“What is THAT about?”
That is what we say when a collegeague storms out of an end of meeting discussion about where you are going to order lunch. It is what we say when a long-time customer won’t return our phone calls. It is what we ask when someone cries while in line for their latte. It is what we ask when someone begins a hateful debate about a brand framework font preference in a Yammer post.
And we don’t just ask it about other’s behaviors. There are certainly times when we raise our voice with a colleague, check out of an important meeting, or gossip at the water cooler only to walk away and ask, “What was that about?”
When you ask that question – of yourself or others – you have likely identified a behavior that lacks awareness.
We believe that a sign of leadership maturity is the ability to notice our habits and compulsions in real time. And in order to realize personal transformation – cultivating a strength, eliminating unproductive behaviors, even downplaying an overused strength – leaders simply must go deeper and understand the roots of their behaviors.
Executive leadership literature is replete with material on everything ranging from bad bosses to emotional intelligence. While there is some merit to this material, by virtue of its being stand-alone or myopic in its view, it rarely leads to sustained changes that rely on willpower or externally imposed discipline – the secretary who guards a leader’s calendar, the self-help audio books in the car, or practiced interpersonal techniques – all helpful to a degree, but rarely transformative. The reality is that unproductive values, beliefs, and behaviors take decades to develop and are not reversed by a two hour online seminar or reading about how not to be a jerk of a boss. Transformation must begin deeper.
How deep are we talking here? We need to go deep through all of the gray matter to the almond-sized base of our brain. The “primitive brain” as some call it – the amygdala. The amygdala is the watchdog of the brain. It is always looking for threats and opportunities and subsequently leads us to act on those threats and opportunities without critical thought (using the big meaty part of our brain – the neocortex). What neuroscience has revealed of late is that our early life experiences and genetics shape our amygdala and thus we all have unique conditioned tendencies. These tendencies are learned habits of responses to stimulus and, if unexamined, will lead us to thoughtless, ineffective ways of leading and relating. Science is proving that these decade-developed behaviors are found deep within each of our own professional and personal stories.
Daniel Taylor writes, “You are your stories. You are the product of all the stories you have heard and lived – and many that you have never heard. They have shaped how you see yourself, the world, and your place in it…our stories teach us that there is a place for us, that we fit…the more conscious we are about our stories, and our roles as characters in them, the more clarity we have about who we are, why we are here, and how we should act in the world.” We call these stories operative narratives and believe they serve to reflect, shape, and reinforce a foundational structure of beliefs or values over time.
Decoding your operative narrative provides insight into why you lead the way you do and what must change within you to demonstrate more effective leadership going forward.
There are two approaches you can use to pursue the re-scripting of your operative narrative: 1) hindsight decoding, or understanding the way your past informs your present, and 2) foresight encoding, or understanding the implications your present leadership may have on your future and planning accordingly. Asking, “What are the beginnings of my current leadership?” and “What beginnings are required for my desired leadership?” is an effective starting point. Understanding and intentionally charting a course based on, and in response to, these questions is the essence of pursuing transformation within.
The risk of not decoding and encoding is not dissimilar to what happens with many professional boxers. Early in their careers they’re able to quickly rebound from the effects of a concussion. The brain has amazing elasticity and rebounds quickly. However, those who experieince the compounding effects of many successive concussions are often unable to rebound effectively. Metaphorically, the same is true for leaders. The destructive and debilitating operative narratives compound over time and the tapes, or things we believe about ourselves and our world, become self-fulfilling prophecies.
The isidious nature of these recurring messages is that they are often false or with only small particles of truth at their core. Whether the tape says, “You are magnificent” or “You are incompetent,” the extreme nature of these messages can elicit disproportionately extreme behaviors from leaders that impact organizational relationships, culture, and even results.
For this reason, it can be beneficial to our emotional, psychological, and physical well-being to release these patterns and allow our body, mind, and spirit to find a new, more supportive way of being in the world. In doing so we will move from asking, “What was that about?” to having a deep understanding of the roots of our behavior and how it impacts others. We go from mindlessly leading to mindfully leading.
Go Within Today
- Become an observer of yourself, your language, your physical manner, your inner thoughts and reactions
- Ask yourself – what are the stories and patterns that govern you?
- Ask yourself – what are your values and where did they originate?
- Read: The Leadership Dojo by Richard Strozzi-Heckler
- This work can be difficult to do on your own. Consider working with a coach who can serve as an advocate for this often difficult self-reflection. At Navalent, our outside eyes can also help you self-reflect using tools such as the LVI, DISC, and other Hogan assessments.