Head Down: Lack of Leadership

The “Head-Down” state mirrors what might happen when your head is physically down: limited awareness, self-focus, stuck in thought, being closed off to what’s around you, only seeing the small picture, and focusing on short-term goals. Imagine trying to lead a group of people while keeping your head down the entire time. How effective might you be?

Head-Down is also metaphorical for the state of keeping your head down. In this state, the capacity for leadership becomes limited. Behaviors might include:

• Focusing on the parts instead of the whole
• Sacrificing long-term pain for short-term gain
• Excluding others, not considering and/or recognizing bias and its impact
• Not having long-term goals or strategies
• Moving quickly to action without clear objectives
• Overemphasis on completing tasks and getting things done
• Not seeing or recognizing people, including their talents, strengths, accomplishments, contributions, or humanity
• Lack of inspiration or motivation
• Checking out
• Giving up easily and/or making excuses
• Lack of accountability

These behaviors inhibit our leadership. Therefore, it’s important to catch ourselves when we are engaged in them so we can make choices that align with how we want to lead.

Head-Up: Conscious Leadership

As you might have guessed, “Head-Up” is the opposite state of leadership. Head-up behaviors are indicative of thoughtful, intentional leadership that creates change and engages others. Behaviors might include:

• Seeing how all the parts connect and impact one another
• Serving others
• Making informed decisions and choices
• Examining and counteracting bias and its impact
• Seeing the whole picture and having an expansive vision
• Noticing what needs attention and responding to it
• Considering how your actions impact others and the system
• Taking right and aligned action
• Thinking and behaving inclusively
• Being resilient, agile, and emotionally intelligent
• Correlating the cause and effect between the system and the individual
• Continuously improving self, others, processes, and systems

These behaviors strengthen our leadership. They are also within our control, which means that we can choose to enact them. Additionally, catching ourselves “doing something right” can be rewarding and affirm our effort and development as a leader.

Head-Up or Head-Down: Which Will You Choose?

Using “Head-Up/Head-Down” to assess your leadership is simple: in any given moment, ask yourself “Is my head up or down right now?” Although your literal physical posture can be a good indicator, use this question to assess your internal or external leadership approach.

We don’t even need to memorize all of the exact behaviors that fall under Head-Up or Head-Down. When we take a moment to pause and reflect, it’s generally obvious which state we’re enacting. For example, behaviors like holding tension, negativity, blaming, not following through, gossiping, shutting others out, rushing, or acting out of fear are easy to notice in a given moment and indicate Head-Down. Behaviors like empathizing, considering consequences, positivity, connecting, giving constructive feedback, being transparent, checking our bias, and developing a plan indicate Head-Up. With only two categories to choose from, almost all behaviors fall neatly into one of the two. This makes it easy to identify the behavior and take immediate and appropriate action.

Upon getting a clear answer, we can then choose to continue leveraging Head-Up or change our behavior if it’s Head-Down. In addition to its simplicity, the good news is that we can ask the question as many times as we want throughout the day without needing to remember any fancy or complex leadership philosophies.

To use this practice effectively, consider:

• What are some common behaviors that you associate with Head-Up? With Head-Down?
• What will help you remember to ask, “Is my head up or down right now” throughout the day?
• When you catch yourself in “Head-Down,” what would help you shift your state?

In a culture ruled by logic and reason, it’s tempting to play it safe and rely solely on what we know. Without evidence to justify or explain a decision, people might be likely to reject or even ridicule our choices. However, the irony I’ve noticed in my work with clients is that we often instinctively know the right choice – we’re just afraid to make it. Making those choices ultimately isn’t about having evidence or using logic – it’s about having the courage to trust your gut.

Mind Over Matter Instinct

Trusting your gut can be scary. It involves against the grain of cultural norms such as needing proof, reason, and validation. It also means trusting our bodies over our minds, the latter of which is generally more revered in our society. When using instinct to make a decision, we might use strategies like:

• Second-guessing and questioning ourselves
• Minimizing and giving it less credibility
• Ridiculing and telling ourselves that we’re being silly
• Panicking and playing it safe
• Psyching ourselves out

In the end, we spend a lot of time losing sleep, agonizing, and twisting ourselves in knots. Instead of tuning into our inner voice, body wisdom, or sixth sense, we can make decisions harder than they need to be.

Learning to trust your gut isn’t necessarily the right or only way for every decision – it’s just a powerful and underutilized approach to add to your decision-making repertoire. When making decisions that directly impact people, such as hiring, promoting, and selecting people for opportunities, objective data is crucial to counteract racial, gender, affinity, and other types of bias. In such cases, our unconscious preferences can (and often do) masquerade as gut or instinct. When making those types of decisions, slowing down, using objective criteria, and getting input from multiple perspectives is important to promote equity. However, for many other types of decisions, trusting your gut can open up new possibilities and lead to unexpected and often better results.

Defining the Indefinable

How do you develop the courage to trust your gut? What does trusting your gut even mean? Although it shows up differently for each of us, some common signals include:

• Body sensations such as tension, heat or cold, and pain (or even illness) can signal a bad choice; relaxation, tingling, or warmth can signal a good choice (which often literally manifests in your gut, hence the expression)
• A calm and quiet inner voice
• Imagery, including dreams
• A nagging sense that won’t go away
• Deep “knowing” from your core and/or heart

Practicing self-awareness, such as through Emotional Intelligence, can help us recognize those signals. However, for many people the challenge isn’t about not recognizing our instinct – it’s using one of the strategies in the previous section to go against it. Our fear and self-doubt kicks in and our mind takes over, doing its best to stomp out the instinct. This is why courage is so vital to trusting your gut. When you do instinctively or intuitively know the right answer, it requires automatically taking a leap of faith coupled with decisive action.

Developing courage can take time, practice, and learning from experience. Starting with smaller decisions such as which shopping lane to pick or which route to take are low-risk decisions and verifiable. They provide good case studies in which to notice how your gut “communicates” as well as the strategies you use to avoid listening to it. Reflecting afterward can provide valuable information to help you learn your personal signals and come to trust them. Over time, you can work up to bigger decisions.

Taking the Leap

Our minds and external facts aren’t the only forms of “data.” Our bodies, minds, and senses also contain data, and that data is both vast and multi-dimensional. Opening ourselves up to listen to this larger pool of data actually provides a much deeper well of evidence than what might appear on the surface. Although other people may not get it and use the above strategies towards you, taking in what’s being shared and then having the courage to trust your gut is part of what great leadership is all about.

To help you take the leap, consider:

• What are some of the signals that your gut is telling you something?
• What strategies do you typically use to avoid listening to or following your gut?
• What are some past experiences in which your gut was right, and what can you learn from those experiences?
• What do others say or do (including old parental messages) that gets in the way of you trusting your gut?
• When you’ve chosen to follow your gut in the past, what were the benefits?

Feel free to share your answers in the comments!

While there are many change models such as ADKAR, Kotter’s model, and McKinsey’s 7-S Framework, it can be easy to get so focused on the model that we overlook the fundamental key to change: people. Even then, we can overlook a fundamental key to helping people change: relationships.

Consider a change you’ve made or been part of. Perhaps it was learning a new piece of software, getting a new boss, or following a new rule. Next, think of the people who either mandated the change or helped you implement or adapt to it. Were they people who you trusted, respected, and made you feel cared for? Or, the opposite? Chances are that the change was easier to embrace if you viewed the people behind the change positively and had good relationships with them.

Good relationships are crucial to making change successful. If we believe someone has our best interest at heart, if they genuinely want to see us succeed, and if they know and treat us as a person instead of an object, we’re much more likely to want to change.

I recently met with a work team located in another country that faced resistance for years in trying to implement new programs. It didn’t matter to the recipients how great their programs were, what data they could provide to demonstrate their effectiveness, or how smart the team was. What made the difference was the team making the effort to build relationships, understand their culture, and demonstrate genuine care. Through their continued efforts to build relationships they developed trust, and this trust led to recipients embracing the team’s ideas, programs, and recommendations. It opened a window that would have otherwise remained closed and resulted in both parties working together on opposite sides of the glass.

On the contrary, I also recently witnessed a professional, multi-million dollar consulting firm try to implement process changes on behalf of senior leadership. Their approach was to make some quick assessments, tell people what they should do differently, and implement a “thou-shalt” approach. This approach was mirrored by senior leadership, who just made a few token appearances during implementation. As you might assume, the recipients felt objectified and resisted the change. All they had to do was nod and wait it out for things to return back to normal.

Building relationships takes time, and there is no shortcut. It also has to be genuine and without agenda. For example, waiting until you need something from someone before getting to know them will likely backfire. Instead, we can start getting to know the people who work with, for, and above us. For senior leaders, this means getting out of the office and visiting employees. For managers, it’s things like building coalitions with other managers. For individual contributors, it’s asking leaders for things like informational interviews.

That said, building relationships doesn’t need to involve hours of bearing one’s soul or being best friends with everyone. Learning and using people’s names, smiling when passing people in the hall, asking people for their ideas and recommendations, or a genuine “how are you doing?” can go a long way. And, things like asking questions and listening are always helpful. Then, when it comes time to change, we’re much more likely to say “yes.”

In exploring ways to build relationships that support change, consider the following questions:

• When you reflect on times when you’ve wanted others to change, how did the quality of your relationship affect the outcome?
• What gets in the way of you building relationships with people at work?
• What kinds of change are you wanting to implement, and how can you leverage your relationships to support that change?
• What are some approaches you can use to increase trust and connection with other people, both professionally and personally?

What’s the Big Deal?

Dominant culture, especially organizational culture, places a lot of value on being in our heads. Intellectual intelligence, ideas, opinions, beliefs, rationality, and critical thinking are placed at a high premium. As such, we spend a lot of time and focus on what’s happening in our minds.

Being in your body means also giving value, time, and focus to what’s happening in our bodies. When coaching, I’ve been surprised at the number of clients who literally have no idea what’s happening below their neck. Even identifying an emotion or sensation seems foreign.

Our bodies contain a wealth of information, intelligence, and even keys to fulfillment. They can tell us about our needs, wants, and desires. They allow us to experience pleasure and connection. They provide clues around our health and well-being, such as signaling when something is out of balance or when we need to eat or sleep. Ignoring our bodies in favor of our minds is like ignoring the defense in favor of the offense in a sport or only paying attention to one piece of evidence while ignoring other pieces of evidence in a trial. We end up missing out on a lot of valuable information with the potential to dramatically change our experience.

Being in Your Body

Following are five simple ways to be in your body that you can do in less than one minute throughout the day:

1. Notice your body
   Scan your body from head to toe and identify sensations and emotions. Sensations might include itching, tingling, calmness, tension, or pain. You can also connect to sensation through the five senses, including food, music, and art. Emotions typically fall under larger buckets such as mad, sad, glad, scared, and shame. Challenge yourself to identify as many sensations and emotions as you can while expanding your emotional vocabulary. Also, pause to notice your breath without worrying if it’s right or wrong. Notice if it’s fast or slow, deep or shallow, or if you’re unconsciously holding your breath.
2. Feel your feelings
   We often go towards extremes of either repressing feelings or allowing them to take over. As the saying goes, “Emotions are like children: you don’t want them driving the car, but you don’t want to lock them in the trunk.” Instead, when you notice an emotion or feeling, simply feel it without needing to “do” anything with it. For example, if you feel tears coming on, let them come and notice them. If you feel angry, identify where you experience the anger in your body, pay attention to your breath, and feel the anger without saying or doing anything.
3. Move your body
   While regular and extended exercise is a great way to be in your body, you can also do small forms of movement throughout the day. Stretching, jumping up and down, singing, and intentionally taking deep breaths can be done frequently in as short as five seconds. Identify one calming form of movement and one energizing form of movement and practice it regularly.
4. Touch
   Touch is vital to our well-being. Studies show that babies can actually die without touch. Finding safe ways to experience healthy touch, even with something as simple as a handshake or hug, can help us connect more to our bodies. Of course, it’s important to honor your boundaries around what feels good to you. Identify some preferred forms of touch and seek them out. Remember that there are many non-human forms of touch, such as pets, plants (think gardening), or even sitting or walking on grass.
5. Empathize
   Putting yourself in someone else’s shoes can take you out of analysis, problem-solving, or judgment (all mental) and connect you to the physical.  When someone is sharing their experience or talking about something important to them, imagine what they might be feeling or experiencing, recall a time when you’ve had a similar experience, or notice your heartbeat. This can help you be in your own body while also being more connected to theirs.

Embodying “Being in Your Body”

There are many reasons why we might avoid being in our bodies. Cultural messages around emotions, shame and judgment around our bodies, lack of knowledge, or hyper-focus around mental abilities can cause us to disconnect or even momentarily forget that we even have a body! When being more in your body, buried emotions or experiences can surface. The more you can stay in your body with the above practices, even when you feel uncomfortable, the more easily you’ll get through them and uncover valuable wisdom, meaning, and connection. To go deeper into this practice, consider:

• What do you notice when you are more in your body?
• What might you gain from being more in your body?
• What approaches help you be more in your body, and how can you do more of them?
• What are some fears or challenges you have around being in your body?
• What other platitudes seem vague or confusing, and how can you learn more about what they really mean?

Fun Fact: This entire post came to me and was written in a dream, which is a first!

Fortunately, that gap is closing. However, despite women’s physical representation, the rules of the game that everyone must play by are by and large the same: the mold of masculinity.

The mold of masculinity transcends gender: it is a default set of standards typically followed by people in leadership positions around how they engage, communicate, make decisions, relate to others, and create change. Unfortunately, the rigidity and limitations of the mold results in leaders with lopsided range, skills, and abilities to lead effectively. And, because of the predominance of men in influential leadership positions, the mold is perpetuated and reinforced. Too often, these leaders harm those people and organizations that they are supposed to be serving. In order to achieve more balanced, effective, and revolutionary leadership, we need to break the mold of masculinity in leadership.

The Mold of Masculinity

Social scientists Deborah David and Robert Brannon describe four standards of traditional American masculinity that make up the mold:

1. Anti-femininity or “no sissy stuff”: distancing self from femininity; homophobia; avoiding emotions
2. Achievement or “be a big wheel”: striving for achievement and success; focusing on competition
3. Self-reliance or “be a sturdy oak”: avoiding vulnerability; staying composed and in control; acting/being tough
4. Aggression or “give ’em hell”: acting aggressively to become dominant

These standards are imposed in boys from birth, including what colors, toys, emotions, hobbies, and behaviors are acceptable. They are part of the cultural water we swim in, in many ways unconsciously. Although aspects of these traits can be positive, they often become rigid rules that are taboo to break. And, breaking the rules typically means being seen as weak, vulnerable, soft, or feminine (along with other much more negative words and consequences).

This isn’t about shunning masculine traits entirely or comparing them to feminine traits. As with many human qualities, each has its positive and negative aspects. The problem is that for many men, these traits are a default rather than a choice. The idea of choosing other options is either not on the radar, or undesirable. We must follow the rules, or else. This limits who men can be and not only causes harm to others, but also to ourselves. Not only that, women who are able to get past through the hurdles into senior leadership positions by playing by the rules must also continue to comply in order to stay in those positions.

The Mold of Masculinity in Leadership

The standards above are part of the mold of masculinity that many men either try to fit in or react to. They affect our relationships, health, connection, passion, purpose, and fulfillment. They also influence how we lead. The mold of masculinity in leadership, including organizations and social systems, shows up in ways such as:

Disempowerment: Blaming others and refusing to take accountability for mistakes

Power-over: Dominating, intimidating, and bullying others

Self-reliance: Dismissing and minimizing other’s ideas, feedback, or help; leading in a vacuum without considering the needs of or impact to others; excessive speaking

Distraction/fragmentation: Being disconnected from or unaware of reality, both internally and externally

Numbing: Operating on auto-pilot, workaholism, and excessive focus on completing tasks and output

Competition: One-upping, making others look bad, success at the expense of others

Mental intelligence: Dismissing anything that isn’t rational, logical, or fact-based

In the extreme, these traits manifest in attitudes such as “my way or the highway,” “there’s only one right way – mine,” “do what you’re told, or else,” “show ’em who’s boss,” “teach them a lesson they’ll never forget,” “no fear,” and “might makes right.”

Leaders become confined to this mold and are unable to be flexible and responsive. There is little to no room to choose other behaviors; doing so breaks the rules of masculinity and can result in shaming, ridicule, judgment, doubting, or being perceived as weak.

The consequences of the mold can be severe. Male leaders’ power and status, trapped within the rigid and reactive mold, influence major decisions, policies, laws, and behaviors that greatly impact others. They can lead to organizations being dysfunctional to the point of being run into the ground and perpetuate abuse, illness, corruption, poor morale, in-fighting, and bullying. With such a limited range of leadership capacity, organizations and systems become weak, unstable, and ineffective. People’s lives, especially those with less power, can be altered in severe ways.

Essential Shifts: Breaking the Mold of Masculinity in Leadership

The first step to creating more flexibility, choice, responsiveness, and possibilities for men in leadership is becoming aware of the often invisible mold. We first have to notice its existence and its hold on us. We also need to notice the ways in which we are afraid or uncomfortable (both of which are taboo emotions within the mold) of breaking the mold and begin to move towards that fear or discomfort. We must challenge the status quo and cultivate the strength and courage to expand who we can be as leaders.

Referencing the standard leadership traits above, we can consciously choose to shift our behaviors:

Disempowerment becomes Leadership/Ownership: Taking full accountability for our choices, behaviors, and mistakes

Power-over becomes Power-with: Motivating, supporting, recognizing, and lifting others up

Self-reliance becomes Relating: Asking for help, listening, seeing the bigger picture, noticing and considering other’s feelings and needs

Distraction/Fragmentation becomes Presence: Noticing what is happening within ourselves, others, our environment, and our organizations/systems

Numbing becomes Feeling: Slowing down, finding a work-life balance, and balancing people with process

Competition becomes Co-Creation: Collaborating, seeking and incorporating input and feedback, looking for win-win opportunities

Mental Intelligence becomes Emotional, Spiritual, and Physical Intelligence: Considering emotions, intuitions, experiences, feelings, and other data when making decisions and implementing changes

As I mentioned earlier, this is not about dismissing “traditional” masculine traits entirely. Doing so creates other reactive molds that limit our leadership capacity in other ways. There is a time and place to be aggressive, fact-based, competitive, or self-reliant. However, when we can also be gentle, emotional, cooperative, or interdependent, we have more options to choose from and can be stronger leaders. One of the keys is also learning to discern what type of leadership is needed, which I’ll cover in a future blog.

As leaders, the point is to have the freedom to choose how we want to lead instead of acting on auto-pilot or out of fear. Having a wider range of behaviors, styles, and approaches makes us more effective, powerful, equitable, and trustworthy. We can then respond and adapt to current situations and needs, make better decisions, and serve rather than harm. Again, this transcends gender: it requires reimagining the paradigm of what leadership can look like for everyone, at all levels of our organizations, systems, and society.

A New Model of Leadership

To begin to shift behavior and break the mold, consider the following questions:

• What are some of your default behaviors that fall within the masculine mold?
• When you think of breaking the mold, what are your fears and discomforts?
• Of the essential shifts above, which shift would make you a more effective leader? What behaviors would support that shift?
• What are some benefits you see in breaking the mold? For yourself? For others?
• If you are in a position of power or influence, how can you break the mold for others?

The Pink Elephant Phenomenon

We’ve all heard the phenomenon of what happens when someone tells you NOT to think of a pink elephant. You’ll probably think of a pink elephant! However, what we don’t talk about is what to do instead of not thinking about the elephant. Ironically, not knowing the alternative defeats the purpose of the concept in the first place.

The “pink elephant” concept doesn’t just apply to our thoughts. It applies in our daily lives in ways such as:

• Creating goals based on outcomes we don’t want
• Speaking out against people, ideas, or policies we don’t like
• Thinking about what could go wrong
• Spending energy on circumstances, people, or situations we can’t change
• Giving instructions that emphasize what not to do
• Doing things we dread

Much like the pink elephant, focusing on the negative keeps us stuck in that state. Even more importantly, it becomes difficult for anything else to show up. There is no room for change to occur, or at least not the kind that gets us more of what we want.

Learning to Ski

I’ve only gone downhill skiing a few times, but I still remember the fundamentals of turning. One of them is to simply focus your attention on the direction in which you want to turn. You’ve probably also had this experience when driving and turned to look at something, only to have your car start to move in that direction (sometimes with unfortunate results).

The same principle applies when trying to change something. As we saw earlier, it’s both hard and confusing to try to not do something. Could you imagine telling a skier to not look at the direction in which they don’t want to turn? Yet, we take the same approach in our everyday thoughts, habits, and behaviors.

When figuring their goals, many of my coaching clients start out by framing their goals around what they don’t want. For example, when clients want to work on their public speaking goals, they’ll say things like, “I don’t want to forget what to say,” “I don’t want to be nervous,” or “I don’t want people to laugh at me.” Typically, they spend so much energy not trying to do these things that they end up doing them anyway! And, they’re much more miserable in the process.

The alternative: shifting your attention to what you do want instead of what you don’t want.

What Do You Want?

To shift your attention to what you want, try these approaches:

Create goals with the outcomes you actually want to experience. Using our public speaking example above, your goals could be to remember all your talking points, remain calm and relaxed, and maintain eye contact with your audience.

Propose ideas and solutions that you’d prefer instead of the current reality, and make clear requests and suggestions. If you don’t like a particular meeting, what would you like to happen in that meeting instead? If someone makes bad decisions, what decisions would you like them to make? If someone is loud and obnoxious, how would you like them to behave?

Think about what could go right. We have a 50/50 chance of something going right vs. going wrong. However, focusing on what could go wrong sways the odds in that direction. Instead of worrying about the reasons why you couldn’t get the promotion, what are some reasons why you could get the promotion? Instead of anticipating something bad happening, anticipate something good happening (even if you don’t know what it might be).

Spend energy on things you have control over. You can’t change the weather, your parents, or most of our leaders. Yet, these types of topics take up a huge space in our lives and typically don’t create good feelings. In place of such topics, which topics would bring you more joy? What things can you readily change that are under your influence or control and that would bring you more fulfillment or make a difference?

Give instructions with what the person should do. Telling someone to stand up straight is clearer than telling someone not to slouch. “Be on time” is more direct than “don’t be late.” “Keep the card in your pocket” provides a specific solution compared to “don’t lose the card.”

Change dread into desire. Instead of resisting going into work, what could you do at work that would make it more fulfilling? Rather than dieting, what things could you do to experience greater health?

Your Positivity Toolkit

To expand your positivity toolkit, experiment with using the concepts from the previous examples:

• Find the opposite of what you don’t want and move towards it
• Think of your ideal outcome and work towards creating it
• Replace something you don’t want with something you do want (this can apply to people, behaviors, or situations)
• Start doing something else in place of anything you want to stop doing
• Move towards something you want instead of away from something you don’t want

Questions for action:

• Think of emotions you frequently experience that you don’t want. What emotions would you prefer, and how can you experience more of them?
• Reflect on some things you frequently complain about. What would you like to experience instead of those things?
• What does your ideal end state look like in a given situation? Consider areas such as in your organization, around social issues, in specific relationships, or in your daily life. How can you achieve that state?

I ruled out the radiator because it could have melted the notebook cover (it was pretty hot).

The staircase banister was a few feet farther away from the fountain, and I was worried about someone accidentally knocking it off when using the stairs.

Not liking either option, I tried to balance the phone and notebook on a windowsill above the radiator, but it was too narrow.

After a few more seconds of debate, I paused for a moment: it would take about 30 seconds to fill the water bottle, and hardly anyone ever used those stairs. After recognizing the gap in my thinking, I placed the items on the staircase banister and filled up my bottle.

Aside from the fact that I spent way too much time deciding how to go about a simple task (and no, I don’t typically do this all day ;), what struck me was how I went on autopilot and missed the obvious. Even though I knew from experience the hardly anyone used the stairs, I unconsciously assumed that someone would use them in the thirty seconds it would take to fill my bottle and then proceeded to waste time looking for other solutions.

Being Stuck on Autopilot

Even though this is a trivial example, it represents what I frequently observe in my clients on a regular basis (and typically around more significant issues than filling up water bottles). We go on autopilot and don’t stop to consider what else could be going on. We then spin our wheels chasing the wrong information or overlooking the best solution. For example:

• Having priorities without ever questioning how we determined those priorities in the first place
• Going about a task without considering if there’s a better way to do it
• Wanting something without exploring why we want it or how we think we’ll benefit from it
• Seeking approval without asking ourselves why we need those people to like us
• Being afraid without looking at what it is we’re really afraid of

When we’re on autopilot, our minds get stuck on or overlook a dilemma or course of action that doesn’t serve us. We go about our day without questioning how or why we do the things we do. In the process, we waste time, energy, money, credibility, along with opportunities for fulfillment, connection, and meaning.

We engage in these types of autopilot behaviors and thinking every day. Consider things such as the route you take to work, the situations that you replay over and over in your mind, the steps and order in which you go about completing tasks, the fears that go unquestioned, or the things that motivate you. We let most of these scenarios play out over and over without asking ourselves if there’s a better alternative.

Getting Off Autopilot

My example only involved filling a water bottle. Consider other examples where the stakes are higher:

• Making life decisions, such as where to live, who to date, or which job to take
• Addressing and resolving conflict, including on a global or cultural level
• Solving work and business issues with potential financial, environmental, or social consequences
• Spending energy and money trying to look good, prove worth, or get ahead
• Dealing with social issues such as racism, homelessness, and addiction

Instead of spinning your wheels or reenacting the same scenes over and over, getting off autopilot can help you create new stories, end thoughts or behaviors that don’t serve you, help you be more efficient, improve relationships, and help you shift from being reactive to proactive.

There are several steps you can take to get off autopilot:

1. Notice discomfort
   When experiencing a frustrating, unpleasant, or painful situation, pay attention. The discomfort is potentially a signal that you’re on autopilot. These uncomfortable experiences are often clues that you’re stuck in an old pattern. These patterns could be experiencing familiar relationships, perpetual unresolved conflict, stress, inability to solve or resolve problems, or wasted time. Practice paying attention to these feelings and patterns.
2. Pause and reflect
   When you notice discomfort or familiar patterns, pause and reflect. Notice the result you’re getting. Observe your thinking or beliefs about the situation. Look at how you’re behaving. By taking a step back and examining what’s going on, you can tease out what’s really going on and become more aware of the situation. Sometimes this awareness comes quickly, and other times it can take a while. Continue to pause and reflect until the unconscious becomes conscious.
3. Make a different choice
   Once you notice your thinking, belief, and/or behavior, you can make a different choice. Sometimes the choices are obvious, sometimes not. You may need help to gain additional perspectives or options. Experiment – the key is to at least try something different. No matter the result, you’ll experience something new. It’s like the movie Groundhog Day – we need to keep trying new things until we get a different result.

Not all autopilot behaviors are uncomfortable – sometimes we’re just blissfully ignorant of them. One way to increase awareness of our autopilot behaviors is to ask for feedback.

Questions to get you off autopilot:

1. How can you become more aware of your discomfort?
2. What gets in the way of you making time to pause and reflect?
3. What emotions do you commonly experience? Which autopilot beliefs or behaviors create those emotions?
4. What frustrating or debilitating situations do you repeatedly experience? Which autopilot beliefs or behaviors create those situations?
5. What is something you tolerate in your life? What is a different choice you can make to eliminate the toleration?

The Discomfort of Silence

For many people, silence can be uncomfortable. When silent by ourselves, we come face to face with our thoughts and feelings. When silent with others, we are confronted by just being instead of doing. In either case, we want to avoid this discomfort and find ways to distract. The downside is that we miss out on opportunities. We fail to leverage the power of silence and, in doing so, cut off access to a great source of power.

When we use the power of silence, we have the opportunity to:

• Pause from daily life
• Notice how we’re doing
• Reflect on deeper truths
• Increase awareness of what’s going on around us
• Listen
• Access wisdom

These benefits can help us solve problems, experience meaningful connection, access creativity, connect to the bigger picture, recognize wants and needs, align with purpose, and be more resilient, peaceful, and fulfilled.

Talking: The Enemy of Silence

One of the biggest enemies of silence is talking. Ironically, talking is a common Achilles heel of leaders. Some talk because they like hearing their own voice. Others talk because they are uncomfortable with silence. In some cases, talking is a way to avoid intimacy and being present with other people. For many leaders, it’s simply a habit developed over time and culturally reinforced: many people spend a lot more time talking than listening or being silent. Regardless of the reason, talking can cut us off from our personal power and effectiveness as leaders.

Consider some common workplace scenarios:

• A manager has a performance review with a direct report. The majority of the conversation involves the manager giving feedback, direction, and suggestions.
• Senior leaders brief their people on a new initiative. Over the course of an hour, they spend fifty minutes outlining details, telling personal stories that relate to the reason behind the initiative, giving directives, and sharing the consequences of not following the initiative. Although they allow ten minutes for questions, they only have time for one question because they spend most of that time responding with long answers and even more stories.
• A leader asks their team for ideas about a new solution. Almost immediately after asking, the leader proceeds to interrupt, argue, discount ideas, or move on before speakers even have a chance to finish their thoughts.

In all three examples, the conversations were one-sided. There was no room for hearing other perspectives, ideas, or needs. Solutions were handed down instead of co-created, resulting in less ownership and potential buy-in. Most of the information presented went over people’s heads, as they could only take in so much before their minds wandered elsewhere. People didn’t feel seen, valued or, in some cases, even needed at all.

The irony in such situations is that leaders then wonder why they struggle to get people engaged, bought-in, self-motivated, self-directed, creative, taking ownership, and not improving. They then might even blame others instead of noticing their own contribution.

Leveraging the Power of Silence

When leaders learn to embrace and use silence, new possibilities emerge. By providing spaciousness, reflective questions, and listening, there is room for something different to occur.

Using silence can take many forms, such as:

• Listening to someone speak without interrupting, commenting, correcting, or fixing the person
• Asking questions and allowing as much time as it takes for the other person to answer
• Allowing enough time for groups to ask questions without ending before everyone has a chance to ask questions
• Letting someone finish a thought, even if they pause while speaking
• Taking time each day to do nothing
• Going for a walk or spending time in nature without any distraction
• Using powerful questions to help people figure out their own solutions instead of taking over, giving direction, or telling them how you’d do it

In the examples above, performance reviews could consist of asking the direct report what their goals are, where they’re struggling, what their ideas are for improving, and what they need. Briefs could focus on sharing the “what” and engaging the group to come up with the “how.” Meetings could allow time for free brainstorming and sharing of ideas without interruption.

One senior leader I coached was quick to fill the silence with his direct reports by telling them what they should do. Instead of waiting for answers, he became impatient. If they didn’t seem to get what he was telling them or couldn’t do it fast enough, he’d take over and do the work for them. He was frustrated and wondered why his people weren’t developing.

As he explored his pattern of avoiding silence by being directive and taking over, he saw how much he was the cause of their issues. He started listening more, asking questions, letting his direct reports come up with solutions, and allowing them to struggle with figuring things out on their own. Not only did they start taking initiative and becoming more independent in their jobs, his own stress went way down and he had more time and energy for his own work. By using the power of silence, he gave ownership back to his people and provided the space for them to find their way.

Embracing Silence

To cultivate your own use of silence, consider the following questions:

• How do you typically respond to silence?
• In a typical conversation, how much time do you spend talking instead of listening?
• What strategies can you implement to use silence more often?
• Instead of telling someone what to do, what questions could you ask to help them discover their own answers?
• What would being silent look like for you, and how could you incorporate more silence in your life?

Fortunately, finding your place on the spectrum of leadership is not as daunting as it may feel at times. Using a few simple concepts in something I call Spectrum Mapping, you can discover approaches that work both for you and your people.

Which Spectrum Are You Mapping?

The first step in Spectrum Mapping is identifying the spectrum you’re struggling with. All spectrums involve poles that are the opposite of one another. In addition to some of the spectrums I mentioned at the beginning of the post, other common spectrums include:

• The Spectrum of Commitment: staying too long or giving up too soon
• The Spectrum of Disciplining: imposing consequences quickly or waiting things out
• The Spectrum of Sensitivity: overreacting or underreacting
• The Spectrum of Formality: being too detached or being too personal
• The Spectrum of Adventure: taking risks or being cautious

Some spectrums might not be obvious to identify. However, there are usually some keywords and phrases that will tip you off, such as:

• “I should be more/less …”
• “I wonder if I’m being too/not enough …”
• “Am I too …?”
• “I’m not good at being …”

There are an infinite number of spectrums to explore. Noticing the clues above and taking time to reflect on what you’re wrestling with can bring the spectrum to light. Once you identify it, you can either write or visualize a Spectrum Map that includes the name of the spectrum and each of the poles. For example:

In the diagram, place the name at the top and place the poles at either end. Using the spectrum of social orientation as an example:

Assessing Your Place on the Spectrum

After you’ve identified the spectrum and created the Spectrum Map, the next step is assessing where you are on the Map. Because this tool is intended to help you self-assess and not diagnose, there is no right or wrong, good or bad place on the spectrum. You are where you determine yourself to be. Therefore, the more honest you are with yourself, the more value you’ll gain.

To get a sense of where you’d place yourself, start from the midpoint and move towards either pole. Think of behaviors associated with the pole as a guide. In our “social orientation” spectrum example, “introverted” might mean not wanting to talk to people, preferring to stay at home, and disliking parties while “extroverted” might mean not liking being alone, disliking quiet, and preferring social interactions. Again, it’s completely subjective to your definitions, not anyone else’s.

Once you’ve assessed where you fall on the spectrum, place an “X” on the Spectrum Map. For example:

Finding Your Balance

Now that you’ve identified where you land on the spectrum, it’s time to explore alternate behaviors to bring you into greater balance. This doesn’t necessarily mean being exactly at the midpoint, nor does it mean staying in a static place. The point is to find a place that is appropriate to the situation you’re trying to resolve.

Returning to our example, let’s say you’re wondering if you tend to be excessively introverted, or if your introversion is not serving your team. You sense your team wants more engagement and interaction, even though it’s not your default style. As such, you wonder if perhaps you could be a little more extroverted.

Or, perhaps you simply aren’t sure if being more extroverted would serve you in general. You might see other people who are extroverted have experiences that you’d possibly like to have or contributing to their success.

Either way, you can then start exploring actions or behaviors that can move you towards either the midpoint or the other pole on the Spectrum Map, depending on your goals. In this case of wanting to be more extroverted, you might recognize that sharing more positive affirmations to your team, holding more team meetings, or simply greeting your team each morning could bring you into more balance.

Once you’ve identified the action you’d like to take, it can help to turn it into a goal. This increases the likelihood of you changing your behavior.

The Discomfort of the Opposite Pole

Moving towards the opposite pole may feel unnatural, awkward, or downright scary. You’re stepping out of your comfort zone and trying on a new behavior. This discomfort is normal, and likely a sign that you’re moving in the right direction. The trick is to stay with it, and not give up too soon (this is especially true if you’d place yourself on the “giving up too soon” end of the commitment spectrum :).

The other trick is to take small steps (again, another spectrum to navigate if your tendency is to take big steps or go all or nothing). A good general measure is to go to the edge of your comfort zone, then take a step or two beyond it. If you’re feeling outright terror or want to run away, you’re probably going too far and will set yourself up for failure.

Just like exercising a muscle, the more you practice moving towards the opposite pole, the easier it will become.

Exploring Spectrums

Exploring various spectrums and creating Spectrum Maps can be fun. It’s an easy way to identify new behaviors that you can try on and experiment with.

It’s also a good way to create engagement with your team and peers. Find people to represent the other pole of the spectrum and look to them for ideas and inspiration. Brainstorm ideas for moving towards the other pole. Have your team assess themselves on the same spectrum and share reasons behind their assessment to learn more about each other and how you can support each other. Ask for feedback, and assess how others would place you versus where you’d place yourself. There are infinite ways to use this tool, so try out a few.

To give you some ideas for playing with the tool, here are some questions to consider:

• What do you judge yourself for, and what spectrum might relate to the judgment?
• When you place yourself in the middle of a spectrum, what might you try doing to move towards either pole?
• How does where you’d place yourself align with how people close to you would place you on a given spectrum? How can this information make you more self-aware?
• What might you gain by stepping outside of your comfort zone?
• What simple, immediate behaviors could you try doing that would bring you into more balance?

Making Up Stories

As humans, we love to make up stories. Sometimes these stories are for entertainment, sometimes for learning, and sometimes to connect with other people. When used intentionally, stories are a healthy and essential part of many cultures.

Unfortunately, however, in our personal lives, we create stories that work against us. We tell these stories throughout the day and constantly react to them. Stories like:

• “My boss totally chewed me out. They told me I wasn’t good at my job and need to step it up. I think I might even get fired!”
• “She didn’t like my idea at all. When I brought it up, she immediately shot it down and moved on to another subject. It’s a waste of time to even say anything.”
• “I tried using a new approach, and everyone loved it! They were all blown away and it really started making them thinking about things in a new way.”
• “We’d better tone it down, or they might feel threatened by us.”

Although these stories are typically based on fiction, we mistake them to be non-fictional, then act accordingly. (Models such as the Ladder of Inference explain more about how we do this.) Many of our stories are variations on common themes, such as:

• They don’t like me
• They think I’m too ____
• They don’t understand me
• They just want to control me, punish me, hurt me, avoid me, etc.
• If I behave this way, they’ll respond that way

In many of these cases, what we assume to be the truth is, in fact, a story. It’s not a case of whether you make up stories or not – we all do it many times a day. What matters is how often you make them up, to what degree you believe your stories to be true, and how you respond to them.

Just the Facts

These stories keep us safe. Safe from confrontation, safe from having to change and face the unknown, and safe from avoiding potential disappointment. Unfortunately, this kind of safety perpetuates drama and keeps us from growing.

Instead, we have a choice: to go beyond the stories and see what’s really true. How do we do this? By focusing on the facts.

Facts are the behaviors that anyone else could observe and agree actually happened. Actual body movements, spoken words, and specific actions are factual. If you were to observe someone on a video, these behaviors would be easy to name. Types of these behaviors include:

• The person raised their hand
• The person said “no”
• The person’s voice became louder
• The person’s face turned red
• The person threw a pen across the room

When revisiting the above examples, the facts might consist of something like:

• “My boss totally chewed me out. They told me I wasn’t good at my job and need to step it up. I think I might even get fired!” (My boss asked me why I turned it the report late and said they hoped I wouldn’t do it again.”)
• “She didn’t like my idea at all. When I brought it up, she immediately shot it down and moved on to another subject. It’s a waste of time to even say anything.” (My boss changed the subject after I suggested an idea.)
• “I tried using a new approach, and everyone loved it! They were all blown away and it really started making them thinking about things in a new way.” (No one actually said anything after trying the approach. A few people’s eyes widened a bit.)
• “We’d better tone it down, or they might feel threatened by us.” (We don’t know how they might feel because we’ve never actually behaved this way around them.)

Separating the Facts From the Story

The problem is that we fill in many of the gaps between the facts and make up stories. Instead, to minimize drama, we need to identify and stick to the facts. Consider this example of a client’s story:

“A colleague directed one of my team members to work on a job that I didn’t assign to them. It was totally outside of my colleague’s swim lane to do that, but I was nervous about confronting them because I didn’t want to hurt his feelings.

When I called to talk to him about it, they acted like it was no big deal and said, ‘Yeah, so why are you telling me this?’ I explained my position again. When I finished, they said, ‘OK, I hear you’ and hung up the phone.”

When my client told me this story, he thought that his colleague was upset and didn’t agree with his position. He took his colleague abruptly hanging up on him as evidence of his feelings. The scene kept festering in his head, which led to him growing more anxious and panicky to resolve the situation. This is usually how stories work – we replay and react to them, often without resolution.

When we reviewed what happened and looked at the facts, here’s what my client identified:

• The colleague said, “Yeah, so why are you telling me this?”
• The colleague said, “OK, I hear you.”
• After the colleague said, “OK, I hear you,” they hung up the phone.

Those are the only facts in the story. Everything else is fiction unless proven otherwise. The colleague may have been upset, ashamed, or confused. My client may not have explained his position clearly enough. The colleague may have been busy and needed to go after communicating that he got the message. The bottom line is that anything other than the facts are only a story.

Rewriting the Story

As my client reflected on the facts, his anxiety dissipated. He realized how much he was making up (primarily because he was already nervous and anticipating his colleague’s response in the first place) and was able to replay the conversation more objectively. From there, he realized that he simply needed to follow up and get more information.

This is one of the keys to separating facts from stories: checking out your stories by asking the person what is true. Unfortunately, we don’t do this enough. Instead, we stay stuck in the drama and make ourselves miserable. In this case, when my client checked out his story, he learned that his colleague was put off, but for different reasons: he was distracted by people in his work area in that moment, had a hard time hearing my client, and didn’t understand what my client wanted him to do. Both of them realized the initial communication gaps and were able to get on the same page moving forward, to the relief of both of them.

We don’t always have the opportunity to check out our stories. In such situations, we have a different choice: to make up a new story that makes us feel better. So long as we’re making up stories, we may as well make up a good story instead of a bad one!

One of my personal “favorite” stories (it wasn’t such a favorite at the time) happened about ten years ago. In this story, I asked a colleague via e-mail to promote a workshop I was doing with a friend who had an unusual name. I didn’t know the colleague well, but respected her and thought she’d be happy to help.

I never heard back from the colleague, as was a bit surprised to have gotten no response. It was even more surprising when, a month or so later, I got a mass e-mail from her advertising a similar workshop, with me and my friend’s name, that totally mocked the topic of our workshop.

Needless to say, I was shocked, angry, and baffled. I couldn’t imagine what I had done to provoke her. I didn’t feel comfortable following up over e-mail and decided to let it go (even though it still nagged at me for quite some time.

A year or so later, I ran into the colleague and asked her what happened. Her response couldn’t have surprised me more: she had a couple of friends who just so happened to have the exact same first names (she only had first names in her advertisement) who just happened to be doing a playful workshop on a similar topic. Bottom line?  The whole thing was purely coincidental!

In the end, we were both amazed at the irony, and she felt bad because she really respected me. Fortunately, we were both able to laugh about it. Even more fortunately for me, it was a pivotal moment in realizing how, even when a story seems like it’s absolutely real, it may not be.

Becoming a Good Storyteller

Because we are in the habit of making up stories throughout the day, a good place to start is by identifying facts. From there, we can notice the stories we make up around those facts, name them as stories, and either check them out or write new ones. This takes practice, but the benefits of minimizing workplace drama is well worth it. The following questions can help you separate stories from facts:

• What are the actual behaviors that occurred?
• What story am I making up from those behaviors?
• What solid evidence do I have to prove if the story is true or not?
• How do the stories I make up tend to support how I already see the person/the world/the type of situation?
• If I just stick to the facts, what are several other stories could I make up instead of my go-to story?

Note: just as with any leadership tool, we don’t want to use these tools as weapons. Telling someone that they’re just making up a story is not productive and minimizes their experience. Sometimes, especially for marginalized groups, there are subtle behaviors towards people that are difficult to identify. Tread lightly and with compassion, whether for yourself or others, while seeking to discover what is true and what is not.