LEADERSHIP COACHING: LEADING YOURSELF FIRST
This week’s blog is written by one of our J Casas and Associates leadership coaches - Sarah Johnson. Sarah currently serves as an adjunct professor in the Ed. Leadership Dept. at Viterbo University & is a consultant and Leadership Coach. She is also the author of two books which you can find here. Be sure to follow Sarah on Twitter and check out her resources on her website.
“Leave her alone.” Three little words uttered from the mouth of my husband recently after I had demanded my daughter log off her computer to come help me with dinner. Three words that elicited an internal volcanic eruption that threatened to blow a hole right up through our roof. You would think the room would have been charged up to ignite the red hot magma inside, but the actual moment those words left his lips had contained nothing other than the crackling of my patience circuit breaker that had been popping all day. Feeling the tension rushing inside, I knew I needed to take action to stem it. Just before lava started to spew out of my eyes, I grabbed the car keys and headed out the door, noting a hasty goodbye to my family. It was clear to me the best course of action in that moment was to remove myself along with the impending eruption. I drove to my favorite spot in town, parked, and listened to a song I knew would bring on the tears. As a lifelong, expert emotion suppressor, tears are rare here, so I sometimes have to coax them--and as each one fell, they cooled the bubbling anger in a cathartic release. My emotional pressure valve moved a dial closer to release and let out little puffs rather than a blasting heat burst. In those ten minutes to myself, I was able to process what had been really happening to me, which was a building up of overwhelm that I had not been sharing with anyone---classic Sarah. “I got this.” is a blessing and a curse in my life---allowing me to withstand substantial amounts of stress and challenge but also creating conditions where I fool even myself so well that the pressure builds and can burst--usually in ways that end up hurting me more than anyone else. I know this pattern. It is one I have been intentionally working on disrupting for a few years now. Over time, I have learned to notice my emotions, name them, and manage them in healthy ways rather than stuff them down---and I nearly fell back into the old routine with this illustration. Nearly. I don’t get it right 100% of the time, but leading myself before I lead others is an important mantra in my life, and I’ve learned that releasing pressure before I unleash misplaced anger is critical for my mental well being as well as keeping important personal and professional relationships in tact.Can you relate to this scenario? As you were reading my confession of internal emotional struggle, could you picture a time you have relieved the pressure valve successfully? How about a time you unleashed instead of releasing? I know you did. The fact is I can vulnerably share this example because I know I am not alone here.
In schools we talk a lot about social emotional learning. Helping our students to become emotionally literate and develop strategies for emotional regulation has become a keen focus across our country--though I suspect like many other high profile phrases, some systems are beginning to tag any practice that builds relationships as social-emotional in focus rather than the actual explicit work of building emotional literacy. I have this hunch because in my experiences coaching leaders, leading workshops, facilitating learning in my leadership courses in the university setting, and in my informal discussions, I find a lot of leaders who know the term “emotional intelligence” but cannot with confidence define what EQ actually means. It prompts me to pose this question: If we are not leading our own emotional literacy and regulation, how can we expect to lead our staff and students in them?
In the climate and conditions in which we find ourselves in our schools, our homes, throughout our communities, and in our social circles, possessing high levels of emotional intelligence seems to be at a premium for skills right now. At least we know those competencies are being challenged in increasing intervals in all these spaces. Like much of what we do, we cannot lead others to awareness and management if we are not first leading ourselves
In order to be affective (note the word choice) leaders, we need to understand our own emotional intelligence capabilities and work to develop these skills as leaders in addition to ensuring that empathy, once known as a “soft skill” is emphasized in our schools. If you are skeptical about the importance of this leadership competency, check out how Travis Bradberry, author of Emotional Intelligence frames the research. He indicated that “90% of top leaders are high in emotional intelligence while only 20% of bottom performers are emotionally intelligent.” The numbers suggest that you can be a poor leader and still possess emotional intelligence, but the numbers are against you. In addition, they tell us that you are not likely to be a top leader without emotional intelligence.
Cultivating emotional intelligence can absolutely be done, and understanding the basics of the four domains is a great start. These definitions are adapted by Daniel Goleman and come from Leadership 2.0 by Bradberry and Greaves (2012).
Self-awareness The ability to accurately perceive your emotions in the moment and understand your tendencies across situations.
Self-management Using awareness of your emotion to stay flexible and direct your behavior positively. This means managing your emotional reactions to situations and people.
Social awareness The ability to accurately pick up on other people’s emotions and understand what is really going on with them.
Relationship management Using awareness of your emotions and those of others to manage interactions successfully.
As you consider these four domains, it is important to understand that each of us is strong in particular areas, and the key is to grow them all as leaders. Because we are capable of fooling ourselves or inflating or underestimating our own skills, I suggest sitting down with a trusted friend, colleague, or companion and talk through the reality of how you might be rocking or struggling in any of these areas in all aspects of your full life. Of course, if we cannot regulate ourselves, it seems that it would be nearly impossible to manage others, so if you are struggling with self-awareness and regulation, that sounds like the powerful space to start learning. To lead others well means leading yourself first, and focusing here with intention will serve your leadership now and beyond this challenging time in significant ways.
Every two weeks, I share out 1 Reflection, 2 Ideas, and 1 Resource for you to consider that I hope will encourage you to explore new and better practices in your daily work. My aspirations are to support you in developing your skills and shifting your thinking so you will invest in your own development and maybe, just maybe, I can inspire you to want to live your excellence so you can bring your best self to school every day!
Thank you Sarah for being an example of what it means to live your excellence…every day. Grateful for your contribution today.
Jimmy
LEADING YOURSELF FIRST: 121
1 REFLECTION:
“The most effective leaders are all alike in one crucial way: They all have a high degree of what has come to be known as emotional intelligence. It’s not that IQ and technical skills are irrelevant. They do matter, but...they are the entry-level requirements for executive positions.” Daniel Goleman
2 IDEAS:
Be a Thermostat: One of my favorite analogies when I think about a highly emotional intelligent leader is one who can be a thermostat, not merely a thermometer. I first heard of this analogy during a particularly challenging time in my life during a sermon at church. In it, our pastor at the time blew my mind open with this simple analogy that relates to so many aspects of school leadership, and I realized that one of the largest sources of frustration at the time was feeling like the temperature of our climate was running really hot or frigid with little regulation and the consistent feeling of instability was leaving me feeling drained. It occurred to me at that time that I needed to install new batteries into my own thermostat and get to work on regulating!
When it comes to taking this analogy deeper into Goleman’s domains, we can understand that there is a role for gauging both the temperature of yourself and a room. Awareness is critical to effectively understand what emotion is really occurring, but simply marking the temperature is only half the equation. The strongest leaders can set the temperature for themselves as well as that of a space and adjust when the air gets too hot or too cold. Thermostats are regulators and they keep the temperature at a desired level through action. For a practical application of this analogy-
Think back on your week where emotions were present--jot them down and label whether your part in these examples would be classified as thermometer (gauging) or thermostat (regulating).
From there, create a list of ideal thermostat behaviors you would like to be able to demonstrate regularly both for yourself and in relationships.
Practice being mindful in moments of charged emotion and work on thermostat behaviors.
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Release Before You Unleash: Develop a list of strategies that you know will work for you to release pressure that may be building up inside of you in a healthy way so you can reduce the odds you will unleash on others. I firmly believe in the power of proactive self-care for this. Do not make self-care an event, rather infuse proactive self-care into each day to keep the gradual release occurring daily. Need a few ideas? Journaling, meditation, boundary setting, affirmations, and daily gratitude exercises are all great starts!
1 Resource:
Emotional Intelligence 2.0 by Bradberry and Greaves provides an assessment for you to take and the book then walks you through the domains with specific strategies for increasing your competencies in all of the EQ quadrants.
Sarah will be launching a free Going Beyond Balance Workshop in November with an opportunity to join Firm Foundations Leadership Coaching. For more information, sign up for her newsletter at http://bit.ly/SarahJohnsonConsulting
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