How Leaders Handle Difficult Situations

An interview with Pamela Brooks- Richards, CDTLF

This month, I had the pleasure of interviewing Pamela (Pam) Brooks-Richards, creator and CEO of Cornerstone Consulting, Int. Pam is a human performance specialist with an emphasis on conversational intelligence and a certified Dare to Lead? facilitator. She runs her own company while acting as the Senior Organizational Development Consultant for the Fulton Schools of Engineering and the W. P. Carey School of Business at Arizona State University. With nearly two decades of leadership consulting experience, a certification in Conversational Intelligence Coaching from The Creating We Institute, and a Masters of Counseling from Saint Martin’s University, Pam has skill sets to help leaders take more mindful approaches to their work, resulting in better performances and team outcomes. To learn more about Pam or to hire her for consultation, visit her?LinkedIn page?or email her directly at?[email protected].

Taylor:?What do you want our readers to know about you?

Pam:?Phew…loaded question! At this point in my career, I really want people to know that my sincere interest is in connecting with people and helping them understand themselves better in ways that lead to better performance. This is true whether it’s an executive in a corner office or a team that I am working with to help them understand their dynamics. Throughout the course of my long career with two degrees, several different positions, and 18-plus years of consulting, I still take a very individual approach to everybody that I work with because everybody is unique. I try to work with a person to find out where they are at, and where they want to go, and then learn what is stopping them from reaching that goal.?

Taylor:?What is the most important tool a leader should have in their back pocket when they are facing a difficult situation with their team?

Pam:?They need to have an understanding of themselves. It’s that increased self-awareness of where I stand with this and what am I telling myself about whatever the difficult situation is. Because if they haven’t checked in with themselves there may be transference or unmet expectations. They need to check in on what they hope is the end game. Sometimes when we get caught up in a difficult situation we go in wanting to fix or repair it, but we aren’t thinking about what the larger outcome is. I can go in and fix the situation, but the larger outcome is that I need to teach these people to fix the situation themselves.

Taylor:?That is where I think a lot of micromanagement comes in. There is this fear that it won’t get done or it won’t get done right. And we want to jump in and fix it, but the end result is that we are not teaching people to lead themselves, we are just getting it done ASAP.

Pam:?That also can set in a whole spiral of fear in the relationship. I was speaking to a leader working in retail recently and she was saying that the simplest task her employees have to do is clean the bathroom. So, she tells someone to clean the bathroom. The employee does it. Later, she checks it and says “well, you didn’t clean the bathroom. You should have done X, Y, and Z.” So, what does that person do? They cleaned the bathroom (or thought they cleaned it) and now they are being reprimanded. This leads to them feeling defensive and inferior because they didn’t meet a standard, but they didn’t know what the standard was.?

How do you change that? The employee needs the ability to ask “what does clean look like to you?” The leader can say, “well, I need you to move the garbage can, clean the counters, and scrub the toilets.” This way the employee can see what the leader was anticipating. We turn it into a learning situation instead of a defensive panic. Think about a new employee. There is that fear factor of?my boss just asked me to do something and I don’t want them to think that I don’t know how to do it. The reality is not that they don’t know how, but that they are trying to figure out how?that?person wants it done. So, the questions we need to be asking are how do we create that space to allow for that communication, and how do we follow up incrementally instead of ending up with different versions of done?

Taylor:?It’s like that old saying (and I won’t say the full thing): “assumptions make an a** out of you and me.” So, if you are willing to share, tell me about what stresses you out the most in your work. And how do you handle that?

Pam:?There are times I feel stressed because I have the expectation that I am supposed to fix something. This was especially true when I was working in leadership and workforce development. They would say, “Hey, Pam, go work your miracle.” I would go in thinking?what if I can’t repair or work through this situation??In these moments, what helps me is to get clarity around their expectations. And I just tell myself, there are things I can do to help facilitate; I know my skill sets. But when I walk into a situation, I don’t have control over the other people. So, as much as I know there are things I want to do, their behavior is unknown and is something that I cannot control.

The second area I have difficulty with in consulting is when there is an elephant in the room and I haven’t been given a clear picture. They expect me to go deal with the elephant, but I don’t know what shape it is, what color it is, and I just don’t know what is going on. I have to give myself the patience to go?you don’t have to know everything upfront. You will discover it by talking to each person. Each person is going to tell you what part of the elephant they are seeing, whether it’s the leg, the trunk, the ear, or the tail. And then I’ll get the picture.

When I go to give feedback, I know that the feedback will be taken in certain ways that will affect business outcomes. I really take that to heart, because if I give incorrect information it’s going to affect a lot of people in different ways. When I first started, I used to hem and haw on saying “here is what I suggest you do”. But one time I had a CEO say “Pam, what you are telling me is XYZ.” And I said yes. And he goes “then just tell me! Quit hinting at it and hoping that I’m going to get it.” I often feel like I don’t want to give feedback in a way that says on absolute terms, here is what you have to do. I want to do it in a way that says, “from my experience and my understanding, I can see that A will lead to B, which will lead to C if you don’t change the trajectory of where you are going.” You have to speak the truth and you have to spell it out, but you have to do it in a way that feels like there is something they can do about it.

Taylor:?What are some tips that you have given to leaders before, or that maybe you even use yourself, to help stay calm in difficult emotional situations?

Pam:?(chuckles) At my best, for me, it is to make sure that I get enough sleep leading into a big event. If I don’t get enough sleep, I know that I’m edgier than possible. When I know I need to present difficult information, I need to get into the right headspace before that happens. So, I create calm before the chaos. I always have a couple of options for how I want to do things. I also enlist some of my friends to give pre-feedback so that when I am in that state, I am calm because I have worked through some of the kinks that could sabotage me.

That’s one way to pre-prepare for calm. Calm in the heat of battle is a different story. There was a time when I witnessed this horrific accident. A motorcyclist had someone pull in front of him and he flipped over the car, hit another car, and ended up laying on the ground. It happened in my line of sight. My instant response was that I have to go and be on-site. I instantly went to all my first aid trainings, like telling people “you call an ambulance. You do this. You do that.” Then, I started talking to the gentleman, asking for his name and trying to find out what was going on. I was there until the ambulance came. And I knew, running into that situation, that was my role, and I just called on all of my training at that moment.

But then there are times when I find it difficult, like when you are in a conflict situation and the other person starts getting heated. And it creates that defensive back-and-forth. The only thing that really helped me at that moment is to take a deep breath. I think?don’t let out that first thing that comes to mind.?Don’t fight back. Different people respond differently to this. It’s the fight, flight, or freeze response, and I know that when I am backed up against the wall and someone is being defensive, I want to go to fight. I know that’s my innate response. So, I?(Pam takes a breath in)?sit on my hands, bite my tongue, count for a little bit, and then ask one question. Because if I respond, no matter what I do, it’s not going to be the right response. So calm is created by helping the other person express what is really going on and getting to the heart of what they are thinking and feeling. If I connect with them (this is my counselor training) and find out where they are at and recognize them, it will remove their defensive part.?

Taylor:?For leaders who struggle with traditional meditation, mindfulness practices, or trying to keep calm: what are suggestions you have for them about how to prepare for the chaos?

Pam:?(chuckles) They need to pick up a new hobby! Me, I had a sports background. Being a college athlete really prepared me to perform under pressure, to make mistakes, and pick myself back up and think?in five seconds another ball is going to be thrown back at me and I have to do something with it. Putting yourself through something where you have to do that really helps.?

For example, improv builds a skillset that teaches us?I have to be in the moment and I need to respond to what the person is doing. So you learn to use listening skills and adaptation skills. And it’s fun! Or you might pick up some form of dance from a physical standpoint. I even took a class on Western Swing. When you have two left feet or weren’t brought up in a dance environment, there you are. You’re vulnerable. You’re learning a skill. You’re not doing it right. And you’re getting feedback. You have to learn how to control yourself. You have to find something that gets you through that tough moment.?

But you also will get the little rewards along the way from learning those skill sets. And that ability to contain yourself carries over into other areas. It’s that ability to just be present in the moment, learning something, learning what our state is, and moving forward. We have to try it. It feels weird and awkward, but when you do it and it works, then it just clicks.

Taylor:?What’s the one piece of advice to give a leader facing a difficult situation?

Pam:?I guess the one thing to keep in mind is that you are profoundly human, and you are always going to do the best you can in any situation. And sometimes that one deep breath, that one moment of pause, is the one thing you can do instantaneously to get through to the other side. Also, find your mountaintop experience. That one place that gave you serenity and solitude and you just felt like you had that state of calm. And when you are taking your breath, you close your eyes, and you envision yourself at whatever that particular moment is. Whether you are at the beach or on the mountaintop; you have that space and you take it with you.