Self-Managing And Responding Better At The Office
When confronted by a difficult conversation, frustrating email, or challenging personality, a cascade of signals speed through our body and mind--stress hormones are released, our heart rate increases, breathing quickens, chest tightens, emotions arise, and our thoughts race.
Where was the class on compassionate leadership and self-regulation in your MBA program? Chances are you’ve never been taught how to listen to understand and lean in with compassion.
And yet, we’ve all had communications training, albeit largely unconscious and unintentional--we pick up whatever is around us in our family, culture and society, and do the best we can to get by.
However helpless you may feel at times, given the great many things out of our control, you have power over your own experience--you have control of your thoughts and how you want to respond (agency).
One of the great tools available to us is self-awareness, which leads to choice, and that creates the gap between stimulus and response.
How Do We Self-Soothe And Self-Manage?
Being able to stay calm, open-minded, and quickly adapt to shifting circumstances in this wild new world, is and will continue to be a competitive advantage. To do this effectively requires the ability to be aware of our internal state and self-regulate.
It all starts with emotional intelligence, which is directly related to interpersonal effectiveness. The higher your EQ, the more effective a leader and communicator you will be. Building these muscles will reduce your conflict, create trust, loyalty and a more productive team, who has your back every step of the way, because they know you have theirs.
The next time you need something to fall back on when things get hard, whether that’s a difficult conversation, frustrating email, challenging personality, or other stressful situation, try
4 steps to shifting your team dynamic and responding better at the office:
1. Slow Down
Learned habits of communication run deep and often come out of our mouth at lightening speed when we’re triggered.
Slow down and notice the sensations in your body. Is your breathing quick and shallow? Is your face flush? Is your chest tight?
Next, try taking short pauses before and during speaking to consider what you’re about to say, and whether or not it will be helpful to your goal of mutual understanding and connection.
As with other mindfulness training, slowing down is essential for building new muscles so that we can start to move forward differently.
2. Deep Breathes
Take 5 deep breaths, try exhaling longer than you inhale, if you can. When we breathe like this it activates our parasympathetic nervous system, dropping our heart rate and lowering our blood pressure, which allows us to access important functions like clear thinking, empathy, and perspective taking.
3. Create A Pause
If the conversation is moving quickly, ask for a pause: “All of this is feeling really charged right now, and I want to do my best to respond in a way that’s going to be helpful. I’d like a moment to just gather my thoughts, ok?”
In some intense cases, we may lose the ability to stay balanced, and need to pause the conversation altogether. If you do need to take a break, be sure to affirm your intention to figure things out and propose a specific time frame to return to the topic, so that the other person doesn’t interpret your stepping away as a rejection or dismissal.
4. Practice Restraint
With email, waiting a few hours or a day to send a message often brings clarity and saves unnecessary complication. One of the most overlooked (and often underutilized) communication tools is holding one’s tongue. It takes restraint, but knowing the right time and place to speak our truth is essential.
When in conversation, try listening or nodding along until you have a clearer sense of what will be most useful to share, rather than engaging in a way that compounds the situation, puts your colleagues on the defensive, causing them to shut down and/or retreat, or creates barriers that can be hard to repair.
4. Be Mindful Of Timing:
At the end of a long workday is probably not the best time to have a difficult conversation about the company’s finances or about a strained relationship with a member of your senior management team.
If you want to bring something up, check first if it’s a good time for the other person. Similarly, if they broach a difficult subject, consider if you’re in the right frame of mind and have enough inner resources to engage skillfully. If not, assure them that you want to have the conversation and then let them know that you don’t think you have the bandwidth to discuss it now. Again, be sure to suggest an alternate time so they’re not left wondering if it will even happen.
Why Does Responding Better Matter?
I support my clients in reframing their work as leaders from advising and fixing to self-soothing and self-managing so that they’re able to stay present and seek input from the team you’ve carefully assembled around you and empowering them to get the job done.
Feeling more settled, with a clearer mind, you can see a way through. Can you access the intuition and creativity that has gotten you here. Can you respond to the email, event, or individual in a way that allows you to set the tone and show up as the leader you want to be, instead of the reactive, dismissive one.
Your team respects and appreciates you more, because you show up for them, rather than shutting them down.
Leading in this way contributes to employees feeling more satisfied, engaged, and productive. Not to mention, you develop stronger relationships and communicate with greater impact--all of which reduces attrition and improves your bottom-line.
You can learn these skills, like everything else, they require thought, practice, and some guidance.
I can help.
If the switch from reacting emotionally to staying present and balanced is harder for you, you aren’t alone. Don’t be discouraged if you need some help working through your default programming, it’s likely had a hold of you since childhood.
Feel free to reach out and see how I might be able to help you sharpen your tools to lead more effectively.
Or check out these other musings:
3 Emotionally Intelligent Practices To Upgrade Your Leadership
WHO IS REMM CURTIS?
REMM CURTIS is an executive coach working with NYC and beyond's best and brightest leaders stay at the top of their game. If you would like to talk about what the best version of you could look like, get in touch.