Leadership – What Gets In The Way Of Building An Engaged Team?

In teams and organizations, heart, emotion, and especially vulnerability are both liabilities and weakness. These traits/qualities are considered more human than business behaviors. Simply put, some may say they don’t belong in a professional business setting at all. Most people will say who has the time to deal with that? Or they are not trained in handling those situations, or because we don’t have the space to handle the heaviness of this, perhaps if we open ourselves “to be truly seen” then we risk ourselves being exposed, shamed, judged or miss-understood or viewed as weak!

After all, what we’ve been taught over the years to understand certain aspects about workplace authority. Leadership qualities, perceptions, traits or characteristics are about strength, knowledge, power, status, excellence, etc.. However many articles, research, as well as business blogs written about leadership, has provided a clear perspective on what true leadership means.  For this blog, I will touch on what open leadership looks like versus closed minded leadership.

But before I do, I want talk about what gets in the way of leaders daring to lead. Whether it’s by culture or in some cases individual leaders are too comfortable and driven by their egos, they lock up the heart and seal it off from feelings. They praise and reward perfectionism, emotional hardness, the false compartmentalizing of our lives and work. Keeping things easy and comfortable, less messy instead of embracing the tough and awkward conversations. They value “all knowing” over always learning and staying curious.

Starting with perfectionism; this is a self-destructive and addictive belief, an unattainable goal. It’s a clear pathway to feelings of shame, judgment and blame. It’s consequence is fostering fear and failure.  It fuels the primary thoughts of “Everything needs to be perfect” or “what will people think?”

You end up putting yourself through the path of please, perform, perfect and prove. You are dangerously adopting a debilitating belief system here: “I am what I accomplish and how well I accomplish it”. Having honest and open conversations about perfectionism within trusting and brave teams can be healing and powerful. Asking questions on how perfectionism shows up, and how can you distinguish perfectionism from healthy striving for excellence. Are there ways to check in with each other that work for everyone? Are there flags, warning signs or indicators that all can take accountability for spotting? If there is the space and willingness within a trusted environment this will result in profound changes, the teams will grow closer, increase performance and build trust in the process.

Scarcity & Foreboding

When something great happens in your life or let’s say at work, you get promoted or you delivered high sales results, how many times do you celebrate only to find yourself thinking, “don’t get so happy, or comfortable, it’s not over yet”. Your thoughts are literally inviting disaster or waiting for the shoe to drop. Because joy is the vulnerable emotion we feel. When we feel joy, it’s felt from a place of beauty and fragility and deep gratitude from a state or fact of lasting only for a limited period all combined in one experience.

When you can’t tolerate that level of vulnerability, joy becomes foreboding (as the author Brene Brown describes in her book Dare to lead) the feelings of disappointments, or pictures of hurts washes over us and take our thoughts and mind as hostage rubbing us from the joyful moments we experience with our success and accomplishments.

How does foreboding joy show up at work? Usually not in obvious ways, so it’s hard to recognize at times when it’s happening. Sometimes making us hesitant to celebrate victories, because we either afraid if we celebrate with our team or breathe something might go wrong. For example, when you get a project up or roll out a new system you don’t want to celebrate yet because you are not sure if it was perfect, or if it’s going to work.

Another way is when withholding recognition, because we don’t want employees to get too excited because there’s still more work to be done, we don’t want them to get complacent, get too relaxed, or don’t want to set a precedent.  And most times bias leaders tend to do the opposite of everything by going overboard when it’s unnecessarily called for.

Lack of Empathy:

One of the most important qualities a leader should have is empathy. How many of us experience going through a very profound or difficult situation in life, perhaps impacting your work or level of engagement? How do leaders handle situations when a member of their team is going through a difficult time? That determines the kind of leader you are. Do you show up for members of your team? To you extend empathy and kindness toward your employees when they need it the most?

Empathy builds on connection and trust. It’s an essential ingredient for teams who take risks and show up. Our job is to connect, it’s not our job to make things better. Empathy is connecting to the feeling under the experience, not the experience itself. If you ever felt grief, disappointment, shame, fear, loneliness, or anger you are qualified. Now you need the courage to practice and build your empathy skills. If someone sharing something difficult for them, your truthful response of not knowing what to say is better than trying to find a “response” can rarely make something better. Connection is what heals.

Empathy is a choice, and this choice is a vulnerable one. For me to connect with you through empathy, that would mean I would have to connect with something in myself that shares that same feeling or emotion. In the face of difficult conversations, when we see that someone’s hurt or in pain, it’s our instinct as human beings to try to make it better or fix it.

We give advice, but empathy isn’t about fixing, it’s the brave choice to be with someone in their darkness, not to race to turn on the light so we feel better. Empathy is having the ability to see the world as others see it, or perspective taking, to be non-judgmental, to understand another person’s feeling, and to communicate your understanding of that person’s feeling. It’s being mindful and taking a balanced approach to negative emotions so that feelings are neither suppressed nor exaggerated. That way we cannot ignore our pain and feel compassion for it.

Fitting-in Culture:

In the book “Braving the Wilderness by Brene Brown” she shares this definition of true belonging:

“True belonging is the spiritual practice of believing in and belonging to yourself so deeply that you can share your most authentic self with the world and find sacredness in both being part of something and standing alone in the wilderness. True belonging doesn’t require you to change who you are; it requires you to be who are.”

When leaders and companies miss the mark on their culture, the barrier to true belonging is fitting in or changing who we are so we can be accepted. When we create a culture of fitting in, seeking approval and likeability at work, we are not only stifling individuality, we are limiting people’s sense of true belonging.

People desperately want to be part of something bigger than themselves, and they want to experience profound connection with others, but they don’t want to sacrifice their authenticity, freedom, or power to do it. Only when a diverse perspective is included, respected and valued, can we start to get the full picture of the world, who we are, how we serve, what are the needs and how successfully we meet people where they are.

Seeing Worthiness through productivity:

We are at a time of cultural crisis around busyness and sleep deprivation. As a society, we still struggle in seeing our self-worth to our net worth. When self-worth is seen as a measure of productivity, we inevitably lose the ability to slow down or stop. The idea of doing something that doesn’t add to the bottom line provokes stress and anxiety. We convince ourselves that downtime is a waste of precious time when can work and get things done.

If we want to live a life of meaning and contribution, we must become intentional about cultivating sleep and play. We must let go of exhaustion, busyness, and productivity as status symbols and measures of self-worth. We are impressing no one! Leaders need to model appropriate boundaries by shutting off email at a reasonable time and focusing on themselves and their family.

Do not celebrate people who work through the weekend, who brag that they were tethered to their laptops over the holiday break. Ultimately, it’s an unsustainable behavior, and it has dangerous side effects including burnout, depression, and anxiety. It also, creates a culture of workaholic competitiveness that’s detrimental for everyone.

Concluding the blog on what leading from a close-minded leadership style look like versus leading from a place of openness listing below: (Brene Brown – Dare to Lead)

Closed-minded leadership style:

• Using power over
• Numbing
• Driving perfectionism and fostering fear of failure
• Tolerating discrimination, echo chambers, and a “fitting in” culture
• Collecting gold stars
• Zigzagging and avoiding
• Leading from hurt & insecurity
• Hustling for self-worth
• The victim or Viking, crush or to be crushed
• Fear and uncertainty
• Being a knower and being right
• This is how it’s going to be done mentality

Open-minded leadership style:

• Modeling & encouraging healthy striving, empathy, and self-compassion
• Practicing gratitude & celebrating milestones and victories
• Being a learner and getting it right
• Modeling clarity, kindness and hope
• Knowing values
• Cultivating commitment and shared purpose
• Cultivating a culture of belonging, inclusivity, and diverse perspectives and acceptance.
• Giving gold stars
• Straight talking and taking action
• Leading from heart
• Acknowledging, naming and normalizing collective fear and uncertainty
• Transparency
• Setting boundaries and finding real comfort
• Using power with, power to and power within