosses. They played more into the pattern that women who succeed in a man’s world are perceived in our culture as unattractive, which is verified by research. Meryl Streep’s characters certainly didn’t portray the more familiar authenticity that Mean Girls did with the candy-eating travesty. My bottom line takeaway from my movie research is that even in the stories we tell ourselves about female bully bosses, we don’t really know what an authentic bitch looks like on film. Maybe truth is really stranger than fiction.
The larger lesson
In a later post I’ll provide some advice for how to handle a mean girl boss when you find yourself working for one, but there is a final thought I had as I concluded this first round of research. As I said above, after talking to women more experienced than I, my ultimate conclusion is that jerks are jerks no matter what gender guise they wear in the game. When we try to explain their behavior “because she’s a woman”, if we’re not careful we end up letting them off the hook for being jerks. Let’s not do that, ok? Just because she’s a woman doesn’t mean we have to try to find a justification. If we want equality, we have to accept that women can be jerks, a-holes and bitches too – and deal with this reality for what it is – a powerlessness (e.g., insecurity) masquerading as power. I really believe that when we can do this, we’re on our way to authentic equality.
Do you know what an authentic bitch boss looks like? Are you a recovered Mean Girl? Do any of the movies get it right? Have you worked for a mean girl boss? Contribute to my next post and tell me what you did to survive. Did you keep your integrity intact? Do you think men and women have the same jerk virus or is it meaningfully different? We’ve all encountered these people, what lessons have you learned? Pass on your wisdom in comment below!
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by Dana Theus | Feb 28, 2023 | Across Generations, Leadership
“These young whippersnappers, today!” Can’t you just hear it? That old geezer whining about the young upstarts? Multigenerational leadership challenges between younger and older workers are as predictable as the sun.
When I was young I just remember trying to survive when I came into the work world. Maybe my elders complained about me, but I don’t recall. By the time the millennial generation hit their internships I reliably heard complaints about entitlement, demands for flexibility and communications challenges. Fast forward a decade and Gen Z is challenging us with whole new levels of (over?) confidence, pronoun sensitivity and a desire to shape their work to their lives, or leave.
Multigenerational leadership experts have long sought a simple solution for the inevitable irritations of working with people younger and older than ourselves. When young people show up in (to our way of thinking) inappropriate clothing, using weird technology or indecipherable language, it’s everyone else’s first instinct to (1) roll their eyes and (2) try to bring them into the normative culture.
In part, this latter instinct is appropriate. Ever since the demise of the apprenticeship employment model, the transition from youth to working adult has been awkward. It puts pressure on older workers to initiate and train younger workers about how to survive, thrive and succeed in the culture of work.
But as recognition of reverse mentoring demonstrates, older workers have at least as much to learn from younger workers if they have the right mindset.
Inclusive Leadership: A Benefit of Managing Across Generations
A lot of research has found that it’s a slippery slope to make assumptions about generations and what they want in the workforce. In essence, generational stereotypes are like any other kind of stereotype–limiting. Stereotyping too often leads us into unfounded assumptions about each other. In fact, when it comes to core values and the need for flexibility, recognition and autonomy, humans of any age or demographic are more similar than different.
Some guides to reverse mentoring point out that older leaders can learn a lot about technology from their younger employees, which may be true, but such reductive suggestions are a missed opportunity compared to managing other generations with the intention to learn what drives them.
What is your intention when you’re managing someone? You probably have a business outcome in mind; some work product that needs to be delivered, or a task that needs to be performed. Try adding a curiosity intention to your work with them, though, and you can find yourself building deeper relationships, motivating them more fully and learning more about how to lead across all kinds of cultural differences.
A curiosity intention is simply the desire to understand someone more deeply, without judging them. Premature judgment is a major inhibitor to learning. The judgments we form when adhering to stereotypes tend to shut down our natural curiosity to better understand people and cultures that are different from our own. This is true for multigenerational leadership as well as for multiracial, multiethnic, gender diverse and socioeconomically diverse populations as well.
Use generational differences to build your inclusive leadership lens and see what more you can learn.
A Tip for Multigenerational Leadership and Mentoring
One factor to be aware of when managing across generational (and other) divides is that people tend to filter themselves differently when interacting with people less like them. This is universal human behavior that can be as simple as showing deference or as extreme as code-switching, so if you sense that someone is holding back, don’t take it personally. However, one thing that will draw most people out, regardless of the differences between you, is genuine interest and curiosity.
So when you have the opportunity to lead others, in different generations or other demographic categories, ask them open-minded questions about their experience, attitudes, ideas etc. And–here’s the important part–be genuinely curious about their responses. Put judgment aside for a minute or three (that’s often all it takes) and just listen, following up with more questions. At a minimum this will help you give them advice tailored to their situation, but it also holds the promise of helping you make a deeper connection and expand your own worldview.
The next time you find yourself tempted to put on your geezer glasses and roll your eyes at the younger generation, stop and get curious about how to develop a more inclusive, multigenerational leadership style. Ask questions and listen to the answers with curiosity instead of judgment. See what you learn.
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by Guest Author | Feb 24, 2023 | Career Development
Say “no” to make your “yes’s” mean more. It’s that simple. – Dana Theus.
What happens when you imagine saying ‘no’ to someone? Does your chest tighten or your stomach knot up? Do emotions arise? Anxiety, perhaps, or even panic? How do you react mentally? Maybe you get fuzzy-headed or think, “Oh, I couldn’t possibly refuse.”
Now recall a recent time when you actually did decline a request. How directly did you communicate your ‘no’? As its own complete sentence, or buried in apologies, tangents or justifications?
There are intense pressures on women at work – even those in leadership positions – to be agreeable, helpful, and ever-available. “No” flies in the face of those expectations. It can be an especially uncomfortable stance for grace-based women leaders, because it risks creating disruption in the relationship. But as a professor of mine once said, “If you can’t say ‘no,’ then your ‘yes’ doesn’t mean much.”
Despite the discomfort it can create within you, there is great and positive power in a clear, unvarnished and respectful decline. It can help you make more realistic commitments, stand up for your values and earn others’ respect. But “No” doesn’t help just you: it contributes also to the health of your team, organization, family or community.
So the question becomes how to bring your unapologetic “no” forward in a way that works? As you know, it’s not an easy question, but here are some ways to start engaging it.
Photo by Gemma Evans
1. Examine your own history with saying “No” and the internal beliefs you carry as a result.
If you’re like many women, you have inherited a tangled set of messages about your power and authority. Try to look at that inheritance, taking stock of your history and its impact on your stance toward boundary-setting. Then try to articulate your own present-day views and values about saying “no,” so that you’re operating from a perspective that feels current and supportive. While a new articulation won’t erase your inherited stories, a new mental model can open up the possibility for new patterns of action.
2. Experiment!
There are a million ways to deliver a ‘no:’ sweetly, acerbically, forcefully, passively, fearfully, bitchily, authoritatively, quietly, unshakably, tentatively . . . Play with them all by taking just a few minutes a day by yourself just to experiment with throwing different versions of “no” into the air. See how each one makes you feel. See if you can identify ways of saying it that feel comfortably powerful to you.
Step it up a notch by taking the ‘no’ experiment into low-stakes interactions, like at the grocery store or with your family (if you have that kind of family!). Try saying ‘no’ in places where doing it unskillfully won’t have big negative consequences. The goal is to get more practice and thus get more comfortable with claiming your own authority in all situations.
3. Examine your organization’s culture.
I often hear people throwing around cultural generalizations like, “Oh, women can’t do X.” Or, “Women get killed for doing Y.” Certainly, it’s smart to listen to that cultural lore, because it may carry some career-saving wisdom. But test it, too. Look for current, tangible examples of what actually works and doesn’t in your workplace today. Are some women successful at managing boundaries, while others are not? What seems to separate the respected ‘no-sayers’ from those who are seen as aggressive or bitchy?
4. Consider investing in development.
I think that each woman’s relationship to “No” is an integral part of her journey to fullness, authority and well-being. Here are a few ideas for development:
- Read books or take a course. Relevant topics might include assertiveness, conflict management, emotional intelligence, crucial conversations, or executive presence. I recommend more experiential courses over strictly theoretical ones, so that you’re testing concepts by putting them into practice. In this regard, I am a big fan of Joe Weston’s book and workshops on “respectful confrontation.”
- Set up an agreement with a “no-buddy,” where you support each other in staking your claim and setting boundaries at work and in your personal lives.
- If you want to take this on more fully, consider investing in an executive coach for customized support. If confrontation and boundary-setting have difficult historical and emotional roots, consider seeking the support of a therapist.
What about you?
How do you react inside, the closer you get to using “No” as a complete sentence, without padding or softening it?
What do you see as the promises and perils of saying “No” so directly?
When have you said “no” in a way that was both definitive (grit) and respectful (grace)? What did you learn from that?
Updated-Original posted April 2015
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by Guest Author | Feb 22, 2023 | Coaching Advice, Corporate Culture, Innovation
Sometimes we have to accept the reality that innovation can’t always be planned, but when we find a pattern to help us increase the likelihood of spontaneity – why not try to learn it and bake it into the corporate culture?
In their new book “Great by Choice,” Jim Collins and Morten Hansen have identified some of these patterns. One I loved was “Zoom In Zoom Out” that describes how executives at innovative companies “Zoom Out” to take a strategic view of the situation before “Zooming In” to take action when the ground shifts under their feet. But they don’t just get all zoomy for the fun of it; they look for a specific data point when they Zoom Out, which is how much time do we have not to act before our risk profile changes? This designated time parameter then becomes the de facto boundary of our tactical response, allowing more strategic actions if more time is available and less if it’s not.
How Come Doctors Get All The Protocols?
I love the specificity of this observation, which makes it prescriptive. “Zooming Out” isn’t just about “getting perspective,” it’s about developing a protocol, which can be trained and integrated into the corporate culture to be followed in specific circumstances. When things shift fast, Zoom Out to determine how much time you have to act before your risk profile changes. Then Zoom back In to work with the time boundaries you’ve got. Wouldn’t this be a great leadership and innovation development tool to train all your up-and-comers?
I used to work in a company where volatile public relations realities were periodically a factor. Our office had a ringed corridor and several of us used to “walk the ring” at least once before responding to emergency press calls during certain delicate periods. I think we were “Zooming Out” and didn’t really realize it. When “walking the ring,” became a cultural phenomenon, everyone learned to respect and offer to help the walker. I’m sure as a result we made better decisions.
Do you have experience Zooming In and Zooming Out? Have you seen how evaluating your time parameters leads to better decision-making?
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Rewriting the narrative on women and power
by Guest Author | Feb 21, 2023 | Coaching Advice, Personal Mastery
A key leadership skill is learning to manage your personal power in every situation. Just like balancing on one foot, once you understand the feeling of InPower, it’s easier to identify when you unconsciously give your power away and can take steps to retrieve it and catch yourself earlier next time.
How do you know you’ve just given your InPower away?
Our emotions are excellent indicators of our InPower balanced state. When we’re InPower, we are calm, balanced, unapologetic and free of the culture around us. By contrast, fear, anger, doubt and guilt are sure-fire signals that you’re giving your personal power away and need to take it back. Similarly, expressions of disrespect, distrust, irresponsibility and unkindness, given by others (and believed by you), mean you’re off balance and out of power. These emotions and reactions are not “good or bad”, they are merely indicators of your power stance, signals to you and others around you that you are vulnerable to being knocked even more off balance. They mean that your power is leaking and in need of repair.
“Taking back your power” is as simple – and as hard – as paying attention to these emotional signals and putting yourself in a genuinely positive state. Sometimes this can be challenging, causing us to let go of beliefs and unconscious reactions that no longer serve us, and other times it’s really quite easy. Always it is a choice.
Once we become adept at managing our own InPower balanced state, we can also practice it in the world, helping others around us attain more InPower so that the groups we lead as a whole are more powerful. An InPower leader can not only foster group power but direct it into achieving great things in the world.
Not your fault?
Often we like to pretend that no one else notices when we’re out of power, or convince ourselves that our lack of power is someone else’s fault. This approach is tantamount to admitting our powerlessness and waiting around for someone to allow us to be in our power. Guess what? The chances that someone will give a powerless person power is about zero. Plus, no one can give you your internal power; you need to show them how powerful you already are and how much you deserve more power of the type they can give (e.g., authority, money, title etc.) In short, powerlessness is a lousy strategy for gaining power.
Anyone who believes no one notices their InPower state, sometimes unconsciously, is fooling themselves. While an occasional wobble may go unnoticed, regular flailing is clear to everyone – except sometimes the out-of-power folks themselves who rely too heavily only on external signs like money – to diagnose their leadership power.
Most of us aren’t used to feeling InPower and balanced because it is a discipline that must be learned and practiced. It’s certainly not reinforced by our culture or media. Looking at the headlines and typical daily routine most of us find ourselves in, it seems as though our culture is working hard to keep us out of power. In addition, we’re not born with InPower. Learning to take back our power requires that we notice when we are in balance, when we give it away, and then making the choice to stop giving it away; this is an adult skill, not one babies come wired with.
Unlimited supply
Unlike external power, which tends to have natural resource limits that people often squabble and fight over, InPower benefits from an unlimited supply that requires no competition with others to access. Each individual has an unlimited supply of InPower, and when InPower individuals get together and focus on accomplishing things, the total supply merely expands.
So what do you do?
There are many practical ways you can gain balance. Learn to read the signals of when you’re wobbling out of it and take back your personal power – for yourself and for the people around you that you are leading to change the world. My weekly newsletter provides you prompts to help you become conscious of where you are in and out of power, as will these blog posts.
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by Guest Author | Feb 19, 2023 | Commentary, InPower Women Blog, Mentoring
Did you know that according to this 2011 Linked In survey of 1,000 women professionals, while 80% said having a mentor was important, only 20% actually had a mentor? In my work as an executive coach and speaker, I notice how easy it is for many women to second-guess ourselves. We tend to focus more on our own weaknesses than our strengths. On the other hand, we are often quick to see others’ strengths and have a desire to support them. So, it’s important for us to come together to support each other in reaching our dreams. Having a mentoring circle can help.
Why A Mentoring Circle?
Linda Descano, President & CEO of Citibank’s Women & Co says, “I was really surprised by the results of a recent poll conducted on Citi’s Connect: Professional Women’s Network on LinkedIn, which found that half of professional women have never had a mentor – and only 1 in 4 have a mentor that they regularly tap for career advice. We need to actively seek mentorship opportunities not just for our own professional development, but to pay it forward to those who come after us.” Starting a mentoring circle is a great way to grow as a leader because you learn and practice influencing and facilitation skills.
Five Steps To Start A Mentoring Circle
1) Clarify Objectives – Start with the end in mind. Clarify your own motivation to start a mentoring circle. Which of these apply to you?
- Do you want to give back?
- Do you want to start an accountability group that will help everyone meet their objectives?
- Do you want to learn from others’ expertise? What kind of expertise are you looking for?
- What is your mentoring circle going to do for its members?
2) Identify like-minded individuals – Once your preliminary objectives are clear, identify the people who are inspired by and will help you fulfill the objectives. These could be individuals in your workplace or your community. Although the group can be bigger or smaller, typically you will want to keep the group to 5-10 people so each person has a chance to share challenges and learnings in each meeting.
3) Convene an exploratory meeting – For those people who are interested in learning more convene an initial meeting. This will help you all align on the objectives and it will help you get clarity and perhaps even shape the objectives to make them meaningful for the group. In the exploratory meeting, plan to discuss:
- each person’s objectives and desired outcomes and how the mentoring circle will meet them
- how often you want to meet (generally most groups like this meet once a month)
- Meeting logistics – where, when, how long, topics to be discussed
- Rules of engagement (see below)
4) Develop rules of engagement – Most groups like this want to discuss the following and develop their own rules:
- Criteria for entry into and exit from the circle
- Rules of confidentiality and how it will be enforced
- Responsibilities of facilitator and team members
- Group culture needed to help the group achieve its goals
- How you will handle disagreements
5) Expect and overcome challenges – Any time a new group comes together there is a group development process that happens. To be successful and sustain itself the group will face challenges. Here’s the four step process:
- Forming – the group comes together and starts to operate. In the early stages difficult issues are not surfaced.
- Storming – the group faces challenges and surfaces difficult issues which strengthen trust
- Norming – the group operates at a “norm” level in terms of meeting goals
- Performing – the group starts to drive breakthrough performance
This article was written by Henna Inam, executive coach, speaker, and consultant. She works with women to help them realize their potential to be authentic, transformational leaders. They create organizations that drive breakthroughs in innovation, growth, and engagement.
Post originally on: transformleaders.tv
candid insights and soulful partnership
by Guest Author | Feb 17, 2023 | Career Development, Coaching Advice, Personal Mastery
Looking for a job when you don’t have one is one of the hardest things we do as responsible adults. Career transition is hard work and the biggest challenge is staying positive. Kathryn gives us some great strategies for keeping our chin up and focused until we find that perfect fit. – InPower Editors
Whether the target is a retail job on Main Street or an executive-level job in the C-suite, stress is still high among long frustrated job seekers. There’s no shortage of fingers pointing at potential culprits—depending on your politics it could be the House, the Senate, Obamacare or presidents who have long left Washington, D.C.
When you’re worried about making ends meet today—and unable to even think about the financial security you’ll need through decades of retirement—it’s easy to blame everyone and everything for your misfortune. The fact is, though, that job seekers are not powerless victims of an economy that has volatile fits and starts.
The reality is that strategic, optimistic and tenacious full-time job seekers do find jobs. The more lackadaisical, defeated, angry, once-in-a-while job seekers do not.
This is the 911 for job seekers of every age—from new college graduates to those in their 50s and 60s who fear they might have waved good-bye to their last paid job.
So many job seekers need to hear this—including a 22-year-old recent college grad who is waitressing in Washington, D.C. I read about this young woman in a Business Week article, “You Can Have Any Job You Want As Long As It’s Waitress”. She is not in her desired line of work—she’s hoping to land a job at a think tank or policy-related organization. I applaud her for not letting her ego get in the way of a paycheck, but I think there are probably some big holes in her job search strategy overall.
My first clue was the fact that this young woman has applied to about 20 companies with “minimal response”. Job search pessimists would read this and say, “Well of course—it’s an uncertain economy, few employers are hiring and young people are having the hardest time of all.”
But on the job search optimists side, I say that anyone can find a job in any economy. At last count, there are far more than 20 potential employers in Washington, D.C.
Six nuggets of advice for this young job seeker—and her brethren at every other age and life stage:
- Cover the waterfront. In a difficult job market, you can’t limit yourself to the top 10 or 20 “ideal companies” on your wish list. Reach for your ideals, but also consider tier two and three companies that are in your areas of interest. Companies of all shapes and sizes offer resume-worthy experience—and paychecks.
- Don’t die on the vine waiting for a “response”. Even in the best economic environment job seekers wait, and wait and wait while they hear radio silence from companies that have their resumes in hand. Hiring managers are busy and distracted. One follow-up call won’t do the trick. And pursuing only one contact at a company is futile. Through Linkedin, personal connections, friends who work for the company and your alumni network find as many contacts as possible who can rustle up some action and get you an interview.
- Stop hibernating in the internet “black hole”. Recognize that many jobs are never advertised and online job boards can be wastelands of old, spoken for or undesirable jobs. In the Business Week article the job seeking temporary waitress talked about watching job postings on her alumni web site. The jobs listed on most alumni web sites are few and far between. She’s probably checking job postings on a lot of other web sites, too. Don’t make her mistake: you’ll find a job through real people, not computers.
- Consider options other than a permanent full-time job. Employers are guarding headcount and doling out fewer and fewer permanent, full-time jobs. One of the young women interviewed for the Business Week article said she will consider internships—and I say that’s a good idea as long as they are paid. Too many companies are getting free labor while they hang a very small carrot off in the distance that may or may not turn into a paid job. Gravitate more to short or long-term freelance jobs (which are more plentiful as companies adjust to Obamacare) or intermittent project work—both available to job seekers of any age.
- Remember that finding a job is a full-time job. It makes total sense to get a less brain-consuming part-time job to pay the rent (even if it’s far from your desired professional path), but you still have to put the required time into your job search. An hour here and there while you’re catching up on Breaking Bad episodes will not get you to the promised land. Until you find the professional job that you want, embrace the fact that you’ll have two jobs and you’ll be working pretty much around the clock.
- Don’t make job search failure a foregone conclusion. Be an optimist, not a pessimist. Put blinders on to all the stereotypes about who can find a job when—particularly any intimations that you’re too young or too old. You’ll always find statistics that make your job search seem like a hopeless pursuit. Ignore the media hype and you’re sure to beat any real or imagined odds. –KAS
Take charge of your career development to get the job that supports your work and your life. Check out the tools and resources in the InPower Coaching Career Center.
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by Dana Theus | Feb 16, 2023 | Emotional Intelligence at Work, Gender Equality, Gender Research, InPower Women Blog
Have you ever taken Karate? I took two classes, not enough to retain any physical benefit, but I learned one thing I still keep with me 30 years later: when we take advantage of natural forces to create change, change happens more smoothly and comfortably. Research out of Harvard may just hold the key to using our natural human biases to help dissolve the glass ceiling and even address the pay gap. Human resources managers take notice. You can make the difference on this one.
Human Bias Is Inevitable
I believe, despite setbacks like #metoo and the Dobbs decision, we’re in a post-sexist world where outright sexism and racism – the conscious effort to limit someone’s chances of success due to their physical packaging – is on the wane in most sections of the business world. That said, there is plenty of bias that unfairly disadvantages women and minorities from reaching the heights of economic, political and media power. This is something of a conundrum because it means we’re up against unconscious cultural bias, and if you’ve ever tried to change a bad habit personally, much less culturally, you know how challenging that can be.
Part of the tragedy of unconscious bias is that those who suffer its consequences also inadvertently end up contributing to the problem. For example, women who speak up and promote themselves often get ahead, but many of us don’t do this because it “feels wrong.” Talking about our accomplishments feels immodest and aggressive (i.e., unladylike) so we don’t do it and end up contributing to others’ unconscious biases that say ‘women don’t accomplish as much as men (who self-promote more easily) or aren’t assertive enough to excel.’
This kind of bias extends to our human stereotypes about leaders – the kind of leaders who run the world. Research from Northwestern as far back as 2011 measured what we already know: our cultural stereotypes of leaders – among men and women – are male. While this is changing, and there’s plenty of evidence that women make excellent leaders and are good for business. The problem is that our stereotypes aren’t changing very fast.
InPower Women’s Mastermind
We don’t Mastermind your business. We Mastermind YOU!
Would You Change It If You Could?
Harvard released a working paper entitled When Performance Trumps Gender Bias: Joint Versus Separate Evaluation. Despite the wonky title, the findings are rather mind blowing. The researchers measured gender bias in making hiring, assignment and promotion decisions. While past studies have masked gender identity from evaluators, this study made no attempt to hide it. Rather, the variable they manipulated was whether employees were evaluated individually or in a group, based on past performance.
The results not only confirmed dramatic gender bias, in favor of males, but showed a 62% differential between how low-performing males were evaluated individually as compared to group evaluations. (Low-performing males were hired 65% of the time when evaluated individually, but only 3% of the time when evaluated among other male and female candidates.)
The researchers attribute this dramatic difference to the theory that when evaluating an individual, their past performance is a fact out of context so decision-makers call on other inputs, such as gender stereotypes, to help make the decision. In a group, however, past performances between candidates can be compared and becomes a more relevant factor, neutralizing gender bias as a decision criteria.
Given this information, why would anyone ever make an out-of-context, individual, hiring decision again?
Well, of course there are many good reasons not to make every hiring decision a joint evaluation, including the fact that sometimes it’s simply not practical. This research was conducted with college students in a lab, not a corporate environment, so it’s not clear the results would translate 100% to the real world. However, humans are humans and if the college students – hiring managers of tomorrow – have these biases in the lab they’re probably going to have them out of the lab as well, so this approach is definitely worth exploring.
Human Resources Professionals, Take Notice
I hope Human Resources Departments around the world sit up and take notice of this research and make sincere efforts to put joint evaluation procedures in place wherever feasible. Even if the real world results are off by 50%, companies could save themselves from hiring underperforming males 31% of the time.
What’s you’re experience? How realistic do you believe this research is? How practical is the joint evaluation technique for hiring? If you’re in HR, what will you do with this information? If you’re not in HR, will you share this with them?
