This is the third part in the series of How to Find Your Voice as a Leader. Finding your voice is achieved through the three A’s:
- Anchoring
- Awareness
- Agility
Last week, we discussed Anchoring, which is the practice of intentionally defining our vision or purpose for our work, the values we will live as we pursue that vision and the expectations we have of ourselves and others in that pursuit.
The second A is Awareness. Everything in life is neutral until we give meaning to it. Why can two people get the same message about the company being sold, a reorganization happening or a new leader taking over the team and yet, feel so completely different about it? It’s because we filter all those circumstances through our brain and give them meaning by assigning thoughts to them.
Sometimes, when things happen at work, we are going to feel things we don’t want to like stress, overwhelm, anger and frustration or we behave in ways that feel uncontrollable. So we need something in our toolbox to help us understand why.
My favorite tool for creating awareness is something I learned from Brooke Castillo, founder of the Life Coach School. It’s called a Thought Model. Thought Models help us uncover the difference between circumstances in life (what is factual) and the thoughts we have about them (the meaning we give to the circumstances). We can then follow ourselves through the model to understand the feelings created by our thoughts, the actions generated by the feelings we have and the results we create with those actions. In other words, our thoughts create our feelings, which generate our actions, which create our results.
Most of us assume that circumstances are what dictate our feelings.
When things get too busy, I feel overwhelmed.
When employees are unhappy and getting upset, I feel attacked.
When I’m leading a project meeting that doesn’t go as planned, I feel inadequate.
Part of our journey, maturing as a leader, is not only being aware of our emotions, but take responsibility for what is creating them as well.
Taking an example from one of my clients, she leads a project meeting every week and was dreading the meetings. She would leave them feeling frazzled and depleted, so we set out to understand why.
We started looking at what was factual. She ran a meeting every Tuesday. She believed that the meeting itself was what made her feel depleted, but when we looked at what she was doing in the meeting, she was questioning why she was there, judging herself for everything she said, criticizing how she was running the meeting and her ability to communicate, restating the purpose of the meeting to the participants in attempt to maintain command, rambling to fill the time and maintain control of the discussion, not asking questions or getting curious about the participants understanding of what was happening or needed to happen. She was not fully present in the meeting because she was preoccupied with all her thoughts about it and because she was trying to evaluate and predict people’s impressions and emotions so she could tailor what she was saying in an attempt to keep them happy. And all of it stemmed from the recurring thought she was having that she was losing control of the meeting itself, which caused her to feel inadequate and in turn, created a situation where she lost control of her focus, not the meeting! Aren’t you exhausted too, just thinking about it?!
Putting it in a Thought Model looks like this:
Circumstance: I lead the PMO Meeting on Tuesday.
Thought: I am losing control
Feeling: Inadequate
Actions: Question why I am there, judge myself, criticize how I am running the meeting and my ability to communicate, restate the purpose of the meeting to the participants in attempt to maintain command, ramble to fill the time and maintain control of the discussion, not ask questions or get curious about the participants understanding of what was happening or needed to happen. Not be fully present in the meeting because I was preoccupied with all my thoughts about it and because I was trying to evaluate and predict people’s impressions and emotions.
Result: I lose control of my focus and what is going on in my brain.
Reviewing a Thought Model is like watching a movie. It’s natural to look at it and feel all the experiences of the characters, after all, you are in the lead role. But I invite you to step outside of the character and simply be part of the audience. Look at your thoughts and actions without criticism, just simply acknowledge that you have a human brain and the model is a result of that. Be fascinated by it, not critical of it.
In the case of my client, this awareness was eye opening in terms of her understanding of what was actually going on. Once she understood that it was her thoughts creating her feelings and not the meetings themselves, she started to notice as soon as it would happen. Instead of indulging her brain, she would take a deep breath, stay present and keep bringing herself back into the present and what was happening in the meeting. She kept reminding herself that there was no “mess” in the meeting itself, it was only created in her head when she ran wild with her thoughts.
What awareness can you create by running a recent experience you had through a Thought Model?
Feel free to reach out and share your models or seek help to understand them by contacting me here.